Qualitative study: management interviews about strategic adaptation to the financial and economic crisis
Before the main quantitative study, a qualitative pre-study was conducted among twelve top managers of Austrian and Slovene companies, following Peng et al.’s (1991) recommendation that a qualitative approach should always complement a quantitative study
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1 Sample and data collection of the qualitative study Qualitative pre-studies should ideally be conducted with a set of interviewees similar to the respondents of the main quantitative study (Davis 2000). Therefore, the interviews were equally split between six Austrian managers and six Slovene managers. Also, to account for possible size effects, half of the interviews were conducted with representatives from small and medium-sized companies with less than 50 million Euro annual turnover and less than 500 employees, the other half with top managers from large corporations with more than 100 million Euro turnover and more than 1,000 employees. In order to avoid across-country effects, it was made sure (a) that respondents were of the same nationality as the company they were working for, and (b) that only companies with a majority ownership held in their own country were included in the sample. A variety of industries was included from both the manufacturing and services sectors, thus favouring width of possible crisis issue interpretations and strategies over strict statistical comparability, following the nature of a qualitative pre-study as opposed to the subsequent quantitative study designed to test the hypotheses. D. Sternad, Strategic Adaptation © Springer-Verlag/Wien 2011
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Management interviews about strategic adaptation to the financial and economic crisis
All interview partners were assured full anonymity and confidentiality. Therefore, the companies’ names are not disclosed but coded, indicating the location (‘AUT’ for Austria, ‘SLO’ for Slovenia) and the size of the organization (‘S’ for small and medium-sized enterprise, ‘L’ for large-scale corporation). Table 7.1 provides an overview of the interviewees and their company affiliation. Table 7.1 Overview of the companies and interviewees of the qualitative study Company code
Nationality
Size
Industry
Interviewee
AUT-S 1
Austrian
SME (< 50 mio. EUR turnover, < 500 employees)
Service
Deputy managing director
AUT-S 2
Austrian
SME (< 50 mio. EUR turnover, < 500 employees)
Service
CEO
AUT-S 3
Austrian
SME (< 50 mio. EUR turnover, < 500 employees)
Production
CEO
AUT-L1
Austrian
LARGE (> 100 mio. EUR turnover, > 1,000 employees)
Financial service
CEO
AUT-L2
Austrian
LARGE (> 100 mio. EUR turnover, > 1,000 employees)
Financial service
CEO
AUT-L3
Austrian
LARGE (> 100 mio. EUR turnover, > 1,000 employees)
Production & service
Member of the management board
SLO-S 1
Slovene
SME (< 50 mio. EUR turnover, < 500 employees)
Production
Member of the management board
SLO-S 2
Slovene
SME (< 50 mio. EUR turnover, < 500 employees)
Production & service
CEO
SLO-S 3
Slovene
SME (< 50 mio. EUR turnover, < 500 employees)
Retail
CEO
SLO-L1
Slovene
LARGE (> 100 mio. EUR turnover, > 1,000 employees)
Retail
Member of the management board
SLO-L2
Slovene
LARGE (> 100 mio. EUR turnover, > 1,000 employees)
Service
CEO
SLO-L3
Slovene
LARGE (> 100 mio. EUR turnover, > 1,000 employees)
Production
Managing director
Sou
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