Sampling process in Australian state agencies

Change agents from the pilot study were invited to participate by email in order to build a snowball. However, the first emails sent out could not reach the intended recipients and bounced back undelivered. It emerged that all three targeted change agents had resigned from their jobs and people contacted in those organisations were not willing to disclose their forwarding addresses. This required significant reflection on the process of obtaining participants. On reflection, a private mobile number of one of the change agents who had left his job was found. As Figure 7 shows, he (CA1) was the first change agent who participated in an interview. CA1 was willing to seek out the contact details of another change agent who terminated his position after participating in the pilot study. However, it turned out to be difficult to find the locality of that change agent. Based on this, CA1 recommended another change agent who did not respond to the e-mails. An effect of this was that the snowball base needed to be built up on distinct organisational levels from scratch again.

One of the acquaintances (A1) named two change agents within MMV and VLA settings. A1 permitted his name to be used to attract recommended change agents via invitation e-mail. As Figure 7 illustrates, both invited change agents, CA2 and CA3, participated in interviews. While CA2 could not name any participants, CA3 suggested another change agent (CA4) who agreed to be interviewed. CA4 recommended CA5 for an interview. CA5 had worked on a joint project with different change agents from

Legal Aid in NSW. Based on this, he named CA6 with extensive technological project experiences within Legal Aid settings in NSW, who participated in the study. After reaching the sampling quota within Legal Aid settings, other change agents were not able to nominate any further participants, so I went to Europe to conduct interviews with German change agents.

At the end of the research process in Germany, the first Australian participant identified the targeted change agent (CA9) from the pilot study who agreed to be interviewed when I came back. Upon returning from Germany, I was able to develop constructive relationships with CA3 and CA9 who enlisted more participants for this study. CA3 recommended CA7 who agreed to be interviewed. After the interview, CA7 could not locate any experienced change agent within technological projects in SRO. Because of this, CA7 suggested a change agent within a non-targeted state agency who was in the same building as SRO, and had extensive ICT project experiences. The interviewed change agent (CA8) confirmed the already identified patterns. At the same time, CA9 recommended CA10. As the interview data with CA10 within SRO settings had a repetitive nature, there was no benefit derived from conducting further interviews.

Figure 7 displays an overview of the described snowball sampling process above.

Figure 7: Snowball sampling in Australian state agencies

CA1 CA9 CA10

A1 CA3 CA4 CA5 CA6

CA2

CA7 CA8

The detailed information about actor (A1) and change agents (CA1-CA10) as depicted in Figure 7 is described in Table 4. Three informants (I1-I3) revealed the contact details of potential participants who did not participate in this study. The snowball started to roll as actor (A1) recommended two participants. Some participants supported the sampling process by suggesting other change agents. However, some change agents did not participate. To sum up, 16 potential participants were invited. Of the 16 potential participants, ten change agents participated, three change agents declined to participate, two potential participants did not respond to invitations and one change agent responded after the sampling quota with the particular state agency was achieved. All ten change agents who participated were men. Of the ten participants, seven were internal and three were external change agents. Seven change agents required face-to-face interviews while three preferred to speak on the phone. The data collection with change agents in state agencies in Australia took about 9 months.

Table 4: Sampling process in Australian state agencies

Individuals in sampling process

Behaviour Behaviour led to recruitment of

I1 Passive/ suggested NP4 No/ NP4 declined invitation

F I2 Passive/ suggested NP5 No/ NP5 did not

respond

M I3 Passive/ suggested NP6 No/ NP6 declined

invitation

M A1 Active/ referred to CA2

and CA3

Yes M

CA1 Active/ referred to CA9, NP1 and NP2

Yes M Phone

CA2 Passive/ no recommendation

No M Phone

CA3 Active/ referred to CA4, CA7 and NP3

Table 4: (continued). Sampling process in Australian state agencies

Individuals in sampling process

Behaviour Behaviour led to recruitment of

CA9 Active/ referred to CA10 NP3 Passive/ replied after the

sample quote within

Table 4 discloses that the presence or absence of a recommender name in an invitation had an impact on the potential participants’ behaviour. Those who reflected through their behaviour that they supported the study were classified as active. The active role was reflected in greeting potential participants through the invitation e-mail or asking change agents if they were interested to participate. This attached importance to the study. Active behaviour in most cases reciprocated participation. In contrast, change agents declined invitations or did not reply if they noticed the absence of a recommender name. So, in the sampling process within Australian state agencies, I became aware of the process of relationship building that would be required for seeking out other change agents within banks in Australia.