Who is Observing Whom? Fieldwork Roles and Ambiguities in Organisational Case Study Research

Inside the transnational social space: Cross-border management and owner relationship in a German subsidiary in Hungary

“…This was mainly due to the fact that being backed by a top manager from the headquarters led to suspicions about our motives in conducting the research, resulting in monosyllabic and/or seemingly calculating answers by some interview partners. In line with the general findings of Soulsby (2004) and Michailova (2004) on problems of qualitative fieldwork in Central and Eastern Europe, this behaviour was clearly more pronounced among our Hungarian than among our German or Austrian interview partners. Using the snowballing approach not only helped us to build trust and openness among the Hungarian interviewees, it also ensured that we could interview at least one partner from each side of a social relationship in order to gain a multi-faceted view on social relationships in MNCs.…”

Understanding Top Management and Organizational Change Through Demographic and Processual Analysis*

“…We have interviewed 40 of Vols' managers and employees, including 13 of the 22 top managers who have guided the enterprise from 1990 to 2002 and six of the nine managers to have sat as executive members on the Board of Directors (see Table II). Interviews were generally conducted in Czech with the help of interpreters, who acted as both cultural informants and research collaborators knowledgeable of project aims and methods (Soulsby, 2004). During each visit, we focused questioning on experiences of organizational and management change, each interview being iteratively linked to others to optimize the internal validity of our materials (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003).…”

The Social Construction of Organizational Disintegration: Exploring Identity Dynamics and Restructuring through a Longitudinal Case Study of a Post-Socialist Enterprise

“…The sample includes top managers, who served on Boards of Directors (see Table 1). Interviews were generally conducted in Czech with the help of interpreters, who acted as both cultural informants and research collaborators knowledgeable of the project aims and methods (Soulsby, 2004). During each visit, we focused questioning on experiences of organizational and Total respondents/interviews 31 41 management change, each interview being iteratively linked to others to optimise the internal validity of our materials (Eisenhardt, 1989;Yin, 2003).…”