Respondents to the Interview Survey and Sam pling Issue

Similar to the questionnaire survey, the respondents w ere selected and arranged from the volunteering M ultim edia Super C orridor status companies, as show n in Table 5.4.2.I. This research involved non­ probability sam pling an d the techniques used w ere convenience sam pling and snow balling (see earlier discussion of these techniques in Section 5.4.1.1). There w ere 79 initial respondents for the in-depth sem i-structured interview. H ow ever, tape num ber 53 w as voided due to poor recording quality. Thus, in this case, only 78 interview s w ere transcribed for further analysis. In som e com panies, several interview s w ere conducted. For instance, in one firm, the researcher had 10 interview sessions w ith know ledge w orkers from various backgrounds. It took the researcher three days to com plete all interview sessions w ith this firm.

Originally, the M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies w ere classified into 18 sectors (see for exam ple A ppendix F). H ow ever, u p o n

discussion w ith the supervisory panel, it w as decided to create a unique classification scheme. This is to avoid red u n d an t discussion on com panies w ho are involved in alm ost identical activities, such as softw are developm ent for business application and softw are developm ent for engineering application. In fact, several respondents also described the red u n d an t activities practised by some of the M ultim edia Super C orridor status companies. For instance, the Inform ation Technology M anager (respondent num ber 2) of a big com pany m entioned that:

"They get the Multimedia Super Corridor but don't really work much within the scope...[of]...Multimedia Super Corridor. They have other businesses as w ell.. ."(Page 4, line 3-5)

In a sim ilar case, resp o n d en t num ber 8, the Director of a company, m entioned that:

"...they are still companies who are not genuine, they go for applying just for the name's sake, without the backing part, you know, the product...[different products]" (Page 1, line 27-32).

Therefore, in general there are four types of M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies involved in the current study. These classifications are Type A: Businesses involving software developm ent, internet-based business an d content developm ent (this is m ostly relating to the creation of new program m es, services an d products for business application, engineering application an d e-business); Type B: Businesses involving data or su p p o rt centres or heavy users (this is m ainly for supporting and providing established com panies w ith a m eans to save their custom ers' data, em ployees, ven d o rs etc.); Type C: Businesses involving production- house or postp ro d u ctio n w ork and anim ation (this is very m uch related to the production of television program m es, w hich requires the use of high technology equipm ent); Type D: Businesses involving consultancy, education and training (this is very m uch related to com panies supporting research and design activities, and these com panies are usually higher learning institutions such as the University of M ultim edia M alaysia and U niversity P utra Malaysia).

These classifications w ere then show n to several earlier participants, w ho w ere asked to com m ent on w hether they m ade sense. Based on the overall feedback received, these classifications w ere accepted. H ow ever, the focus of this study is know ledge w orkers w ithin the M ultim edia Super C orridor status com panies, irrespective of the type and size of com pany they are w orking in. As long as a com pany had already been aw arded M ultim edia Super C orridor status, it w as eligible to participate in the current research. The details of the respondents w ho participated in the sem i-structured interview s are show n below:

Table 5.4.2.1

N um ber of Interviews and Knowledge W orkers Interviewed in the M ultim edia Super Corridor Status's Companies_________________________________________ Types of MULTIMEDI A SUPER CORRIDOR Status Companies N um ber of interviews People interviewed

Col: A 3 1 Technical Director

1 HR Manager

1 Finance and HR Manager Co2: A 2 1 Business Development Manager

1 Software Engineer

Co3: A 10 3 Top Management

1 HR Manager

2 IT Managers (i.e. software and portal development) 1 Business Strategy Manager

2 Software Engineers 1 Computer Programmer

Co4: A -

Co5: A 2 1 HR Manager

1 Computer Programmer

Co6: A 2 2 Software engineers

Co7: A 1 1 HR Manager

Co8: A -

Co9: A 5 1 Top Management

1 HR Manager

1 Business Development Manager 1 Chief Technology Officer 1 System Engineer

ColO: A 1 1 Software Engineer

C o ll: A -

Col 2: A 2 1 HR Manager

1 System Analyst

Col 3: A 5 2 Top Management

1 Project Manager 2 Computer Programmer

Col 4: A 2 1 Business Development Manager 1 Executive Secretary

Col5: A 3 1 Top Management

1 Admin, and Account Manager 1 Software Engineer

Col 6: A 3 1 Business Development Manager 2 Officers

1 HR Manager

1 Information Technology Manager

Col8: A -

Col9: A -

Co20: A 3 1 Director

1 HR Manager 1 Senior Engineer

Co21: A 2 1 Top Manager

1 HR Manager

Co22: A 1 Business Development Manager

Co23: A 4 1 General Manager

1 HR Manager

1 Business Development Manager 1 Computer Engineer

Co24: A 5 1 Vice President

1 Assistant HR Manager

1 Information Technology Manager 1 Business Consultant

1 System Analyst

Co25: A -

Co26: A -

Co27: B -

Co28: B 1 Executive Secretary

Co29: C 1 Business Development Manager

Co30: C 1 HR Manager

Co31: C 2 Business Development Manager

IT Officer

Co32: C -

Co33: C 1 Human Resource Manager

Co34: C 1 Officer

Co35: C -

Co36: C 3 1 Top Management

1 Business Manager 1 Officer

Co37: D 3 1 Knowledge Management Manager

1 Business Development Manager 1 Software Engineer

Co38: D 1 Training Officer

Co39: D 2 1 HR Manager

1 IT Administration Executive

Co40: D 4 1 Top Management

1 HR Manager 2 Officers Total = 40

(30 involved)

79

5A.2.2 D esign of the Interview Guide

According to G orden (1975: p. 75), the interview guide plays tw o im portant roles. Firstly, it is a rem inder of the research topics th at the researcher needs to cover d u rin g the interview sessions. Secondly, it is a m eans of keeping track of the inform ation gathered du rin g the interview session, and acts like "an inventory of w h at has been covered and w h at has not". In the current research, the researcher used the interview guide as a checklist to cover all m atters in ten d ed for the research questions. Findings obtained

from the survey questionnaire were used w hen generating the interview guides, in addition to the w ork done by H unter et al. (2002) as well as Suk Chai (2000) (see A ppendix B, The Interview Guide).

W hen designing the interview guide, the researcher follow ed the four elem ents suggested by Flick (2002: pp. 75-77) as follows. The first element, i.e. non-directional, m eans that the session begins w ith unstructured questions, follow ed by m ore structured questions tow ards the end of the interview session (M erton and Kendall, 1946, cited in Flick, 2002: p. 75). Thus, there is an oppo rtu n ity to use the interview guide flexibly. Furtherm ore, at this stage, Roger (1944) em phasised that "the interviewer should restrain him self or herself as far as possible from m aking early evaluations" (cited in Flick, 2002: p. 75). For example, Section 1 of the current research interview guide (see A ppendix B) provides a list of u nstru ctu red questions regarding personal and com pany backgrounds. The researcher also started by offering assurances as to the confidentiality of the inform ation p rovided to her.

The second elem ent is specificity - the session starts to focus on the specific questions th at are in ten d ed by the researcher, as prepared in the interview guide. Using separate m aterial for recalling the previous experiences of the participants provides m ore significant feedback on m atters related to the current research. Looking at the second section of the interview guide, the researcher provided the participants w ith definitions of the terms "know ledge w orkers", "know ledge m anagem ent" and "chief know ledge officer". The p u rp o se of this w as to lead the participants tow ards m ore specific questions, i.e. know ledge w orkers' perceptions of the im portance and im plem entation of know ledge m anagem ent and hum an resource m anagem ent issues.

The third elem ent is range, which aims at protecting the earlier feedback a n d /o r responses given by the participants. In this view, the participants are allow ed to raise new topics a n d /o r issues. In other w ords, the researcher is flexible w ith regard to the questions asked in the interview. In some cases, the researcher did not follow the interview guide exactly, although she m ade sure th at all im portant questions w ere asked. For instance, if the researcher interview ed the h u m an resource m anager, the focus w as very m uch on hum an resource m anagem ent issues and know ledge w orkers. This also applied w hen the researcher interview ed top m anagem ent respondents, w here the questions w ere focused m ore on the overall views, and especially on the role of the governm ent developm ent agency and general com pany policy m atters. W hile doing this, the researcher w ould encourage the interview ees to bring into the discussion any particular m atters th at the researcher had not been aw are of. For example, the issue of know ledge w orkers norm ally being head-hunted was raised in this way.

The fourth elem ent is depth and personal context, w hich should allow for m axim um self-revelation an d m ore complex em otional responses. In relation to the interview guide in the current research, the questions provided alw ays encouraged fu rth er probing and prom pting. It sometimes took the researcher three hours to finish an interview session. In this case, probes and p ro m p ts w ere used d u rin g the interview sessions, especially w hen asking the resp o n d en ts open-ended questions. W ith regard to this, the interview guide serves as a counter check of the w hole body of inform ation, and ensures the clarity and accountability of the earlier questionnaire survey findings.