35
36 the latter ones. Also, as the interviews will be coded and analyzed through a codebook, letting the researchers sort out the relevant parts in the interviews and leave out the rest, this potential problem is seen as minimized. Also, even though the parts linked to the point of tension possibly will be smaller for the first interviews, it will together with the other interviews contribute to a total perception of the bank.
In addition to the interviews changing slightly throughout the process, the researchers have identified other challenges that will be covered in this paragraph. Even though there are some challenges with regards to the method for this paper, the researchers believe that if they are aware of these challenges and work to minimize them, the data collected will be valid and can be used to analyze Sparebank 1’s corporate brand and attractiveness in the market. One risk with semi-structured interviews is that the participants might be influenced by the interviewer and his/her actions (Denscombe 2014). Also, some participants tend to take the “good-participant” role when being interviewed, meaning that they will answer what they think the researchers would like them to (Weber & Cook, 1972). This is fueled by a fear of ruining the research by not responding in the “correct” way (Weber & Cook, 1972).
However, the researchers tried to mitigate these challenges by starting the interviews with encouraging the participants to speak freely and honestly and, as mentioned earlier, by informing of total anonymity and make them feel comfortable and safe.
5.1.1 Structure of the interviews
As the Sparebank 1 alliance consists of banks spread all over Norway, the employees are also spread all over the country. Hence, due to restrictions with regard to time and resources, five of the seven interviews were conducted over Skype, each lasting for about one hour. As the Skype-interviews allowed the respondents to choose an environment in which they felt safe and comfortable, it is not seen as a necessarily negative factor (Saunders et al., 2016). Furthermore, as several of the respondents used Skype for business the researchers made the assumption that they were familiar with the concept and thus did not feel uncomfortable about using Skype. Henceforth, it is argued that the advantage of interviewing employees from different locations and different banks, outweighed the disadvantage of using Skype.
As a preparation for the interviews the researchers, as mentioned above, created an interview guide to ensure covering all the subjects set out to be investigated (Appendix A). All of the respondents
37 were unfamiliar to the researchers, thus a brief introduction of the researchers and the project followed up by some small talk was seen as necessary in order to create credibility and trust. Additionally, the respondents were informed about being entitled to cancel the interview if they wanted to. This was followed by the interviewer going through the guide and starting out with general questions about the bank which was followed by change management, perceptions of the market, and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the bank. In the following section, the respondents for the internal interviews will be presented.
5.1.2 Respondents
Through the Head of Banking as a Service, the researchers were given possible participants for the internal interviews, being people representing different banks and departments of the organization.
By approaching the respondents through one of the employees in the bank, the researchers reached a larger part of the organization. However, one challenge related to reaching the respondents through an employee of the organization was the possibility of the respondents being colored or biased by the Head of Banking as a Service. Additionally, that they wanted to give answers which they felt could benefit this person, or which this person wanted them to give. This was, as with respondents taking the “good-participant-role”, mitigated by the technique of probing and encouraging the respondents to speak as honestly as possible and not saying what they thought the Head of the Banking as a Service would like them to say.
As the researchers contacted possible participants, some of them never responded and thus the total number of respondents ended up being lower than initially expected. For the aim of this paper, the researchers see the advantage of having participants from different parts of the organization superior to having a large number of participants, and thus did not spent more time looking for additional participants within the same departments. This is due to the researchers’ aim of obtaining an understanding of underlying mechanisms within the organization as a whole, as well as perceptions of the market and competitive advantages. Also, as the researchers saw a need for investigating whether the perceptions internally were correlated with the external view of the organization, interviewing stakeholders in the Norwegian financial market was prioritized over conducting even more interviews internally in Sparebank1.
38 Seven in-depth interviews with employees in Sparebank 1 were conducted. The respondents will be presented in a random order in a table below, covering how many years each employee has worked in the company, whether the person has a managerial position and if they are employed in the Bank Corporation or in a local bank. However, as some of the respondents are employed in the bank but have an active role they will be “checked off” in both boxes. As a way to ensure anonymity for the respondents, names and detailed information is left out. The respondents will be referred to as Employee 1(E1), E2, E3, etc. for simplifying purposes.
Figure 15 - Respondents Internal Interviews (Researchers' Own Creation, 2019)
39