Study Research Design

This dissertation aims to enhance the limited knowledge on FWPs in small firms. The following research questions were identified in the previous chapter:

1. How do small IT firms compare regarding the flexible workplace practices available and used by employees?

2. How do the behaviours of employees and rules established by management regarding the time and place of work compare among small IT firms?

3. How do the past employment experiences of small IT firm owners affect their firms’ offering and facilitation of flexible workplace practices?

4. How do employees experience flexible workplace practices in small IT firms? The firm’s family-ownership status will be taken into account in such comparisons; whether this is the source of variation across firms or reasons why family-owned firms differ will be examined. As mentioned earlier, these analyses use the Canadian data set of the WANE project. HR Tech, an IT placement agency, was omitted from these analyses; respondents, except the owner, were contractors who worked solely at the company they were placed at and their experiences of FWPs varied accordingly. This omission leaves 17 cases, 103 web-surveys, and 136 interview transcripts to analyze. Seventeen cases falls in the middle range for comparative case studies (Ragin, 2000). Notably, the percentages of the availability and use of FWPs by respondents do not change.

This dissertation employs a multiple case study approach. This approach was mentioned earlier in this chapter because it was also used by the larger WANE project. The multiple data sources and perspectives of this project provide in-depth contextual information and enable firms, or cases, to be studied holistically (Marshall, 1999). This approach presents complexities and contradictions that are difficult to summarize neatly but are reflective of real life and possibly the nature of FWPs in different firms

Marshall, 1999). Analyzing multiple cases together furthers these complexities (Marshall, 1999). Marshall (1999: 387) advises that a multiple case analysis must be “interpretive,” whereby theoretical and contextual considerations inform the reasoning.

Each research question involves a cross-case comparison. But, before these analyses can be performed, a comprehensive understanding of each small firm and its FWPs is necessary. For this first phase, NVivo software was used to help organize the key themes of cases by coding the interview transcripts, observational notes, and case study reports. These codes were used whether respondents were referring to themselves or someone else in the firm. Predetermined codes from the literature included HR policies and related practices (flexible workplace practices available and used, maternity and parental leaves and related issues), reciprocity (condition attached to FWPs that requires employees to work long hours in exchange for using FWPs), firm support (whether supervisors and/or colleagues support FWPs or are sympathetic to work-life challenges), firm barriers (expected and actual hours of work, negative career consequences if use FWPs), and the life course of individuals (employment and family transitions) (see e.g., Atkinson & Hall, 2009; Hochschild, 1997; Lewis & Smithson, 2009; Peper et al., 2009). Emergent themes from reading and re-reading these qualitative data were also coded; when these themes arose, previously coded data were re-coded in order to ensure consistency and reliability of the measurements. These emergent codes include other forms of reciprocity (employees use FWPs in exchange for (i) giving back time missed from work and/or (ii) completing their work tasks), management philosophy pertaining to work-life integration practices, and disappointment with confusion over FWPs or other HR benefits.

After the interviews, observational notes, and case study reports for each case were coded, a firm profile was written to develop a picture of a firm’s FWPs and the life course transitions of its members. Data from the web-surveys regarding FWPs were added to these firm profiles. These contextual documents facilitated the comparison of multiple cases for the second phase of these analyses.

The FWPs that were available and used at each firm are analyzed and compared in Chapter 4. The web-survey and interview data included in the firm profiles are used to compare firms regarding the FWPs available and utilized and the accompanying

workplace cultures. The relevant themes from the interview data include HR policies and practices, reciprocity, and firm support and barriers. A typology is established from the data which helps organize the content of each classification in order to understand complex inter-relations in the data (Lofland & Lofland, 1995). Cases placed within each type are not required to have parallel matches on every dimension but should reflect the dimensions that are particular to one classification over others (Lofland & Lofland, 1995). Contrasting firms by type avoids assuming all organizations are either unique or the same, which are two trends in contemporary research on the sociology of

organizations that some scholars consider limiting because neither approach helps

develop theoretical explanations for variations among organizations (see Kalleberg et al., 1996; King et al., 2009). The simple typology that emerged from the data is used in Chapter 4 in relation to the characteristics of firms, owners, and employees in order to clarify the similarities and differences between firm types and give some indication of the influence of structured social relations.

The typology developed in Chapter 4 is used and referred to in subsequent chapters to further understand differences and similarities between cases; other

theoretical based comparisons are made in these chapters. Chapter 5 examines potential sources of firm variation in relation to FWPs. It focuses on the life course theme of the qualitative data that was described in the firm profiles. The coded text was re-read in order to draw out an employment pathway for each firm owner on a piece of paper. This pathway was marked with an owner’s educational training and subsequent employment and educational transitions with corresponding dates. Family transitions and events were marked below this pathway according to the corresponding timeframe. These maps were helpful in comparing the life course patterns of owners in relation to whether their firm was flexible (results from previous analysis). Passages in the interview transcripts relating to the owners’ experiences of employment and family transitions were

subsequently compared. The relationships among family members in family-owned firms were also examined.

Chapter 6 examines the experiences of employees in these different firms. The firm profiles are used in this analysis; relevant themes from the interview data include HR policies and practices, reciprocity, firm barriers (time-related), and firm support (relations with others).

These analyses involve deduction to the extent that the research questions, themes, and propositions are derived from this dissertation’s conceptual framework and the literature. But, the inferences and arguments are based on the patterns that emerge from the data. This co-existence of induction and deduction is consistent with Marshall’s (1999) case study approach.