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Understanding Organizational Practice Adoption …
Of the interviews conducted, eight were in English and 50 in Thai. Audio-recorded
interviews were administered on the basis of informant consent and expressed (dis)com
-
fort and generally restricted to the upper echelons. Lower down the hierarchical ranks, in
the light of considerable expressed discomfort we refrained from recording and instead
took detailed notes. In total fifteen interviews were taped and then transcribed verbatim
in their original language yielding some 90,000 words of raw data.
Both authors were present during all but four interviews, which were conducted solely
by the second author. The first author led the
English language interviews, while the
second author led those conducted primarily in Thai. In each interview the non-leading
interviewer would act as note-recorder—and this would include corroborating or contra
-
dictory paralinguistic cues such as body language, tone and gesture. After each interview
both researchers would compare notes for interpretation overlap and possible additional
and/or rival explanations.
Direct observation of informants was conducted both during the interviews themselves
and across several situations surrounding two of our three organizational practices. Given
the obvious limitations inherent to ‘observing’ email behavior this was limited to time
spent recording how various staff interacted with the system over the course of their
working day, providing additional insights into frequency, duration and attitudes towards
the specific email being composed and/or considered. For the issue of empowerment,
both authors spent time on-site at the client hotel premises. Observation involved gather
-
ing data from both guard and site foremen interactions with each other, with customer
representatives and with the consumers (hotel guests).
Regarding
documentation, email artifacts provided by informants (both on-screen
and hard-copy) gave us additional insights into the daily usage of
email for differing
purposes and with differing recipients. We also gathered evidence from both corporate
and subsidiary units as to guidelines, reports and policies regarding the use of the email
system, helping to corroborate or modify emerging categories/codes. Company informa
-
tion regarding empowerment centered on brand enactment directives providing insight
into corporate intentions concerning desired ‘brand delivery behavior’ adherence for
customer-facing employees. These were then used as a tool
to sharpen our interview
questions. For performance appraisal, we used unobtrusive material proffered voluntarily
by all parties concerned, detailing the design and content of the appraisal forms utilized.
Data analysis
Analysis began with open-coding wherein we independently grouped a range of factors
in the data into labeled categories using short descriptive phrases (Van Maanen
1979
).
By
way of illustration, for corporate e-communication this comprised a pictorial net-
work of codes including ‘usage enabler/usage constraint’, ‘purpose’, ‘recipient profile’,
‘addressor profile’ and ‘rationale’ along with a set of cultural, non-cultural and mixed
determinants. We then searched for relationships, patterns and connections among these
categories in order to merge and subsume first-order factors into coherent, higher-order
headings (e.g., Miles and Huberman
1994
). These categories were developed and trian
-
gulated with our independent analysis of documents and recorded observation notes until,
through a process of weighing and combining, we had agreed on the major issues from
70
T. G. Andrews and N. Chompusri
the three practice areas under investigation (e.g., Jick
1979
; Lincoln and Guba
1985
). For
corporate email this comprised a small group of practice clusters (incorporating under-
and over-usage) combining ‘communication purpose’ with the relevant cultural determi
-
nants (etic and emic) acting (as ‘attitude’ and/or ‘action’) either as mutually reinforcing/
complementary influences or forces acting against one another ( see Table
2
).
across all three practices there were multiple factors in
our data that we did not code,
either because they were isolated and uncorroborated, and/or because they were not con
-
sidered of prime relevance to the focus of this study (Rubin and Rubin
2005
). Instead we
remained with our core groups of themes on the influence of
kreng jai
and other cultur-
ally-driven factors on the adoption and use of the corporate practice in question, not least
because they were the most salient as judged by the frequency and strength of evidence.
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