Qualitative Research Methods - Dissertation Example

?Methodology: Research approach: The current study aims at conducting a thorough review of bankers’ actual awareness regarding business and operational modes of social enterprises, their attitudes towards social enterprises’ business modes and social enterprises’ ability to attract funds from traditional lenders like banks in the context of social enterprises operating in London. Given the aims and objectives of the present study, it has become clear that this study deals with qualitative variables like awareness of bankers in extending loans to social enterprises, bankers’ attitude toward social enterprises, and social enterprises ability or willingness to attract funds from bankers. This research is mainly descriptive and exploratory in nature. Research approach can be qualitative or quantities or mixed. Since, the present study deals with qualitative variables and it is of exploratory and descriptive nature, employing a qualitative research approach will be the most appropriate one. Quantifying awareness or attitudes of bankers or ability to wiliness of social enterprises is not quite possible. It would be more suitable to gather some qualitative and subjective ideas regarding these variables. (Kotler, 1972) In a qualitative study data is generated on the basis of the participants’ opinion regarding a particular topic. A research of qualitative nature is helpful for examining any case thoroughly. As highlighted by Creswell (2001), a qualitative study generally shows a tendency of gathering data in natural settings. In a qualitative research, collected data usually takes into account the beliefs and point of views of the researchers and the sample participants who are being scrutinized, through the utilization of different types of research instruments. Research tools that are employed to assemble the data are personal observations, focus groups study, case studies and interviews (Creswell, 1994). Research Instrument For conducting a qualitative study, the technique of surveying seems to be the most appropriate one. Researchers employ surveys to obtain specific knowledge about certain individual’s awareness, beliefs, perspectives, preferences and the level of satisfaction regarding some specific aspects. For the purpose of present study primary survey seems to be the most appropriate one where a sample of bankers and managers of social enterprises has been chosen and asked a range of questions through the process of interviews. (Kotler, 1972) Interview is regarded as an extremely valuable and influential tool for carrying out researches, mainly qualitative studies. At the time of conducting any research, a bunch of selected individuals are interviewed for examining what an individual in reality think concerning a specific matter. Interviews facilitate researchers in accessing the standpoint of those individuals who are being confronted with a bunch of questions related to the topic of a research. By means of interviews it becomes feasible to discover some vital things pertinent to a research topic that can not be achieved or observed otherwise. Interviews also assist in revealing the meanings of some specific things associated with the behaviour pattern of individuals, their feelings, habits etc. (Burns and.Bush, 1995). Additionally, the technique of interviewing also represents a tool of collecting data systematically through asking various types of questions, listening to those questions attentively and recording or noting the responses to those questions precisely. By means of the technique of interviews, a researcher obtains an access of an extensive range of knowledge, various sorts of circumstances and a variety of experiences that could not be attained otherwise. While conducting interviews, researchers may face a huge probability that a candidate would explain some confidential or susceptible behaviour, pertinent to the interview’s topic, which happened in past or in some places that are unreachable for the researchers. Interviews are capable of providing definite information relating to the meanings or definitions that are given to various occasions or behaviour. (Burns and.Bush, 1995; Kotler, 1972) Interviews can take a number of forms. On the basis of requirement a particular or some combination of more than one forms are employed. Three main types of interviews are as follows: Structured interviews: In this case, the questionnaire includes closed-end questions that can be associated with fixed response. In this mode, same questions are asked to every respondent providing the option of choosing responses from same alternatives. Semi-structured interviews: In this case, open-ended questions are administered to every respondent. Unstructured interviews: In this process, questions are asked in a casual conversational mode where questions are not built in advance. (Arksey & Knight, 1999) Since the present study is descriptive as well as exploratory in nature, a combination of structured and semi-structured interview forms has been employed. It implies that while some questions will close-ended giving some alternative answers to choose from, some other questions will be open-ended. The data attained through this sort of interviewing technique is very wide-ranging. (Fowler and Floyd , 2002; Silverman, 2004) Interviews can be carried out through telephones, or by emails or face-to face. All these three types of interviewing process have their own benefits and difficulties. For instance, in the event of a face to face interview sharing of comprehensive knowledge becomes possible. It also assists in building greater picture concerning the chosen subject and analysing the outcomes or responses in more detailed manner. However, it has definite difficulties, such as it requires sufficient time and frequently interviewers confront difficulties in arranging the schedules of interview with every interviewee. This interview technique also possesses complexity at the time of making comparison and analysing collected information. One of the prime disadvantages of this technique is setting appointments with interviewees. There exists one method that can resolve this issue and can enhance the rate of response in the data collection process. This procedure is email interview (Fowler and Floyd, 2002). This interviewing technique has immense benefits. The technique of email interviews offers the researchers with handy data and consequently researchers can save adequate time from data transcription. This method is cheap and easy-to-handle for the participants as well. The data collected through this process are not worse in comparison to those achieved from face-to-face interview. Rather, the responses attained from email interviews are found to be more straight-forward. This makes the data transcription process easier. Another prime benefit of email interviews is that the interviewees can remain unidentified and can talk more liberally without having any sort of restriction. However, through email interviews no facial vocabulary of the participants can be observed by the interviewers. However, for the present research there is no such big need of evaluating body-language of respondents (Fowler and Floyd , 2002) Interviews through telephone appear to be another effective way of gathering appropriate data. If the interviewees are busy professionals, interviews over telephone can be carried out. This technique is also suitable when it is necessary to have straight forward responses, particularly in case of structured interviews. It is are found to be more competent than face-to-face interviews on account of being cost-saving and time-saving. However, there are some problems with this technique. First of all, in this case, interviewees are unlikely to give lengthy interviews. For this technique, the questions have to be fixed response nature. This technique is also more costly than interview via e-mails and offers similar response rates as can be attained through other sorts of interviews. (Fowler and Floyd , 2002) For the purpose of the present study, interviews have been conducted through emails and telephones for a few reasons. First of all, these two techniques are more cost-saving than face-to-face interviews. Second, the interviewees are high-profile bankers or managers of social enterprises who are usually very busy and find it difficulty to provide enough time for face-to-face interviews. Third, these techniques are also time-saving. All of the interviewees have first been approached for telephonic interviews. Only a few of them agreed to do so. For the remaining participants, email interviews have been conducted. In order to conduct interviews, it is necessary to develop a questionnaire having a set of open-ended and close ended questions relating to the research theme. Participants are required to fill up questionnaire. On account of its flexibility, it is regarded as the most useful tool for collecting primary data. Researchers require to format and test the questions before administering it. The sequence of questions, their wording and their overall format significantly influence the responses of the participants. In case of close –end questions, the respondents are required to choose one answers form the given alternatives, whereas in case of open-end questions, the respondents can give their answers in their own words. In the questionnaire of this study majority of questions will be close-end where as a few will be open-end. (Kotler, 1972) Sample Selection For conducting a qualitative study, it is first necessary to select a sample of individuals who will be participating in this research in order to provide relevant information. Given the research aims and objectives the chosen sample includes two sub-groups. The first sub group of the sample consists of bankers, while the second sub-group consists of managers of social enterprises. For the purpose of the study, the focus will be placed on banks and social enterprises operating in London only. The first sub-group of the sample is made of 10 managers from ten mainstream banks operating in London, while the second subgroup consists of 20 managers from twenty different social enterprises operating in London. In this sample social enterprises of different sizes have been taken into account in order to obtain generalised view. The mainstream banks and social enterprises have been chosen using random sampling method. However, as far as the sampling technique is concerned, a purposive sampling method has been employed to pick the sample participants, i.e. the managers of the banks and the managers of social enterprises on the basis of expertise and experience they possess. Only those managers of the banks have been chosen who are directly involved in the lending process and those managers of social enterprises have been chosen who deal with financing aspects of the companies. This kind of non-probability type of sampling offers an objective observation relating to the concerned issues from all angles. This method suited the best and frequently used when qualitative research is conducted and the sample size is small. Questionnaire: The questionnaire for the present study include two sets of questions where the first set of questions are meant for the bank managers, the second set of questions are meant for the managers of social enterprises. This section will provide the questions included in the questionnaire form, where the complete questionnaire form will be provided in the appendix at the end of the paper. Questions for mainstream bank Managers: I. How does the bank assess loan applications? II. What policies are following relating to collateral? III. Do the bank follows in special policies relating to social enterprises? IV. Does absence of sufficient collateral is a major factor for not extending loans to social enterprises? V. Does legal structure of social enterprises cause any problem in understanding the structure of social enterprises? VI. Do reputation risks act as a hindrance in lending funds to social enterprises? VII. Why does it take longer period to extend loans to social enterprises? VIII. Do the social enterprises have enough financial expertise? IX. Does the bank have clear ideas about the terms of use of grants by social enterprises? Questions for social enterprises’ Managers I. Questions relating to Social Enterprises’ Profile: I. a. Size: I.a. i. How many employees are there in the company? A. 1-5 B. 6-10 C. 11-20 D. 21-50 E. More than 51 I.a. ii. What is annual turnover of the company? A. Under ? 50,000 B. ? 50,000 - ? 100,00 C. ? 101,00 – ? 250,000 D.? 251,000- ? 1 million E. ? more than ? 1 million. I. b. Age: In which year was the company established? A. After 2000. B. Before 2000 I.c. Sector: In which sector does the company operate? A. Education B. Environmental C. Training D. Child Care E. Retail F. Others I.d. Organization Type: Which is the type of the organization? A. Non-Profit B. Voluntary C. Cooperative D. Social business E. Private company F. Trading arm of a charity G. Others II. Social enterprises’ demand for finance: II. a. What is the main source of finance for the company? b. Have the company ever sought for external finance? c. If not, then what is the reason for not soughing for external finance? A. No requirement B. Preferability towards grant finance C. Trustees’ unwillingness to take risks D. Not sufficient earnings E. Not adequate assets F. Management’s reluctances G. lack of understanding on the part of banks H. legal constraints I. Others d. If yes, what type of external finance is asked by the company? A. Bank Loan B. Bank overdraft C. Equity D. CDFI loan E. Asset finance F. loans from non-bank sources G. Mortgage H. Others. e. Has the loan applications of the company even been rejected? A. Yes B. No. f. If yes, then what was the reason? A. presence of inadequate security B. Bank was extremely careful C. Banks’ unwillingness to lend D. Banks’ lack of confidence on the proposal. III. Providers of Loans Who provides loans to social enterprises? A. Mainstream Banks B. Social Banks C. CDFI D. Others Ethical issues: Any kind of qualitative study involves some ethical aspects that need to be taken into account and treat with due care by the researchers. These ethical issues are as follows (Liamputtong and Ezzy, 2005): - First, researchers are required to acquire consent from all respondents in study. Typically approval can be obtained by written consent forms. For obtaining approvals from bankers and managers of social enterprises, it is essential to endow them with required information concerning research rationale, research procedure, necessary time framework, and so on. - Second, it is vital as well to retain confidentiality of answers offered by the respondents. This ethical aspect deals with making provision of safeguards to the participants. - Finally, it is also indispensable of providing an outline of pros and cons associated with the participants of the research. Obedience to all these ethical aspects offers in desired results from the qualitative study. References: 1. Creswell, J. W. 2001. Educational research: Planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. OH: Merrill/Prentice-Hall. 2. Creswell, J. W. 1994. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative approaches. London: Sage Publications, Inc. 3. Arksey, H. & Knight, P. 1999. Interviewing for Social Scientists. London :Sage Publications. 4. Silverman, D. 2004. Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook. London: Sage Publications Ltd 5. Fowler Jr., and Floyd J. 2002. Survey Research Methods. California: Sage Publications. 6. Liamputtong, P. and Ezzy, D. 2005. Qualitative Research Methods. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 7. Kotler, P. 1972. Marketing Management. Pearson Education India. 8. Burns, A. C. and.Bush, R. F. 1995. Marketing research. Prentice Hall. Read More