JRP Submission for Review (ID#132)
Submitted on April 28, 2008

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TITLE: Conducting Active Research Amongst Close Friends, Relatives,
and Neighbours: Some Lessons From the Field of Corporate and
Entrepreneurial Narrative

ABSTRACT: Interest in entrepreneurial and corporate narrative is
growing. Therefore, as researchers begin to use narrative as a
research tool, it behooves us to begin a discussion of the role the
researcher plays in developing the shared knowledge uncovered in
narrative and in particular in settings where the research is
conducted by active researchers in social settings where the
respondents are close friends, neighbours and relatives. This paper
examines the research journeys of the authors in facilitating and
re-narrating narratives, describing the role the first author played
in the creation of corporate narrative in a three year old service
company in the natural gas industry and the research story of the
second author in conducting informal research. In particular it
concentrates upon how the research process was aided by personal
nature of the contact. The authors conclude that the primary role of
the researcher in field study is to act as a sounding board for the
interviewed and to perform the role of mediator drawing societal
meaning out of the narrative. Nevertheless, it is the research process
which interests us here and in particular how researcher-respondent
interaction is influenced by close relationships.

EXCERPTS:

Although much has been written in relation to research methodologies
for in-depth interviews, observational studies, covert research, and
auto-ethnographic research little has been written about conducting
close research in social settings involving close friends, neighbours
and relatives. . . .

"What is considered a vice in science--openness to competing
interpretations--is a virtue in narrative."

In conducting narrative based research the authors independently
combined both the action and ethnographic research styles discussed
above and both arrived at their appreciation of these approaches
independently of each other. This extension of the literature review
points to a gap in the literature in that research methodologists have
little to say about researching close friends or relatives making this
subject deserving of scholarly attention. However, as we have already
stipulated, this necessitates developing liberating methodologies. . . .

A further example of informal research techniques is provided by . . .
who describe a similar informal research style whereby they used
corroborated "interactional interviewing" techniques during lengthy
research conversions with respondents which last several hours. This
technique differs from normal in-depth interviews in which the
respondent is asked a series of predrafted questions, the answers to
which are recorded. In this research scenario, one of the authors knew
the respondents and trust had been established. The interview was
recorded in note form by one of the researchers and reconstructed as a
research narrative. The technique is phenomenal in unearthing huge
quantities of rich "thick descriptive" . . . data and the interviewers
have the benefit of being able to begin to analyse the data and ask
directed questions, the nuances of which may have otherwise gone
unnoticed.
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Reviewers familiar with these issues may kindly respond.

Yours sincerely,

DP
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