Corporate elites as informants in qualitative international business research

International Business Review 11 (2002) 611–628 www.elsevier.com/locate/ibusrev

Corporate elites as informants in qualitative international business research Catherine Welch a,*, Rebecca Marschan-Piekkari b, Heli Penttinen c, Marja Tahvanainen c a

School of International Business, University of New South Wales, 2052 Sydney, NSW, Australia b Department of Management and Organisation, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, PO Box 479, FIN-00101 Helsinki, Finland c Center for Knowledge and Innovation Research, Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, PO Box 1210, FIN-00100 Helsinki, Finland Received 27 October 2000; received in revised form 31 January 2002; accepted 3 April 2002

Abstract In this article we argue that while most international business researchers interact with elite informants at some stage of their fieldwork, the challenge of conducting in-depth interviews with influential elites has received far too little scholarly attention. Our purpose is to address this gap in the literature by examining the specific methodological challenges associated with elite interviewing before, during and after the interview. Our literature search identifies four main themes of previous research on elite interviewing: access, power, openness and feedback. By means of a reflexive analysis of four different studies conducted in two countries, involving interviews with 90 corporate elites in international companies, we show that these themes also apply in the IB context. Moreover, these challenges are compounded by differences in professional values, seniority, gender and culture and language skills. We discuss a number of procedures that might be used to balance the power of elite interviewees while maintaining the requirements of academic integrity.  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Qualitative research methods; In-depth interviews; Corporate elites; International business research

*

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61-2-9385-5882; fax: +61-2-9313-6775. E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Welch).

0969-5931/02/$ - see front matter.  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 6 9 - 5 9 3 1 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 3 9 - 2

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1. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to examine the specific methodological challenges associated with interviewing corporate elites in international firms, and the implications of these challenges for obtaining valid data for theory development and testing. Since such issues are absent from the most widely used handbooks on qualitative research, we review existing literature in the social sciences on elite interviewing. Based on a reflexive analysis of our collective fieldwork experiences from four projects (a reflexive analysis focuses on the processes underlying data collection, interpretation and reporting of empirical data; Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2000), we discuss whether the same issues apply to the IB context. Rather than examining a variety of qualitative methods, our analysis confines itself to in-depth interviewing, since this is a well-established method of gaining access to business elites and their mind-sets in an international context. In-depth interviewing will be used in this article to mean an extended “face-to-face verbal interchange” (Fontana & Frey, 1994) between researcher and informant with the purpose of understanding the latter’s experiences and perspectives—a broad definition that encompasses semi-structured and unstructured qualitative interviewing. Previous studies have commented on the methodological challenges involved in conducting international business (IB) research (see, for example, Wright, Lane, & Beamish, 1988). Yet discussion of these challenges has largely been confined to quantitative methods such as standardised mail surveys (see, for example, Harzing, 1997; Cavusgil & Das, 1997). At the same time, there have been calls for more research of a qualitative nature, such as case studies based on data collected from in-depth interviews. The strength of qualitative research lies in its ability to examine the dynamic, context-dependent and interactive phenomena which are the subject of international business research (see, for example, Parkhe, 1993; Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991). Despite this growing recognition of the benefits associated with qualitative methods, there has been little examination of specific issues arising from their application to international business research (for exceptions, see Marschan-Piekkari and Welch, forthcoming; Wright, Lane, & Beamish, 1988; Wright, 1996; Yeung, 1995). Consequently, researchers undertaking IB projects have had little alternative but to follow guides to qualitative methods which were developed for other fields of study, notably sociology. However, these texts do not address the particular environment and interview subjects typically faced by international business researchers. They usually assume that the researcher is interviewing people from “non-elite” social groups. Since a typical respondent in international business research is a powerful elite person representing, for example, corporate headquarters, subsidiary management or an industry association it is timely the challenges associated with interviewing them receive attention from IB scholars. Corporate elites tend to be visible individuals both within and outside their organizations and affect the interview situation and quality of the data in many ways. As researchers have long recognised (Kahn & Cannell, 1957), the background characteristics of interviewee and interviewer are an

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important dimension of interview dynamics. Yet in the absence of critical debate, there seems to be a prevailing view that the higher the status of the company informant being interviewed, the more “reliable” and powerful the data (Macdonald & Hellgren, 1998). The remainder of this article is organized into six sections. First, we critically discuss the definition of elites. Second, we examine the challenges of elite interviewing as identified by previous research. Third, we report on the fieldwork that formed the basis of our reflexive analysis of elite interviews in international companies. The fourth section applies the issues identified in existing literature on elite interviewing to the context of IB research. The fifth section is more normative, presenting our recommendations for interacting with elites in interview situations. The final section concludes the article.

2. Definition of elites Elite interviewing has not been a mainstream issue in the literature on in-depth interviews. For example, Yin’s (1994) handbook on case study research, which is one of the most commonly cited references on qualitative methods in management research (Bengtsson, Elg, & Lind, 1997), does not explicitly deal with elites. A possible explanation for this neglect is that while qualitative interviewing techniques have been refined and popularised in a wide range of fields (see, for example, Flick, 1998; Mason, 1996), one significant influence was the “Chicago School” of sociologists who were committed to voicing the experiences of socially marginalised groups (Tesch, 1990; Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). While the Chicago School has left its mark on qualitative methodology, at the same time a sizeable literature on elite interviewing has accumulated. One shortcoming of this literature, however, is that it lacks a comprehensive, workable definition of elites. In the popular vernacular, elites are defined as a “group in society considered to be superior because of the power, talent, privileges etc of its members” (Hornby, Cowie & Gimson, 1983, p. 280). In traditional business organisations, the elite group can be seen to comprise the top echelons of the firm (Giddens, 1972). This definition, however, implies that elites are synonymous with top management. On the basis of our research, discussed below, we define an elite interviewee in IB as an informant (usually male) who occupies a senior or middle management position; has functional responsibility in an area which enjoys high status in accordance with corporate values; has considerable industry experience and frequently also long tenure with the company; possesses a broad network of personal relationships; and has considerable international exposure. We recognise that this definition is necessarily relative, given the diversity and context specificity of international business research. However, the advantage of the definition is twofold: unlike previous definitions, it is focused on IB operations; and it does not assume that elites are necessarily confined to the senior management of firms.

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3. Elite interviewing: key themes of the literature Our literature search reveals that researchers from a wide range of fields find interviewing elites different to interacting with non-elites, and share a number of common concerns about the validity and reliability of data collected from elite sources. Accordingly, in this section we will focus on the four themes that we have found to dominate the elite interviewing literature, and on which a degree of consensus appears to have developed: (1) obtaining access to elites, (2) managing the power asymmetry between interviewer and interviewee, (3) assessing the openness of elites, and (4) providing feedback. Parallels can be drawn between the literature on elite interviewing and that on the use of “key informants” in survey research (Seidler, 1974; Kumar, Stern, & Anderson, 1993), but there are also important differences. While the former is concerned with the impact of interviewee status on the in-depth interview, the latter examines the methodological challenges of selecting interviewees on the basis of their knowledge of organisational issues and relations (Kumar et al., 1993). The literature review will therefore be confined to past research on elite interviewing. 3.1. Access to elites Gaining access to elite settings and individuals poses different challenges to those encountered when studying non-elites. Compared to non-elites, access to elites is regarded as particularly difficult because they, by their nature, “establish barriers that set their members apart from the rest of society” (Hertz & Imber, 1993, p. 3). The process can therefore be far more time-consuming and costly than making contact with non-elites. As one researcher reports: “In one case, it took me nearly two years of phone calls, screening meetings with executive assistants, and networking to interview two executives in a major manufacturing company” (Thomas, 1993, p. 83). Access to elite and non-elite groups also differs in terms of strategies for gaining their consent and the cues they respond to. Researchers are advised to make reassuring statements and avoid using complicated terminology when interacting with nonelites (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). The challenge for researchers in elite settings is somewhat different. There, the issue is rather one of proving one’s professional credentials and standing. Studies on elite interviewing advise researchers to draw attention to their institutional affiliation, use personal connections where possible, and seek to obtain an influential “sponsor” whose endorsement of the project will ensure the cooperation of the rest of the group. Essentially, says one veteran of elite interviewing, “(y)ou get in and get useful data from them (i.e. elites) if you know others that they know and respect” (Ostrander, 1993, p. 12). Such tactics may, however, entail certain costs, and bias in sampling may be unavoidable (Macdonald & Hellgren, 1998). One researcher who used personal connections to gain entry into an elite group recognised that “it is impossible to know whether some people refused to speak to me because of antipathy or competition, perhaps, between them and my sponsors” (McDowell, 1998, p. 2136). Perhaps a more fundamental concern is that attempts to market the study to a corporate audi-

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ence may result in the research question being amended or sanitised. Yeager and Kram (1995) report that, in response to expert advice, they redesigned their interview guide in order to align it with the immediate concerns of managers and downplay their actual research question. Such behaviour may raise ethical as well as validity and reliability concerns. 3.2. Power of elite interviewees A successful working relationship with interviewees, on which qualitative research depends, can be difficult to develop if there is a power imbalance between the researcher and interview subject (see, for example, Kvale, 1996). However, it is usually assumed that in this relationship the researcher is the one with the higher status, whereas the informant is “one of society’s underdogs” (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998, p. 111)—or at the very least, a person who is unaccustomed to engaging in complex conceptual debates. By contrast, studies on elite interviewing are unanimous that the power balance is likely to favour the informant over the researcher. The problem of power asymmetry begins at the access stage, when the desired interview subjects may seem so remote that the distance separating them from the researcher is emphasised. Even the physical setting is likely to prove daunting, since interviews are usually conducted in the informant’s own “territory” (Fitz & Halpin, 1995). As a result, the researcher is put into the position of a “supplicant”, so humbly grateful to obtain an interview that he or she is unwilling to ask critical or demanding questions (Cochrane, 1998; Thomas, 1993). Elite subjects may easily dominate the interview because they are “professional communicators” (Fitz & Halpin, 1995, p. 68) used to addressing a wide range of audiences and developing elaborate and persuasive arguments (Ostrander, 1993). In this situation, it is the researcher who is at risk of being patronised, particularly if a gender difference is also present (McDowell, 1998). As a result, researchers may display a form of “hostage syndrome” by suspending their judgment in the face of an elite’s display of power. They risk “overestimating the importance of what elites have to say, assuming, for example, that they necessarily know more and better what is going on in an organization” (Ostrander, 1993, p. 19; see, also, Macdonald & Hellgren, 1998; Useem, 1995). 3.3. Openness of elite interviewees One area of debate in the literature concerns the degree of openness which researchers can expect from elites. While the issue of openness is crucial when interviewing any informant, elite interviewees are often regarded as more practised in fielding questions and more tightly bound to organisational policies. Thomas (1993, p. 85) argues this is particularly the case with senior executives, who “are often expected to speak on behalf of a formal organization—even to speak as if they were the organization.” The researcher then faces the disappointment of gaining nothing more from the interview than could have been gleaned from press statements or

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annual reports. There is a wide gulf between being offered a personal assessment and being quoted the party line. However, some researchers report having been surprised by the degree of frankness they encountered from some elite informants. Researchers found that junior staff were the most guarded in their comments, while elite individuals were the most open to assert their own opinions, even if these differed from stated organisational policies (Fitz & Halpin, 1995; Sinclair & Brady, 1987). Elite interviewees are more than capable of dealing with demanding and probing questions (Czudnowski, 1987)—and may even welcome the opportunity of responding directly to any public criticisms that have been made of their performance (Ostrander, 1993). 3.4. Feedback to elite interviewees Post-interview cooperation with elite subjects can be very beneficial to the research project. Thomas (1993) suggests that follow-up correspondence with elite informants can provide additional information, especially as elites may be willing to engage directly in the process of factual verification of the findings. Other researchers have undertaken even more ambitious feedback procedures such as company seminars (Useem, 1995) and reports recommending practical reforms (Yeager & Kram, 1995). By contrast, mainstream qualitative texts usually adopt a more cautious position towards sending reports to non-elite subjects, since this is likely to cause confusion and alienation (see, for example, Mason, 1996). When dealing with powerful elite informants, researchers are often concerned with strategies to “protect” their findings from the interference and censorship of elites (see, for example, Ostrander, 1993). Because managers often regard themselves as “doers” not theorists, “the theoretical categories driving our research are largely irrelevant to their interests” (Hirsch, 1995, p. 77). Hirsch therefore suggests that the feedback provided to elites must be different in form, style and even, sometimes, substance, than the findings which are presented to academic peers. However, it may be difficult for researchers to maintain the distinction between amending and distorting their findings. The existing literature on elites, while spanning a range of disciplines, converges on a common set of validity and reliability issues. This suggests that these methodological challenges would also apply to elite interviewing in the IB context. In the following sections we therefore turn to our own fieldwork in conducting in-depth interviews in IB research. While our findings coincide with those of previous research in many ways, we also identify some issues specific to the organisational and crossborder context of IB research.

4. Reflexive analysis of elite interviewing across four independent projects The theme of this article emerged from field research for four IB projects in Finland and Australia, each of which was independently conducted by one of the authors and each of which used in-depth elite interviews as a method for data collection.

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While our four projects had different research questions, they shared the challenge of elite interviewing. Since elite interviewing was an emergent issue that did not form part of the original research design of any of the studies, we applied reflexivity as a research tactic to mirror and contrast our collective experiences (for a similar approach, see Easterby-Smith & Malina, 1999). Reflexivity involves scrutinising data collection procedures in an active and structured way to improve the researcher’s own practice in future investigations (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2000). To apply a reflexive procedure, we systematically compared our fieldwork experiences according to the themes identified in prior research: access to elites, their power and openness in interview situations, and the challenges associated with providing them feedback. The first step in this process was to agree on a single definition of elites in order to create a single aggregated sample of elites for analysis. This done, the data set from each project was analysed, identifying a total of 90 elite interviewees according to the definition and excluding 148 non-elite and 8 government elite interviewees. The interview transcripts and notes from this sample were then coded, and the findings from each research project compared and cross-checked. The 90 elites interviewed for the four projects shared a similar profile in terms of age and gender, with only three elite females being interviewed (Table 1). The projects varied, however, in terms of organisational and cultural context, industry and research question. These contrasting fieldwork experiences allowed us to distinguish the particular methodological issues surrounding business elites, and to detect differences as well as similarities in elite behaviour during interviews. Table 2 presents the characteristics of elites which emerged from the analysis of 90 elite interviewees across the four projects. The characteristics of elite interviewees listed in this table match our definition in Section 2.

5. Elite interviewing in international business Our reflexive analysis of the four projects, presented in this section, suggests that the issues that dominate the literature on elite interviewing—access, power, openness and feedback—also apply to IB research. These challenges are, if anything, accentuated by the cultural, linguistic and geographical boundaries separating the researcher from elite interviewees in different locations. Our discussion also shows how cultural distance can be compounded by differences in professional values, seniority, gender and organisational context. 5.1. Access In our fieldwork we encountered many of the access problems reported in the existing literature on elite interviewing. In the four projects, the length of time taken to negotiate access ranged from immediate to five months. In none of the four projects was access granted to the organisation under study without restrictions or limitations being imposed. Moreover, we found that the nature of the international firm presents additional complexities at the access stage. An internal elite sponsor for the

High-tech and high-design SMEs 19 (46 interviews) 90% 50 years All males Finnish

Sugar Commodity exporter 13 36%

60 years 1 female Australian, British, Mauritian

Industry Type of focal organization Number of elite interviewees Share in relation total number of interviewees Average age of elites Gender of elites Distribution of elites

Expatriate project

SME = small and medium-sized entreprise; MNC = multinational corporation.

45 years All males Australian, Finnish, Swedish

Telecommunications MNC 14 17%

Dynamics of internationalization Expatriate performance management

Business networks

Focus area

SME project

Sugar project

Name of the project/dimension

Table 1 Comparison of four research projects in international business

50 years 2 females Austrian, Australian, British, Finnish, German, Italian, Mexican, Spanish

Less-hierarchical organizations and inter-unit communication Elevator MNC 44 40%

Elevator project

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Senior/middle CHQ, DS R&D, marketing Varied Long Broad internal and external High

Senior/middle Company division

Export marketing

Long Long Broad internal and external High

SME project

Varied Long Broad internal and external High

Marketing, sales

Senior/middle CHQ, RHQ, FS

Expatriate project

CHQ = corporate headquarters; RHQ = regional headquarters; DS = domestic subsidiary; FS = foreign subsidiary.

(4) International exposure

(1) Organizational hierarchy ·Seniority level ·Unit (2) Corporate values and history ·Functional status (3) Personal assets ·Tenure with the company ·Industry experience ·Personal networks

Name of the project/characteristics Sugar project

Table 2 Characteristics of elite interviewees across four projects in international business

High

Long Long Broad internal

Finance, manufacturing

Senior/middle CHQ, RHQ, FS

Elevator project

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research project may be of utmost importance in view of the geographically dispersed activities of the firm. Two of our projects used internal sponsors. In one of them, such a sponsor was the former CEO and a board member at the time of the study who had an academic association. After the initial contact, access to interviewees followed a “cascading process”: each subsidiary was approached for interviews with a letter of support signed by a top manager. However, the “cascading”, or top-down, approach may confine the researcher to a particular viewpoint sanctioned by the sponsor, particularly if the company is involved in direct funding of the study (which was the case for one of our projects). Part of the access process therefore involves using other sampling techniques to go beyond the personal networks and recommendations of the elite sponsor. In each of the four projects, snowballing, a method of locating information-rich key informants by asking other interviewees (Mason, 1996; Patton, 1990), proved to be an effective way of finding additional interviewees. In two of the projects, snowball sampling also involved obtaining expert opinions external to the organisations being studied. We found that the sampling of interviewees in both SMEs and MNCs involved distinct challenges. While access to elite interviewees in SMEs tends to be a more informal procedure compared to MNCs, involving fewer gatekeepers, the next step of “cascading” may in fact prove more difficult. In the project on SMEs, it was found that because company owners and CEOs of the seven SMEs investigated consider themselves the focal point of the entire organisation, the inclusion of interviewees below this elite level could be misinterpreted as lack of confidence in the key informant. Another issue at the access stage is that researchers who present themselves in their academic role may encounter a difference in professional values between the academic community they represent and the commercial culture with which they are attempting to communicate (only five out of the 90 elites interviewed had an academic association). Our fieldwork corroborates earlier studies that have found variation in the size and nature of this professional gap across cultures. Particularly in the Nordic countries, relationships between the business community and the academic world have been very close and corporate elites have been willing to cooperate with researchers (Bjo¨ rkman & Forsgren, 2000). In Australia, business is comparatively more likely to be wary of, or else indifferent towards, encounters with academics. 5.2. Power of corporate elites Paralleling the experiences of previous researchers of elites, we encountered elite interviewees who attempted to dominate the interview and challenge the researcher’s statements and views. Elite power was underscored in those 13 interviews conducted in the interviewee’s rather than the interviewer’s native language. On occasions elite dominance extended to directing and commenting on data collection and the analytical dimensions of the project. One researcher was told the following: “I would like you to dig at (this issue) when you are talking to the relevant people in these very small subsidiaries.”

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Another researcher was often given very detailed advice on how to interpret the data being collected and what conclusions to draw: “I think you might have to change the focus of your thesis a bit because I don’t think the links between (Company X) and (Company Y) were as strong as perhaps you’d imagined.” In all but four cases, there was a seniority gap of at least ten years between the elites interviewed for our projects and the researcher. Some elites exploited this asymmetry, expressing impatience at having to waste time answering what they deemed to be obvious or irrelevant questions. However, others responded to the seniority gap by adopting a paternal attitude of instructing the less experienced researcher. At one point in the research, an interviewee articulated this role by exclaiming: “I feel like your father!” The impact of the seniority gap is therefore an ambivalent one: on the one hand, researchers may be patronised and their comments overridden; on the other hand, elite individuals may take the time to inform and “enlighten” their junior interlocutor. 5.3. Openness of corporate elites As in the case of previous research on elite interviewing, we encountered different degrees of openness on the part of elites. In the IB context, the method employed to gain access to the organisation is likely to influence the openness and frankness of corporate elites. Particularly if the researcher has a sponsor at the very top of the parent company, subsidiary managers (13 out of the 90 elites we interviewed) may perceive the researcher as a headquarter spy. Corporate elites in subsidiaries may provide seemingly frank answers, but in fact act in a highly calculative manner, attempting to use the interview situation for channelling their views up to corporate headquarters or to elicit intelligence about headquarter opinions, as interviews for one of our projects reveal: “What is the opinion of top management in Finland (location of corporate headquarters) about the possible progress that we (in Mexico) are making? I would like to know it.” “Another suggestion that I would give to (corporate headquarters) is to try to have, let’s say, more non-Finnish or non-Scandinavian (people) in the top positions of the corporation.” Elites may also answer questions in a guarded fashion because of fears that their comments may be used against them. Concerns about anonymity may be very real in some cases. Particularly in SMEs or small units of large MNCs, an informant can easily be recognised based on his or her comments in the interview. On the other hand, elites may offer tantalising insights into secret deals and inner circles of power. However, such revelations are often accompanied by the request to “keep this off the

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record”. Some elite comments are so frank they are unusable: such as an expatriate’s description of a regional centre as a “piece of shit”. In the SME project, interviews with entrepreneurs sometimes resembled therapy sessions, with respondents clearly appreciating the presence of an attentive and sympathetic listener. Elites tend to provide very rich data, but a high degree of openness does not necessarily equate to a high level of usefulness. We found that a gender gap (which existed in all but 3 of the 90 interviews conducted) could encourage the elite interviewee to be more open with the researcher (cf. McDowell, 1998). Particularly in the case of the 40 interviews conducted with elites in Latin countries (such as Italy, Spain and Mexico), the informant would often respond to the “flattery” of an attentive female audience. Like the seniority gap, the gender gap is a double-edged sword: it may encourage elite interviewees to patronise the female researcher, but it may also make them more willing to devote time to an interview. Our experiences of a cultural gap (present in 42 elite interviews out of 90) confirm the common perception that IB fieldwork is made more difficult due to the threat of cultural misunderstanding (see, for example, Cavusgil & Das, 1997). Despite the rise of English as the international language of business (35 elite interviewees were non-native speakers of English but interviewed in English), it cannot be assumed that elite interviewees will be comfortable expressing themselves in a foreign language. For example, in one project, the multinational corporation had used English as the common company language since the early 1970s. However, elites more than 20 years later in Spain and Mexico spoke poor English and preferred to be interviewed in Spanish. Where elites may differ from non-elites is in their cross-cultural experience and their facility to communicate with people from different cultures. This cross-cultural familiarity was encountered in one of our projects, in which the Finnish researcher found that conducting interviews with all four elites from Asian subsidiaries was facilitated by the fact that these interviewees belonged to the Finnish parent company and had therefore become familiar with the Finnish style of communication. In another project, the researcher discovered that a transnational English-speaking elite had existed in the industry under study, thus nurturing a similar set of behaviours and beliefs regardless of national background and native language. Given this, the cultural gap between the researcher and elite interviewee is possibly smaller than when interacting with non-elites across borders. This gap should not, moreover, be regarded as wholly negative. Interviewees for one of the four projects revealed that they were willing to comment more freely on issues to a foreigner rather than to someone with local contacts and allegiances. Furthermore, as McCracken (1988, p. 22) argues, researchers forced to operate in a different culture have a “critical distance from what they study”. 5.4. Feedback to corporate elites In each of our projects the process of providing feedback to elites was both rewarding and challenging. Our experience of an extensive feedback process, involv-

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ing a total of five feedback procedures (see Table 3), largely fits with findings from the literature on elite interviewing. Interestingly, when the researcher is trying to seek access to elites, they portray themselves as highly busy people, while in a later stage of the study they may eagerly engage in checking minor details of research findings. However, feedback in the IB context was restricted in cases where a language barrier existed. In two of our projects the interview transcripts were translated into English regardless of the original interview language, a consequence being that the interviewees with poor English skills lost control over the contents. The two projects (involving 63 interviewees and 90 interviews) that used the technique of sending transcripts found this the least reliable form of feedback. Most transcripts (63%) were not returned, which presented the interviewer with the dilemma of whether to interpret silence as consent. In the case of transcripts which were returned (33 out of 90), the comments were usually confined to stylistic and grammatical corrections. In one case, the receipt of the transcript provoked a hostile reaction from a manager who questioned the usefulness of the procedure. Internal seminar presentations (6 internal seminars in two projects) provided no useful feedback in the MNC environment, but proved valuable in the case of SMEs. This is possibly due to the fact that in the MNC context, internal seminars were large and impersonal forums not conducive to discussion. Summary reports represented a way of confirming preliminary findings and gaining additional perspectives of the issue under study (20 reports in three projects were produced). Despite the undoubted benefits of these reports, we found that once the researcher has provided feedback to elites its use may be beyond his or her control. Summary or interim reports are an easily circulated form of feedback and may be subject to manipulation by company management. For example, in one project an executive summary, which contained mainly preliminary findings from the subsidiaries in Asia, provoked a very negative reaction from regional management. As a result, the study became part of political power struggles between various interest groups within the firm. On another occasion in Asia, a top subsidiary manager, after receiving his interview transcript, wanted to see the transcript of his subordinate and use it to support other internal activities. Such events raise ethical concerns about the researcher’s obligations towards elite interviewees of a complex, multicultural organisation. Table 3 Feedback procedures used in elite interviews across four projects Feedback procedures

Number of projects in which procedure was used

Number of times procedure was used

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Two projects Two projects Three projects Four projects Two projects

90 transcripts sent, 33 received 6 internal seminars 20 reports 36 drafts 2 companies

Interview transcripts Internal seminars Summary/interim reports Final drafts Consultant role

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In all four projects, the most extensive feedback received was through sending a draft of the final report to key elite informants of the study for factual verification (a total of 36 drafts were sent). This feedback procedure can also elicit additional data and commentary. In one project the draft was forwarded to a retired manager of the company, who carefully checked and corrected the company-specific material and added his own views on the findings. When providing feedback to business elites, the role of the researcher may change from an outside observer to a consultant or participant. In the SME project, these roles were often confused, as elites tended to welcome the researcher as a consultant and expert. Suddenly, the researcher is involved in action research, and moves from being expert observer to direct participant. In two of the projects, the researchers discussed managerial implications of the study, but outside the formal data collection process.

6. Recommendations In this section we discuss those strategies we found effective when interacting with elites during fieldwork, and confronting the challenges of access, power, openness and feedback. The use of any such strategies, however, is very context-sensitive and project-specific, as is the case with qualitative research more generally. While we focus on those strategies used across all four projects, there were also procedures specific to each project due to the different context in which each researcher was operating. Turning to the issue of access first, we found that a mix of sampling methods— cascading and snowballing—was effective in maximising access to the organisation and reducing the influence of the internal sponsor. Moreover, the use of external sampling—in other words, the inclusion of interviewees outside the focal organisation but with knowledge of it—may be used to gain alternative perspectives. Researchers also need to be sensitive to the pressures of organisational politics if they are seeking access to both a manager and his or her subordinates, or to subsidiary units as well as headquarters. Researchers can negotiate access problems by stressing their academic neutrality, but at the same time demonstrating their professional and language competence as well as reliability. To a certain extent, researchers may reduce the professional gap between themselves and high-level executives by adopting a business-like or ‘insider’ approach (see, also, Yeung, 1995). The researcher is likely to be asked to present the pay-off of the project in very concrete terms. Our comparison of the four projects suggests that SME managers are particularly prone to demand that the project show immediate relevance. Another insider procedure consists of pre-interview preparation: acquiring information about the person being interviewed, obtaining public information about the company and knowing the abbreviations of different divisions and subsidiary units. Yet talking like a company manager is unlikely to remove the professional gap and projecting an insider image can be taken too far, particularly if the researcher

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has gained access by emphasising the academic nature of the study. Instead, we found that assuming the role of an informed outsider who is willing to listen may be considerably more effective and less threatening to the organisation. In this way, the researcher has the insight of an insider but the neutrality of an outsider. In our four projects we found that an effective procedure for dealing with power asymmetry was to encourage elite interviewees to regard the interview as an intellectual discussion different in nature to the manager’s day-to-day routine of meetings. We found that, as in the case of access, a suitable approach for the researcher was that of the informed outsider. The challenge for researchers in an interview situation is to create a space for intellectual dialogue and reflection. Elites like to use the interviewer, who is up-to-date in the academic literature which they themselves often have little time to read, as a facilitator of their own thinking and a sounding board for ideas. We suggest that the researcher can encourage openness on the part of informants by steering a course between therapist and spy; in other words, stressing academic neutrality while showing empathy towards the interviewee. Using the position of a foreigner and an outsider, the researcher may maintain a critical stance towards the issues under study and in this way benefit from the cultural gap. In the case of language problems, interpreters may be used, but elites may be less open to answer sensitive questions, or provide their opinions, if they are being monitored by a third party. Moreover, the interpreter may not be independent from the company. We would therefore recommend researchers avoid the use of in-house interpreters, and collaborate with local researchers if translation is necessary. The challenge of the feedback stage is to minimise the chances of undue interference in the study’s results, yet maximise the possibilities of having these results checked and confirmed by the elite informants. In all four projects, the most effective of the five feedback procedures used was that of sending the final draft to key informants. Our collective experience was that at this stage key informants feel personally more associated with and responsible for the project, both within the firm and outside it, than in earlier stages of the study. This is the final moment before publication to verify the contents thoroughly and make sure the report does not contain anything confidential or counter to company policy. Our analysis of our fieldwork experiences has portrayed the research experience as a continual balancing act, in which the researcher needs to reconcile the roles of an insider and outsider, subordinate and sounding board, sympathiser and critic, therapist and spy, academic and consultant. Our analysis suggests that while the distance between researcher and elite interviewee cannot be erased, there are procedures which the researcher can take to minimise it or even turn it into an advantage.

7. Conclusions Until recently, the application of qualitative methods to IB research has been a rather neglected topic in academic debate. In this article, we have explored the challenges and rewards associated with one issue we have encountered when conducting

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qualitative research on IB topics: elite interviewing in international firms. Surprisingly, this issue has received very limited scholarly attention, although most researchers in international business are likely to interact with elite interviewees at some stage of their research projects. By asserting that elite interviewing requires special study, we are not seeking to endorse the “higher the better” fallacy in selecting interviewees. Rather, we adopt the position that elites should be interviewed when the research question suggests so. The value of non-elites as key informants should also be recognised. If the truism that we live in an age of globalisation is correct, we may in fact see greater numbers of employees below senior levels in corporations engaging in cross-border activities. Nevertheless, an understanding of elites is important when seeking to improve our understanding of the data collection process in international business settings. The exchange between researcher and elite interviewee has profound implications for the reliability and validity of research findings. Data collection and analysis may be distorted, misleading and incomplete if researchers find themselves facing selective and partial access to a company, amending their interview guide, falling captive to the “hostage syndrome”, encountering negative perceptions of academics or headquarter spies, battling manipulation by elite informants in the interview situation and censorship in the feedback process, and juggling their roles as neutral observer and consultant. These issues demonstrate the challenge of obtaining accurate and valid data for theory development and testing when using corporate elites as key informants. Once the decision is made to include elite interviews in the research design, it is therefore important to be aware in advance of its implications for data collection and analysis.

Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge the comments of Denice Welch, Lawrence Welch, Stuart Macdonald, Lars-Gunnar Mattsson, Asta Salmi, and Robert Scapens on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

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