Procedures and Methods for Case Study A

Case study A was a multiple site study involving ten (10) schools/organisations and the goal was to investigate the extent to which SHRM was implemented. Although each site generated particular interest, the ten sites were studied jointly for comparative investigation. Thirteen (13) participants representing the WA Independent, Catholic and Department of Education and Training school sectors were involved in the study.

The selection of the Case (i.e. study sites and participants) is important if meaningful conclusions are to be drawn from the study. Veal (2005) suggests case selection for multiple cases can be purposive, typical, atypical or pragmatic. Purposive selection involves choosing from a range of organisations of similar or different sizes, in the same or different industries, with comparable or contrasting geographical locations. Typical or Atypical selections occur when the case is chosen because it is either typical or atypical of the phenomenon being studied. For instance, a study examining the secrets of success in a particular industry might select the most successful or even the least successful companies for the study. Pragmatic selection involves choosing cases for pragmatic reasons – for example, when the researcher has ready access to a company because he or she is an employee.

Initially, 16 schools from across the public and private sectors were purposively selected from a list of Western Australian schools, based on three factors. These included the ranking of the Tertiary Entrance Examination [TEE] scores (schools were selected from each performance quartile of the list), geographic location (metropolitan/regional) and the economic status of the community where the school was located. However, only one purposively selected school agreed to participate in the study. Therefore, the researcher selected typical schools, with either a human resource function or those that showed interest in the topic. This second list was drawn from schools or organisations that attended a workshop on ‘The Evolution of HR in Education’ organised by the Australian Human Resource Institute (AHRI) in July 2006. Nine (9) school organisations from this group, plus the one described above, made up the ten participating sites of Case study A.

Another question often asked about multiple case design is what number of cases is sufficient for the study? Because the goal of multiple sources of evidence is to provide rich descriptions of the phenomenon being studied, the key issue is to seek convergence in a triangulating fashion (Veal 2005). Also, because a sampling logic is not used, the “typical criteria regarding sample size … are irrelevant” (Yin 2003: 51). The 10 participating sites were deemed adequate as they covered all three school sectors, including both primary and secondary schools.

Data for Case study A was gathered using in-depth interviews. Interviews represent one of the most important sources of case study information because they cover a broad scope (Alvesson and Deetz 2000; Yin 2003). Data collection usually involves other strategies such as observing and analysing documents, however all methods are not used in equal degrees. One method usually predominates and others play a supporting role (Merriam 1998) and in this study the dominating method was interviewing.

An in-depth interview is characterised by its length, depth and structure and tends to be longer than simple questionnaire based interviews, typically taking at least half an hour and often several hours. As the name implies, the in-depth interview encourages respondents to talk, asks supplementary questions to probe responses, asks leading questions, and asks respondents to explain their answers (Yin 2003; Bunting 2005; Veal 2005). Yin (2003) explains that rather than use structured queries, the interview is a guided conversation that has a stream of fluid, rather than rigid questions, whilst pursuing a consistent line of inquiry. Interviews can be both structured/semi-

structured, thereby offering flexibility to obtain a greater breadth of data (Fontana and Frey 2000).

Most face-to-face in-depth interviews for this study lasted approximately one hour for each respondent. Each participant was invited to express their views on the implementation of strategic human resource management policies in schools. A combination of structured/semi-structured interview techniques was used to provide more flexibility. Leading questions, probing questions, follow up open-ended questions and prompts were used to clarify particular responses, although care was taken not to lead the participants in the discussions.

Despite their value, interviews have some problems, which potentially could impact negatively on the outcome. Alvesson and Deetz (2000) raise concerns that the subjective beliefs, attitudes and psychological traits of the interviewees can influence their capacity to reflect the actual reality. Similarly, there could be a negative influence resulting from the social interaction between the researcher and interviewee. These authors caution moderation is needed when evaluating the significance of interviews. The researcher considered the above interview problems and where possible, and appropriate, interviewed more than one participant per location to minimise potential negative subjective influences. Another solution was to support the interview data with documentation requested from the participants during the interview.

A verbatim transcript provides an accurate record of the in-depth interviews and helps ensure data completeness. The transcripts were used to “analyse the results of the

interviews in a more methodical and complete manner than is possible with notes” (Veal 2005: 131). Hence, tape recording (after receiving consent from the participants) was employed as the main means to record the interviews and where appropriate, supplementary notes were taken. The recorded interviews were transcribed into MS- Word documents and an electronic file made for each participant.

The next step in the procedure was data analysis. The essence of any analytic procedure is to return to the terms of reference, the conceptual framework and the research questions or hypotheses relationships of the research (Veal 2005). Analysing case study data involves examining, categorising, tabulating, and testing to address the initial propositions or questions of the study. The objective is to produce high quality analysis via a deductive process (Miles and Huberman 1984; Yin 2003; Veal 2005)

The first technique employed in analysing the data involved building a general explanation for each of the individual cases. A second technique involved using cross- case synthesis to generate data from the individual sites according to a uniform framework or into themes consistent with the conceptual framework and research questions. This is in line with the recommendations for a multi – case study (Merriam 1998; Yin 2003; Veal 2005).

Before analysis commenced, methodical procedures were carried out to classify and organise the data. This is either completed manually, or if faced with a substantial number of lengthy documents, with a computer-aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) package. A common package is the NUD.IST Vivo (NVivo) software from

Qualitative Solutions & Research Pty Ltd (QSR) (Veal 2005). In this research, the transcribed interviews were coded to the themes and sub-themes of the interview questions using NVivo; however, the data were subsequently exported from NVivo into MS-Word for further manual analysis before the findings were reported.

In-depth interviews of ten (10) case study sites formed Case study A. Interviews were held between August 2006 and February 2007 and examined how SHRM is implemented in each site. The sites comprised six (6) independent schools, three (3) Catholic schools and the Department of Education and Training, which represented public schools. The thirteen (13) participants were comprised of 2 principals, 9 HR managers / officers and 2 directors as shown in Table 3.3.

Similar to the Delphi process, the respondents were initially issued with a letter that introduced the study and explained the research process. Confirmatory telephone calls were made prior to conducting the interviews. A copy of the questionnaire is provided in Appendix 3.4. Questions 1 to 4 address Case study A, Questions 5 to10 address Case study B, whereas Questions 11 to 15 relate to the participants’ demographics and are common to both case studies.