The interviews

As interviews were at the heart of the data collection process for this thesis, this

section describes planning the interview appointments, completion of the consent

forms, the recording technology involved, refining and adapting the interviewing

process and the technical challenges encountered. Interviews occurred between May

and December 2008, but were concentrated between July and August. Efforts to

arrange interviews over a more concentrated few weeks available to me in June/July

did not suit many of the participants. Potential participants had been emailed a detailed

Information Sheet and a Consent Form providing information regarding the purpose of

the study and myself as the researcher, then sought their consent to both the interview

itself and the recording of it. Those willing to become involved were requested to sign,

scan and return the forms by email or post, signifying their consent for the interview.

agreed to by email. I then phoned at the agreed time. On a few occasions,

appointments for interviews were made, subject to receiving the participants’ written consent prior to the interview.

I undertook four face-to-face and 12 phone interviews, each lasting approximately 60

minutes. I used two recording devices at each interview. For the phone interviews, I

resorted to putting the receiver on ‘speaker phone’ near the recorders. In spite of my best efforts, recording imperfections occurred which made some transcriptions more

difficult. The phone receiver was also held as closely as possible to the recording

devices which meant I had to listen very carefully from a distance then physically lean

forward to ask any questions or clarify issues. This resulted in gaps in the interviews

which were reduced only if I could anticipate a pause. This physical requirement to get

closer to the phone to speak resulted in fewer interruptions or questions from me.

Phone reception was mainly good, but background interruptions, noise or the

participant turning away from their phones, reduced the quality of the sound, straining

my listening skills at times. Also, the lack of body language to reinforce the content

meant I placed a high reliance on the tone and vocal nuances to guide me on the

emotions of the participants.

Whether undertaking face-to-face or phone interviews, each interview followed a

similar format. At the outset of each interview, I introduced myself, checked the time

was appropriate for the participant and thanked them for signing and returning the

Consent Form. I provided a brief overview of the time it would take, the topics to be

covered, their rights during and after the interview to ensure each person was fully

Rapport needed to be quickly established with the interviewee while outlining the

interview procedure and was mainly achieved by mirroring the participant’s

communication style. For example, some participants were very direct and succinct in

their responses, while others were more discursive. Mirroring the participant’s

communication style is a recognised technique used to help establish rapport. During

the interviews I aimed to achieve a balance at building rapport and focusing on the

interview topics. Where the participants were concise and succinct in their responses, I

checked that they had covered the topic map but did not draw them out beyond this as

their time was valuable to them. Because their answers were highly focused they

provided valuable information, particularly in relation to other businesses.

A range of challenges were raised by the interviews. First, I had to ensure that the

interviews covered the critical topics on the topic map without constraining either the

participants or the exploration of new issues. The phone interviews required

heightened attentive and evaluative listening to enable me to respond to what was said,

while also identifying which topics had not been covered. Therefore, during the phone

interviews, I utilised my detailed topic lists to ‘map’ the topic coverage, so could identify topic gaps still to be explored. Had I not been able to quickly identify

information gaps, the resulting data may have been more scattered, fragmented and in

thinner ‘layers’ less able to reveal the distinctive patterns of capital deployment which later emerged. Although I could not ensure that every participant covered all the

topics, my attentive listening appeared to encourage the participants to share their

perceptions of their experiences.

The recorded interviews were professionally transcribed, including identifying

relevant information in the same interview, sometimes by details from other

interviews, but very occasionally the data had to be ignored for its lack of clarity.

This section has provided an insight into the interviewing logistics involved in this

study, particularly the phone interviewing technicalities and the interview

transcriptions. In hindsight, interviewing participants at different stages of their LTBV

process provided valuable detail regarding their challenges at the implementation

stage, in addition to challenges at the later stages.