Qualitative Data Collection
The Interview Guidelines have the aim to conduct semi-structured interviews with the members of the business community, business consultants and experts, representatives of policy-makers etc. This will allow us to get insight into innovation processes and to understand the obstacles and opportunities of innovative processes.
Semi-structured interviewing involves asking questions and getting answers from participants. Semi-structured interviewing is different from the survey; it allows more freedom to interviewers and interviewees to formulate questions and replies to adjust to specific situations, allowing us to explore unexpected relevant subtopics.
We have to do at least one interview with stakeholders on European, national and regional levels. This will employ specific additional questions, designed to collect data for qualitative comparative analysis; crowdsourcing and online platform will be implemented to collect and exchange knowledge, information and data also after the end of SOE2030.
In order to get the best possible information we will include at least following participants:
1. Academia (HEI staff, students),
2. professionals (public administrators, professional groups, business representatives) and
3. industry representatives, policy-makers and civil society (NGOs and general public).
After you have identified relevant interviewees, you contact them. One possible approach is email with a contact letter.
IMPORTANT: Experience shows that it is very important to identify and contact relevant respondents as soon as possible. Relevant interviewees are often very busy, reluctant to talk, and it is generally not so easy to coordinate the timing, so it is very important to start with the organization well in advance.
Interviewing procedure
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The person interviewed will be conducted in a setting where interviewee will feel comfortable and relaxed. This is usually neutral terrain (e.g. university building), in a room with a round table and chairs. You may offer them drinks and snacks to relax.
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The interview is conducted in English (preferable) or in the national language, if participants cannot or refuse to be interviewed in English.
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The interview is recorded. You should get their consent in advance, to avoid any issues before the interview is conducted. If necessary, you may again provide assurance of complete anonymity. To avoid technical issues, use two recording devices simultaneously. After the interview transcribes the entire interview.
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You will use the interview guide for your interview. The interview guide is a set of questions through which we must go during the interview. This will ensure a comparison of information in different countries. If possible, try to encourage and moderate a meaningful discussion between interview participants. This can help us get additional information about situation in specific countries.
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The interview guide also includes a score for each of the main questions, between 1 and 4. The participants have to reach a consensus on a specific score. Please note that this score is not the main goal of these questions, so we ask the participants to decide on a score only after we have discussed each question in detail.
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The results of group interviews which will be emailed to School Of Applied Social Sciences:
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Recording and complete transcript of the interview.
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Filled in interview guide in English. This includes - for each main question - sections on strengths, weaknesses, additional comments and scoring.