Semi-structured Interviews

According to Kvale and Brinkmann (2009, p. 3):

“An interview is a conversation that has a structure and purpose. It goes beyond the spontaneous exchange of views as in everyday conversation, and becomes a careful questioning and listening approach with the purpose of obtaining thoroughly tested knowledge.”

The research interview is considered a flexible method for gaining a rich amount of information. As this research aim is both exploratory and explanatory, the interview method is superior to the questionnaire method in terms of flexibility for achieving the levels and depth of data required. The nature of exploratory research is to discover

research is to probe such findings to ascertain if they are relevant to the data that might be used to address the research question. The questionnaire method does not have this flexibility. This is consistent with Mulligan and Gordon (2002, p. 34) who argue that “[t]he open‐ended nature of the research question and the lack of prior research dictated an interview rather than questionnaire format”. Although the interview method appears to be expensive and time consuming in implementation, with regard to the research aim it is worth adopting because of its ability to be modified in order to provide the richness of data relevant to the issues of the study. Additionally, the volume of textual data, its quality/details is in keeping with the desire to build theory and to generate knowledge based on the interpretivist standpoint.

A focus group was also considered as a method suitable for collecting data in this research, as this study seeks to explore and explain PRM practices from the perspective of RBIs. Although Kvale et al. (2009) suggest that the focus group is appropriate to the study type of new frontier exploration, this method is unable to be used in a practical way in this study due to the limitations in the ability to arrange meetings with the RBIs. This is for two main reasons: the geographical spread of the business locations and their time availability. The geographical locations of RBIs in this study are spread throughout southern Thailand, as shown in Figure 3.3. The distance from the northernmost and southernmost locations is approximately 450 kilometres. Moreover, the time availability of businesses is short window slots, resulting from the nature of their daily business trading. Their free time is unable to be determined long in advance because their trading intensity is highly dependent on the weather. Therefore, an individual interview is the favoured choice for this research.

An interview method was judged to be the main and most suitable data collection method in this research. However, there are three main types of interview method to be selected from, ranging from structured, semi-structured and unstructured interviews. According to Kvale and Brinkmann (2009, p. 130), “the semi-structured type of interview …, the guide will include an outline of topics to be covered, with suggested questions.” Furthermore, “the interviewee has a great deal of leeway in how to reply” (Bryman and Bell, 2011, p. 467). The semi-structured interview method is appropriate for this research because the research aims require rich amounts and levels of data as indicated. The structured interview requires a standard list of questions, which are pre-identified (Easterby-Smith, Jackson and Thorpe, 2012). Therefore, it is considered to be inconsistent with the aims of research to explore the issue which is still unclear. In contrast, the unstructured interview method is considered too broad as it does not require pre-identified interview questions, only the identification of particular issue(s) of

interest (Easterby-Smith, Jackson and Thorpe, 2012) and its conduction would appear to be difficult for the researcher as a novice interviewer. Therefore, the semi-structured interview was the method selected for its flexibility and prompt functions, which allow the researcher to collect the required data.

A face-to-face interview method was chosen, rather than conducting the interviews using technology. This is mainly because a face-to-face interview allows an interviewer to communicate via not only verbal but nonverbal language as well (Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009). Although a telephone interview has the advantage of collecting data from a distant location (Elmholdt, 2006 cited in Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009), this method limits communication to just the voice. Moreover, although virtual communication such as Skype is able to provide more nonverbal communication, it requires skills in using the program (Elmholdt, 2006 cited in Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009) and good internet infrastructure, which is unsuitable for this research as it was conducted in rural areas in a developing country.

This research used the semi-structured interview method as the main data collection tool. “In both cases, the interview process is flexible. Also, the emphasis must be on how the interviewee frames and understands issues and events – that is, what the interviewee views as important in explaining and understanding events, patterns, and forms of behaviour” (Bryman and Bell, 2011). There are four major stages of an interview as a qualitative data collection instrument: the building of the research question; the formation of the interview outline; recruiting research participants, and; conducting the interview (King, 2004a). The details of interview design and conduction follow below. For the details of the research question, see Section 3.2 and for participant recruitment, refers to in Section 3.5.

3.6.1.1 Design of Research Interviews

To conduct semi-structured interviews, the interview questions were constructed taking into consideration the following aspects: NR price risk, commodity PRM strategies, decisions in risk taking, commodity market channels and price risk environments. These issues were generated from the literature review (see Figure 2.1). The interview guide is the main tool used in the primary research, and full details are provided in Appendix E. Table 3.4 illustrates the main purposes of the interview questions contained in the interview guide, and the link to the sub-research questions presented earlier in this chapter.

Table 3.4: Interview question mapping Interview Question (IQ) Number Explanation Research Question (RQ) to answer IQ.1 To explore rubber intermediary business’s _{characteristics and their function in NR supply}

chains

RQ.1

IQ.2

To explore how much of the current price volatility of natural rubber products is based on RBIs’ perspectives and how this has changed from previous periods

RQ.2

IQ.10, IQ.11 To investigate the price transmission amongst _{different markets and products based on RBIs’} perspective

RQ.2

IQ.8 To explore factors which influence natural rubber prices based on RBIs’ perspectives

RQ.2

IQ.9 To explore the degree to which NR market _{stakeholders influence natural rubber prices} based on RBIs’ perspectives

RQ.2

IQ.3, IQ.7 To investigate the implications of natural _{rubber price risks on rubber intermediaries’} business

RQ.2

IQ.4, IQ.5 To investigate the PRM strategies that rubber business intermediaries have employed

RQ.3,4

IQ.6, IQ.13 To investigate how RBIs make their decision to _{take price risks (buying, selling, stocking,} hedging and pricing) in practice

RQ.3,4

IQ.1, IQ.12.2 To investigate how market channels are

selected by RBIs in practice RQ.3,4 IQ.12.1,

IQ.12.2, IQ.12.3, IQ.12.4,

IQ.12.5, IQ.12.6

To explore PRM instruments, market channels, price information sources, pricing methods and price forecasting methods which RBIs use in practice

RQ.5

IQ.12.7, IQ.12.8 To explore how futures markets and ICTs are used by RBIs in practice

RQ.5

IQ.14 To explore what additional support RBIs _{require in order to enhance their practices in} PRM

RQ.3,4,5

IQ.15 To explore what additional information rubber business intermediaries wish to give

3.6.1.2 Semi-structured Interview Implementation

There were two stages in the conducting of interviews in this research. Firstly, the pilot interview was used with one RBI to test and revise the interview guide. Then, the interviews were conducted with all research participants.

The pilot interview was conducted with one RBI before conducting the interviews with all of the 24 identified participants. In this research, carrying out the pilot interview was beneficial for the following reasons:

 The prepared interview question outlines were tested on a research participant in the real context and, as a consequence, it allowed for the improvement of the research tool both in terms of making meanings and questions clearer and ensuring better time management in the interview.  The researcher had a chance to practice the skills of interviewing in terms of

asking questions effectively, asking follow-up questions and ensuring effective time management.

 It was an opportunity to gain more candidate research participants as this research employs the snowball sampling technique.

 The voice recording equipment was tested in a similar context to the real interview to test its performance and its impact on the research participant, as well as ensuring the researcher’s familiarity in using the voice recording equipment (King and Horrocks, 2010).

The semi-structured interviews were mostly conducted at the working place of the RBIs; otherwise, they were conducted at a conveniently located coffee shop the research participant suggested. The time of the interviews varied subject to the interviewees’ availability; interview times ranged from 40 minutes to two hours and 50 minutes (see full details of interview duration in Appendix F). The average time was one and a half hours. As a result, the total time of 24 interviews was approximately 36 hours.

 Audio Recordings of the Interviews

Voice recording is commonly used in qualitative interviews (King and Horrocks, 2010). In doing so, it allows the researcher to pay attention to any issues that arise during interviews, as well as the interaction between the interviewer and interviewee, since they are able to revisit details of the interview via their audio recording (Kvale and Flick, 2007). Moreover, using audio recordings allows quotes to be directly derived from the

captured (Bryman and Bell, 2011). In order to gain more complete information when conducting the interview, the researcher used a voice recorder to record the conversation during the interview. In order to avoid any interruptions of the interview that might arise from using the equipment, the participant’s permission was obtained and the interviewer explained the confidentiality of data, as outlined in the consent form. Every research participant allowed the use of the equipment in line with the ethical standard of the University.