Qualitative exploratory research method limitations

There were certain issues that are connected to use of the semi-structured interviews. Those are:

· Data reliability

· Different forms of bias;

· Validity.

The lack of standardization, strict, and structured list of questions might lead to concerns about the data reliability. Moreover, the respondents might not have accurate information and/or knowledge about the subject of study. For example, some of their knowledge might be based on rumors or data sources with academically low reliability, such as news articles.

Another potential issue that might occur is the different forms of bias. The first form is the interviewer bias. Authors explain this type as the comments, type of non-verbal behavior, or tone of the voice that might “adjust direction” for the interviewees’ responses. In our case the interviewer is the project supervisor from IBM Alexey Anikin. Mr. Anikin has his personal interest in the study of cloud consulting and it might lead to certain extent of the interviewer bias.

Next type of bias is the interviewee or response bias. This type of bias might occur in case if there are any personal perceptions about the interviewer, such as friendship or, on contrary, certain type of dislike, which might occur in case of interviewing direct competitor. However, as Saunders et al. (2007) found, this type of bias might not always be connected to the personality of the interviewer or related to him anyhow. Interviewees might choose not to disclose certain information or wish to discuss some of the questions from the questions list. Another issue is that the interviewee’s willingness to provide deep and detailed responses might decrease because of the time limits either ones set by the interviewer or personal ones of the respondent.

The third significant issue that might occur is the possible lack of validity. Saunders et al. (2007) define validity as “the extent to which the researcher gains access to their participants’ knowledge and experience…” (Saunders et al, 2007, p.319). However, it is possible to reach high level of validity by conducting interviews carefully, probing different questions and tactics to retrieve the data that provides the answers for the topic.

Next limitation was the time period and amount of extraneous work the team had. In addition to substantial courses workload, every team member had 4-5 projects going simultaneously and had the urge to submit the second part of their Master theses. That amount of work and the strict deadlines set by the university led to certain constraints in getting both wide and deep perspective on the cloud consulting implementation in Russia.

The final limitation is that we, the research team, could not conduct interviews ourselves because of two reasons. First is that the largest part of the best possible respondents are located in Moscow. Second, top management most likely is unwilling to talk to students, even though students are involved in the consulting project for IBM. However, those two major limitations were resolved by suggestion of Alexey Anikin to interview the managers.

Data Analysis method

Narrative data was retrieved from the transcripts of personal interviews. As it was written in previous sections, our research type is the qualitative exploratory. Therefore, it was necessary to analyze the data by comparing the information from each participant and drawing certain conclusions, based on the trends existing in the responses. Then, the conclusions drawn were compared to ones made on the basis of literature review in order to check the relevance of the data collected and whether the necessary data was obtained.

After receiving recordings of the five interviews with top IT managers of different large Moscow companies, we started the data analysis. All recordings were carefully documented (i.e. made transcripts) and thoroughly summarized as the basis for the following analysis. For the sake of easier representation and perception, the analysis follows the structure and the order of the interview questions included in questionnaire.

Results of Data Analysis

All the respondents acknowledged that their companies do use the assistance of consulting firms, but only in case when it is not possible to resolve an issue by themselves. One respondent made an additional note that his company uses services of consultants when they need to approve or disprove solution already available. However, companies prefer to resolve all the issues themselves, because traditional consulting involves a physical contact between client and consultant (sometimes participation in public tender), spending solid time on making concluding a complicated contract and resolving multiple bureaucratic issues, support and modification of working relationships, involvement of comoany-client’s employees, which some of the respondents claim to be not flexible, fast, and cheap.

During an interview, there was a brief description of the cloud consulting company’s model provided to respondents:

“Imagine that there is a company that provides consulting services via its own online platform for distance problem solution. The task or a problem is solved by a third party external experts and professionals in different areas. Those experts sign special agreements with that company. Great advantage of such company is that those tasks are resolved in short periods, with maximum efficiency, and avoiding multiple bureaucratic procedures. Would you be interested in using services of such company?”

None of the respondents gave direct either negative or positive answer for this question. Nevertheless, most of them showed substantial interest in at least trying such services due to faster.

However, there were some issues that put the respondents on their guard.

· There must be some guarantees. The guarantees that expert is a truly expert and that the client will pay at the right moment: after, in advance or in process. Moreover, in case if the solution for the project might “go wrong” then the consulting company needs to guarantee to fix it. The client also wants to enter into a contract with an entity, not individuals, to ensure that the work will be done. At the same time, the client also might want long relationships with the platform and be flexible with the opportunity to use the right expert in a right time and give them tasks. The client want to choose different form of collaboration.

· Data security. It is not allowed to share the information without confidentiality agreement with all contractors participated in the project (i.e. cloud consulting company and experts) and this, in turn, could be a serious obstacle.

· Risk avoidance. The clients do not want to face any problems with the unexpected inadequate quality of the completed task. The client does not want to work with any risks or wants to transfer all the risks to the platform.

· Juridical issues and obstacles –following long-lasting bureaucratic procedures, imperfection of state legislation in intellectual property rights and usage of electronic tools for business transactions (such as application of digital signature).

· Control. Companies prefer to have a high level of personal control over their confidential data and the working process, which might be little more difficult due to the fact that the cloud consulting company would be the only one participant that might be controlled to some extent. Experts would be unknown to the company-client, i.e. the client would be able to see experts’ profiles only, without direct contact with them.

There is also a substantial problem of the “consumerism” culture and perceptions that were formed during “prosperity years”. Clients expect to receive high-quality services fast and almost right away (“по щелчку пальцами”). To target multiple clients, various electronic platforms providing minor services occurred. Nowadays, the culture and perceptions are transforming towards willingness to participate in and use the more advanced platforms for more complex tasks.

To conclude, experts are ready and interested in using the cloud consulting services due to increase of outsourcing and freelance services in modern Russia. However, it might be very difficult to convince businesses and their lawyers to trust and work with cloud consulting company. In case of establishing cloud consulting services it would be quite difficult to do, because of low level of trust to indirectly contacted experts, and almost no understanding of the concept and benefits of cloud consulting for local businesses.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 459