Study two: Semi-structured interviews

The purpose of semi-structured interviews was to gather subjective experiences on the management strategies that contributed to employee exercise participation in the corporate fitness centre. Interviewing managers provided an external perspective on participation in the centre. Managers described how they minimised constraints and encouraged motivation for employees to participate in exercise in the corporate fitness centre. Semi-structured interviews followed the document review study to triangulate findings and, through this, minimised the biases inherent with semi-structured interviews (Bryman, 2012).

Semi-structured interviews have several strengths that contribute to qualitative research outcomes. They can extract special information from interviewees, and enables researchers to “enter into the other person’s perspective” (Patton, 2002, p. 341). Semi-structured interviews provide structure and flexibility. Structure comes from being able to ask questions that target information on a particular topic (Bryman, 2012), whereas flexibility allows interviewees to digress and discuss matters important from their perspective, which can be relevant matters the researcher did not consider at the onset of the research (Brinkmann, 2013). Flexibility also enables modifying question delivery to adapt the interview direction organically and ask a combination of probing, clarification, and contrasting questions to elucidate further meaningful information (Harrell & Bradley, 2009). These strengths led to semi-structured interviews being adopted in this research.

In this research, semi-structured interviews were used to elicit the perspective of the organisation’s managers on what strategies contribute to employee exercise participation in the corporate fitness centre. The a priori selective codes from the document review study provided the investigator with structure, in the form of a set of interview questions for each interview. Flexibility enabled interviewees to deviate from these set questions, and to discuss other important matters related to management of the corporate fitness centre.

Semi-structured interviews, however, also have limitations. The flexibility is a limitation of interviews, considering that interviewees potentially digress from the research topic to unrelated subject matter (Brinkmann, 2013). The transition creates time, energy, and financial pressures to transcribe, read, and analyse the unnecessary information (Brinkmann, 2013). Trust is another limitation that can inhibit data generation. Interviewees might feel uncomfortable, especially when the interview is the first encounter between the interviewee and researcher. Interviewees could therefore be less candid with the perspectives they present in the interview (Merriam, 2009). Thus, the need to address issues of flexibility and trust to assist with optimal semi-structured interview data elicitation.

The investigator in this research employed safeguards to mitigate the weaknesses of semi-structured interviews. While the investigator allowed interviewees to digress, the investigator also carefully redirected conversations when digression entered unrelated topics. Redirecting the conversation involved acknowledging the interviewee’s perspective on the unrelated topic, and then delicately connecting the unrelated topic to the next question in the interview schedule (Brinkmann, 2013). Regarding trust, starting the interview with a neutral, easy to answer question helped gain the interviewee’s trust (Merriam, 2009). The topic enabled the interviewee to comfortably discuss their perspectives and contexts in detail to build the trust and rapport necessary to proceed with the more targeted interview questions (Brinkmann, 2013). These safeguards helped address the weaknesses of semi-structured interviews.

In summation, semi-structured interviews offer many benefits that influenced its inclusion in this research. Although semi-structured interviews have potential limitations such as flexibility and trust, the investigator incorporated strategies to safeguard against these weaknesses. Ultimately, the interviews gathered information from management’s perspective on what strategies contribute to employee exercise participation in the corporate fitness centre, thereby potentially gaining new insights on the topic.

4.2.3.1 Interview schedule.

The interview schedule provided a starting point, discussion direction, and consistency between interviews (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2015) (refer Appendix B). Five main questions comprised the schedule. While the first question was broadly focused to settle the interviewee, question two focused on the corporate fitness centre, and asked about where the corporate fitness centre fits within the organisational strategies and human resource management policies. The next question inquired about strategies to minimise the constraints to exercise participation in the corporate fitness centre, with probing questions prepared to further clarify and emphasise the importance of the topic from the manager’s perspective (Minichiello et al., 2008). In the case of this research, probing questions corresponded with the axial constraint codes to determine whether the strategies minimised the experience of constraints at either intrapersonal, interpersonal, or structural levels (Crawford et al., 1991). The next question concentrated on the strategies to enhance motivation to participate exercises in the corporate fitness centre, with probing questions prepared to further elicit whether the motivation strategies either controlled participation or facilitated autonomous behaviour. These questions corresponded with the external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, integrated regulation, and intrinsic motivation axial codes (Ryan & Deci, 2000). The final question concluded the interview, where the investigator gave the interviewee a final opportunity to discuss other thoughts (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2015) on the strategies that contribute employee exercise participation in the corporate fitness centre.

4.2.3.2 Interview sample.

The sample consisted of information rich cases, each representing key informants that held unique and specific knowledge pertaining to the research topic (Minichiello et al., 2008; Punch, 2005). The investigator identified key informants through the document review process, which identified specific employees who had particular roles associated to the corporate fitness

centre. The Facilitator invited these prospective key informants to participate in the semi- structured interviews (refer to section 4.2.3.3).

Recommended sample sizes for semi-structured interviews are ambiguous (e.g. Creswell, 2012; Minichiello et al., 2008; Patton, 2002). For example, five interviews is sufficient for case studies (Creswell, 2012), on the other hand data needs to be collected until thematic saturation is reached (Minichiello et al., 2008), and another perspective suggests the research purpose, credibility of findings, time, and the number of available key informants dictates the sample size (Patton, 2002). In this research, the sample size was restricted by the available number of key informants identified in the document review. While the investigator set the sample size at five interviews (Creswell, 2012), data collection would continue if more than five key informants were available, considering that saturation was the key sample size determinant (Minichiello et al., 2008).

4.2.3.3 Data collection.

Data collection began with creating a list of key informants to interview. The document review process revealed key informants who had unique perspectives on the corporate fitness centre, such as the manager who was involved with establishing and promoting the corporate fitness centre. The key informant list was sent to the Facilitator, who subsequently emailed them an invitation to participate in the research. The email contained an information to participants form (refer to Appendix C) and a consent form (refer to Appendix D) as per the Victoria University ethics protocol (HRE15-059).

Key informants then emailed the facilitator about their interest in participating in the research, who in turn negotiated with the manager a convenient time to conduct each interview. The Facilitator arranged for all interviews to be conducted in a quiet meeting room at the

worksite, which was free from distraction of other employees. The investigator collected signed consent forms before the interviews commenced.

Interviews were digitally recorded with each interviewee’s consent, and were transcribed verbatim. Data analysis began when the investigator finished each transcription and uploaded the data onto QSR Nvivo 11, at which time coding (refer to Analysis section 4.2.2.2) commenced. Once all the semi-structured interview analyses were completed, the investigator proceeded to the focus group study of the qualitative phase.