In addition to the former sections which elaborated the conceptualization of this study and the introduction of research subjects, the overall data collecting and analyzing strategy was discussed in more detail below through which the researcher gathered qualitative data and used them as foundation for analysis.
After all interviews were conducted, the recorded files were keyed in the computer as
written documents and are translated into English by the researcher. As something was found to be worthwhile for deeper analysis, the researcher used e-mail or MSN to re-contact and inquire interviewees for further information. After all the data were thought to be complete, the data were analyzed by giving codes to the manuscripts drawn from interviews. Finally, the procedure of this research, illustrated in Figure3.2, ended up with discussing conceptual findings and recommendations.
The procedure of this research can be divided into eight parts and begins with the aim or research theme followed by reviewing relevant literature for deeper understanding of the topic. And then, based on the literature, the research purposes, and questions, research subjects for interview were selected by the criteria. The next step was to draft interview questions which were adjusted and really build up in the following step through meetings with experts in academic and practical human resource fields. The sixth was to conduct interviews followed by the seventh, eighth, ninth, and the tenth; to analyze data, to generate research findings, to summit conclusion and recommendations, and to complete the research.
Figure3.2. Research Procedure Confirm research theme
Seek and review literature
Select and decide research subjects
Design and draft interview questions
Adjust and build up interview questions through expert meetings
Conduct interview
Analyze the data
Generate research findings
Submit conclusion and recommendations
Complete the research
To analyze the quality of this qualitative research, the following statements are particularly submmitted as extra supportive points to thicken the description on the research design in addition to former elaborations on participants selecting and the overall procedure.
Pre-interview
Before the actual interviews were carried out, an experimental interview was conducted.
The interviewees are from human resource department of a well known technology corporation in Taiwan. The interviewed contractor serves as a training and development specialist in the department and the supervisor is a director. From this pre-interview, the researcher learned about potential factors that might influence a supervisor’s perspective toward the contractor in addition to his contracted identity, such like job functions. That implied the researcher to carefully select actual target subjects and avoid too many differences among interviewees. Besides, the information the contractor provided gave the researcher a rough picture of what future actual contractors may respond. Thus, performing a pre-interview test provided the researcher with experiential logistics from actual procedural implementation and also facilitated a more systematic approach to actual data collection and analysis.
Persistent Expert Consultation
Meanwhile, the process of building up an actual interview questions involved discussions with several experts on human resource field. The interview questions were firstly viewed by an assistant manager of human resource department in a famous bank in Taiwan. This expert has also studied on nonstandard employment, especially contract programmers. He suggested that the theme of this study is feasible and interesting, especially the part of supervisors’ up-to-down perspective toward contractors. In Taiwan, there are little prior researches related to this part, he said. Another statement he made is that subjects
should be carefully selected and aimed at either all general clerical workers, like customer service workers, or contractors with relatively professional knowledge and skills. Technology industry is really worthwhile to be the field for exploring particularly in Taiwan, he added.
Those suggestions from the practitioner were adopted afterward because they were thought to be helpful for the increase in value of this study for practical field. Besides, the research questions were also examined by two academic experts to make sure that those questions are most likely to satisfy and correspond to research purposes and questions. What is the most important is that one of the experts kept monitoring the overall process from the very beginning of this research, including the contact processes in gaining permissions of interviews. Additionally, at the beginning of this study, the theme was to analyze the triangular relations of contractors, regular workers, and supervisor, plus issues on blended workforce. However, after a committees meeting, the focus of the study was suggested to adjust a little. One of the committee suggested, for example, the researcher can aim to explore how a supervisor provides support to a contractor for him or her to quickly and efficiently work on track; and, the part of the relation between contractors and regular workers can be omitted or mentioned casually and selectively because blended workforce has existed in most organizations for years. Therefore, the researcher was consequently inspired to study mutual work experiences of contractors and supervisors, including their two-way perspectives. As what Guba and Lincoln (1989) said, dependability can be identified as the qualitative parallels to reliability. In qualitative researches, the reliability test can be conducted to prove the quality and appropriateness of the inquiry process. Therefore, this study tends to fulfill the requirement of dependability and presents certain level of quality.
Two-times Coding and Expert Review
According to Mertens’ (1998) saying, the conformability audit can be conducted in conjunction with the dependability audit. Thus, the former two ways, pre-interview test and
expert meetings, involve in the research process and explicitly show the logic that the researcher used to interpret the data can attest the conformability audit in a way. To be more convincing, coding was conducted twice during the analyzing process. The first time coding was conducted right after manuscripts completed. Couples days latter, the researcher implemented coding again and made a contrast with the results from the first time to examine the consistency and avoid the researcher’s possible subjective judgments in the first-time coding. What’ more, not only the data synthesizing process was all the time monitored by experts, the data source, interview transcripts were also reviewed by an expert to confirm that the conclusions can be supportive. Therefore, this study reaches conformability audit which is identified by Guba and Lincoln (1989) as objectivity.
Process Document and Multiple Methods
The quality of this study can be also attested by two of the strategies for enhancing credibility which, in qualitative research, asks if there is a correspondence between the way the respondents actually perceive social constructs and the way the researcher portrays their viewpoints (Mertens, 1998). Firstly, the researcher documented the process of change and monitored the developing construction from the beginning of the study which can be understood through this chapter, for example, the researcher’s changing and adjusting process on the research aims under experts’ suggestions. In this way, progressive subjective which is one of the strategies for credibility is used. The other strategy is triangulation by which the researcher checked information from three methods, including interview, observation, and document review for the consistency of data. Through the use of these two strategies, credibility audit is attested with certain level.