Recruitment mode as a factor affecting informant response in organizational research

Article Abstract:

The literature on qualitative research interviewing skills concentrates on questioning styles, techniques, procedures, and the informant-researcher relationship. Much less attention has been paid to the ways in which informant co-operation is solicited prior to interview. Two modes of recruitment relevant to organizational research are discussed, each creating a different implicit contract between researcher and informant, and each legitimating different interview content. The first mode concerns the recruitment of informants as representative of an organization or an occupational group. The second concerns recruitment in a personal capacity, not necessarily representing any formal group or organization. This article argues that the mode in which informants are recruited influences the content of informant response. Evidence from two small-scale management interview studies is presented to advance the proposition that personal recruitment givesthe researcher legitimate access to data not initially available through representative recruitment. Respondents in the latter mode speak for the organization, representing an official or 'public' face. Respondents in the former mode speak for themselves and speak of the organization, potentially revealing 'unofficial' and personal views of the motives of key actors and the manipulation of decisions. This article seeks only to instantiate this proposition and not to test it formally as a hypothesis. The argument is advanced in the hope that organizational researchers will recognize this phenomenon in their fieldwork, will seek to examine it more systematically, andwill more readily admit in research reports the implications of differences anddevelopments in relationships with informants. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Interviews

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Computer use and structural control: a study of Australian enterprises

Article Abstract:

This article investigates underlying relationships between the extent of use of computers and dimensions of organizational structure. Empirical tests on a sample of 149 Australian work-units show strong associations between computer use and structural characteristics. Specifically, greater computer use is found to be related to less centralization and greater formalization and departmentalization. Further tests show that these associations are to some extent moderated by size. However, this moderating effect is most apparent in small organizations for formalization and departmentalization while the relationships involving centralization are more prominent in larger work-units. Factor analysis led to the diagnosis of two major types of computer use (i.e., informational and operational use). Tests on these categorized effects and the factor-analysed structural dimensions revealed that: (1) the effects on centralization are more strongly explained by the impact of operational use on the 'centralization of operational decisions' sub-measure and that of informational use on 'financial decision'; (2) formalization and departmentalization are found to be more strongly influenced by greater informational use. Here again, significant relationships were found between sub-measures, the most important of which is the relationship involving the informational factor of formalization with the informational use of computers and the relationship between departmentalization of core functions and the operational use of computing technology. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Research, Australia, Usage, Computers, Digital computers, Corporations, Information management, Decentralization (Management), Corporations, Australian

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