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Magali Gravier, Associate professor, Department of Intercultural Communication and Management CBS

Mette Zølner, Associate professor, Department of Intercultural Communication and Management CBS

Guest Lecturers:
Rebecca Piekkari, Professor, (Aalto University - Helsinki)

The participants are required to submit a written presentation – 5 pages – in which they relate the curriculum literature to their use of interviews in their Ph.D. project. Presentations are read by the other course participants and form the basis for reflections and discussions of each other’s projects.
Deadline for submission of the presentation is two weeks before course begin.
 
It is a precondition for receiving the course diploma that PhD students attend the entire course.

The aim of the course is twofold. First it aims at combining 1) theoretical and methodological reflexions on semi-structured interviews with 2) practical exercises in interviewing techniques. Second, the course includes planning, conducting and using semi-structured interviews for research projects involving international or/and cross-cultural settings, (such as national, professional, industrial cultures). In doing so, the course offers an opportunity to “put in practice” and discuss issues that literature often ignores or disregards concerning the use of semi-structured interviews in international and cross-cultural settings.

Like all methods, interviewing requires practical know-how. Reading about how to conduct interviews is fundamental but not enough to become a good interviewer. This is why this course offers a strong combination of abstract knowledge and hands-on exercises, among others using video recording and live-interviewing.

Although our societies and organizations are becoming increasingly multinational and multicultural, literature is scarce on how to conduct interviews in international and cross-cultural settings. Only a very small number of studies consider the methodological challenges that cultural and linguistic differences introduce in interview techniques. This is surprising since crossing institutional, linguistic and/or cultural boundaries raises a number of questions in all phases of interview studies: selection of interviewees; access to interviewees; conducting interviews; analysing interviews in their contexts. The course will offer an opportunity to tackle these issues.

The course will cover:

• Typology of interviews;
• Conceptualizing cross-cultural contexts;
• Preparatory phase to interviews (a.o. identifying interview population, choice of appropriate type of interview; one-person interview or focus group; preparation of interview grid; choice of language);
• Techniques of interviewing (the “art” of questioning; recording; taking; choice of language);
• Use of interview data for presentation and publications (a.o. analysis of interview content, transcription or not; quoting interviews; coding).

Short lectures with dialogues, exercises in conducting, coding and analyzing semi-structured interviews, student presentations and discussions.

Day 1
10.30: Introduction of the course and its participant
11.00-11:45: Introducing culture and language as a particular attention point for the course (Lecture + discussion)
11.45-12.30: Typologies of interviews and semi-structured interviews (Lecture + discussion)
12.30-13.30: Lunch
13.30-14.45: Pre- and post-interview phases: 1) planning and preparing – 2) Presenting rich data, research findings and publishing (Lecture + discussion)
15.00-17.00: Student presentations and discussions

Day 2
9.00-11.00: Hands-on conducting semi-structured interviews (Lecture + discussions)
11.15-12.00: Exercises – preparing interview grid in groups
12.00-13.00: Lunch
13.00- 14.30: Exercises - Conducting interviews
14.30-17.00: Listening, watching, and discussion interview examples

Day 3
9.00-10.30: Hands-on analysing interviews (Lecture + discussion)
10.45 – 12.00: Exercises: Coding manually (selected examples from students’ interview + or other examples).
12.00-13.00: Lunch
13.00- 14.30: Exercises: Coding with soft-ware (selected examples from students’ interview + or other examples).
14.30-15.30: Summing up on the course

Upon completion of the course, students:

• will have a good understanding of semi-structured interviews in relation to other types of qualitative interviews;
• will have acquired good insight into potentialities and challenges when using semi-structured interviews in research on international and/or cross-cultural settings;
• will have improved their practice of conducting, coding and analyzing semi-structured interviews as well as presenting research drawing on such interviews;
• will be capable of integrating acquired insight into their own PhD Projects.

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Bente S. Ramovic bsr.research@cbs.dk