interviews - learning the craft of qualitative.pdf

this article was downloaded by: university of sydney on: 29 november 2013, at: 22:36 publisher: routledge informa ltd registered in england and wales registered number: 1072954 registered office: mortimer house, 37-41 mortimer street, london w1t 3jh, uk european accounting review publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: /loi/rear20 interviews learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing juhani vaivio a a aalto university school of economics published online: 19 apr 2012. to cite this article: juhani vaivio (2012) interviews learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing, european accounting review, 21:1, 186-189, doi: 10.1080/09638180.2012.675165 to link to this article: /10.1080/09638180.2012.675165 please scroll down for article taylor & francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “content”) contained in the publications on our platform. however, taylor & francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the content. any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by taylor & francis. the accuracy of the content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. taylor and francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the content. this article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. terms & conditions of access and use can be found at http:/ /page/terms-and-conditions downloaded by university of sydney at 22:36 29 november 2013 different organisational levels (i.e., individual, team and corporate). the authors here again emphasise the important role of the fi rms strategic contingencies in affecting the effectiveness of alternative performance measurement approaches. overall, the compensation design and implementation issues described in the book are comprehensive and tell an appealing story on the current academic debate on managerial pay policies, their determinants and implications for corpor- ate behaviours. the book is a very good resource for accounting researchers who want to extend their own understanding and positions on compensation practices with a cross-disciplinary perspective to the topic. practitioners and compensation consultants will fi nd this to be a well-written, accessible book that provides enough detail on managerial pay practices without being overly technical. those teachingaccountingcompensationseminarswillappreciatethecomprehensiveness of the sources quoted in the text. however, i do not envision this book as a stand alone text in advanced accounting compensation seminars. my caveat would be to integrate it with additional references from the accounting and fi nance literatures. overall, i strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in developing an in-depth understanding of the most critical issues surrounding pay and incentives. note 1out of the 1046 references cited in the book about 48% are articles published in management, organisational behaviour, sociology and psychology journals, about 14% are articles published in accounting and fi nance journals, and about 8% are articles published in economics and indus- trial organisation journals. the remaining references are monographs, unpublished manuscripts or articles appearing in the business press. reference gomez-mejia, luis r. and balkin, david b. (1992) compensation, organisational strategy, and firm performance. (cincinnati southwestern publishing). francesca franco london business school # 2012 francesca franco interviews learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing second edition steinar kvale and svend brinkmann sage publications, 2009 the front cover of the second edition of interviews learning the craft of quali- tative research interviewing introduces its theme as a craft that can be learned. 186book reviews downloaded by university of sydney at 22:36 29 november 2013 and the back cover promises to deliver something which is ideal for both novice and experienced interview researchers as well as graduate students. for the qualitatively oriented reader here is something tempting and practical at hand which, at instant impression, makes useful reading. expectations run high: this will help me in getting it right. but how do the books 315 text pages fare in a critical evaluation? the fi rst 100 pages provide an introduction to, and a conceptualisation of, inter- view research. for the more experienced scholar, important considerations become addressed: here is a brief history of interviewing, mentioning freud, piaget and mayo en passage, followed by a reminder that we live in an interview society. we then plunge into phenomenology, famous philosophical dialogues and so called therapeutic interviews with more name-dropping attached. after this, fundamental epistemological issues are brought up. in this very genre, are we mere miners and collectors of knowledge or travellers that construct knowledge in social processes? what are the features of interview knowledge as something produced, relational, conversational, contextual, linguistic, narrative and pragmatic? what is the relationship between interviews and positivism? continuing its deep-dive, the book then moves into the key ethical issues that concern interviewing and fi nally resurfaces with a somewhat disoriented discussion of research interviewing as craft. summing up, for the experienced scholar the fi rst 100 pages provide a reassuring intellectual landscape a reminder of the fundamental questions at stake in this particular profession. clearly, this book is not about interviews in a narrow, technical sense. but in the mind of the impatient novice, anxiety creeps in: this is an ambiguous terrain. and i still dont have a clue about how to proceed. the second part of the book, comprising its remaining 200 pages or so, is titled seven stages of an interview investigation. finally something practical and actionable, the average reader could expect. however, instead of these seven distinct stages, the reader confronts 12 separate subsections. their interconnect- ing logic leaves, im afraid, room for some improvement. the fi rst chapter, on thematising and designing an interview study, seems a bit confusing. it opens a rather discouraging perspective into the emotional dynamics of an interview journey. it fl irts with several blueprints for the stages of an interview which may produce more ambiguity than clarity. and in a way at odds with the interpretive tradition, it is concerned about the generalisability of the interview fi ndings. in almost apologetic tones, the book rushes ahead to mixed methods and illustrates the combination of the qualitative method and statistical data analysis with the kinsey study on sexual behavior. the following chapters on conducting an interview, on different forms of inter- viewing and on interview quality do provide the much expected, more practical advice, as well as some appealing illustrations of the craft. what is missing, however, is the suffi cient emphasis on how theory should in any theoretically oriented qualitative investigation guide the interview study. theorys guiding infl uence is under-represented here: how the research questions and the scripting of the interview are related to specifi c theoretical interests how focused book reviews187 downloaded by university of sydney at 22:36 29 november 2013 theoretical purposes are carefully operationalised in a qualitative interview study is not discussed in suffi cient depth. this same a-theoretical bias can also be discerned in what follows, when the book turns towards the task of transcribing interviews and to the critical issue of interview analysis. in my view, there is, of course, no such thing as a neutral analysis of interview material. every reading of it is a partial, theoreti- cally sensitised interpretation. other interpretations, taking other theoretical per- spectives, are possible and should be welcomed. this could have been explained more fully in this part of the book. nevertheless, some parts of these sections seem truly instructive. we learn about transcription as subtle transformation from oral language to written form, and about the important practicalities of tran- scription. hermeneutical interpretations of meaning are brought up. both narra- tive and discourse analysis, as well as deconstruction, become addressed. some disturbing statements in this section must fi nally be acknowledged though: is it really so that the ideal interview is already analysed by the time the sound recor- der is turned off (p. 190)? and is a positivistic undertone buried, after all, on page 240, under the following claim: a mechanical application of methods does not guarantee knowledge that is objective, reliable, valid, or generalizable. the remaining part of the book focuses fi rst on the issue of validity. it quite rightly points out that validation is not inspection at the end of the production line, but suggests quality control throughout the different stages of a qualitative enquiry. the chapter moves on to discuss communicative and pragmatic validity, and then falls back again on the house ghost that seems to haunt this book on the question of generalisation from interview studies. this chapter concludes, however, with a useful, crisp synopsis on notorious misunderstandings relating to case studies, and on the counterarguments that should be raised against these. the book draws to a close with a chapter on the reporting of interview knowledge and with a fi nal refl ective chapter that summarises the books central themes under the rubric conversations about interviews. the authors make a very good point in stating that boring interview reports may result from contemporary hyper-empiricism. overall, their practical advice on report- ing is informative, but could be strengthened by underlining, again, the role of theory: after all, we rarely should report research fi ndings without considering the specifi c theoretical starting points of the study. in the fi nal chapter, some rather provocative statements stand out from its broad refl ection, as for instance in what follows: it is hard to produce new knowledge through interviews that goes beyond common sense and which may be pragmatically helpful in under- standing or even changing a social situation (p. 299). this book provides a comprehensive, multifaceted and at times not-so-easily digestible discussion about qualitative research that mobilises interviews. the book can be picked up by the more experienced scholar who seeks new interdis- ciplinary insight as well as some comforting reassurance. but this is not a book for the novice. it is not a pragmatic and inspiring book about how to conduct research interviews in practice. for practical purposes, for actually improving 188book reviews downloaded by university of sydney at 22:36 29 november 2013 the craft of interviews, too many issues remain open. especially for the qualitatively oriented accounting researcher in particular, it would be instructive to know something about interviews that take place in an organisational context. in what ways do we build a pre-understanding of the organisation and its partici- pants before the interviews? how do we decide whom to interview and what to ask from specifi c organisational actors? what techniques do we employ in steering the course of the interview? which other sources of fi eld data from the organisation can be used to tri