Doing qualitative research in Chinese contexts. Lessons learned from conducting interviews in a Chinese healthcare environment
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-11-2012-0104 |
| Published date | 02 September 2013 |
| Date | 02 September 2013 |
| Pages | 419-434 |
| Author | Lihong Zhou,Miguel Baptista Nunes |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology |
Doing qualitative research in
Chinese contexts
Lessons learned from conducting interviews in
a Chinese healthcare environment
Lihong Zhou
Department of Library Science, School of Information Management,
Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, and
Miguel Baptista Nunes
Information School, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the process of doing qualitative
inductive research in China, drawing its conclusions from a grounded theory study. To be more
specific, this paper reflects on the process of approaching interviewees, guaranteeing their
participation, conducting the interviews and encouraging responses in the context of Chinese culture.
Design/methodology/approach – The discussion in the paper uses Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
as a tool in the interpretation and understanding of both the behaviour and the preconceptions of the
interview participants involved in a research project focused on exploring and explaining barriers and
enablers to knowledge sharing between traditional and Western healthcare professionals in China.
The context for the study was a public hospital in the province of Hubei in Central China. A total of 49
semi-structured interviews were carried out and analysed.
Findings – Despite the grounded theory methodology being applicable in different cultural contexts,
the culture itself may present challenges and barriers at both the data collection and analysis stages.
These cultural problems may hinder interaction with informants, misunderstanding of responses and
behaviours, and thus significantly impair the research validity and reliability.
Practical implications – The paper provides advice and recommendations to researchers aiming at
doing this type of study in China.
Originality/value – The paper is of interest to inductive researchers, in particular those using
grounded theory, as it describes and discusses the actual application of the methodology in a
non-Western context. The paper is also of interest to any researchers intending to undertake
participative research in China.
Keywords Chinese culture,Grounded theory, Healthcare environment, Qualitativemethods,
Semi-structuredinterview, Knowledge sharing,China
Paper type Viewpoint
1. Introduction
China as an emergent economic power has seen a very rapid growth in both industrial
production and social development. This has captured substantial interest from both
Western and Chinese researchers (Peng and Nunes, 2008). Economists and
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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This paper is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project
No. 71203165) and the Wuhan University Small Research Grant (Project No. 2012GSP076).
Qualitative
research in
Chinese contexts
419
Received 13 November 2012
Revised 5 March 2013
3 April 2013
Accepted 11 April 2013
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 31 No. 3, 2013
pp. 419-434
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/LHT-11-2012-0104
management scholars in particular find the evolving environment a fascinating test
bed for old theories and a good source of new ones (Roy et al., 2001). Economists
(e.g. Perkins, 1997) are mostly interested in exploring and identifying the nature of
China’s economic transition and the reasons behind China’s continued rapid economic
growth. On the other hand, management researchers are interested in the
organisational behaviour, culture, competitiveness and operation of modern Chinese
firms (e.g. Lee, 1997). However, all these organisational issues have to be explored and
studied within the unique Chinese context that affects the way people behave, interact
and do business there (Graham and Lam, 2004).
This very different Chinese context poses fundamental research issues and
difficulties which may not be experienced and reported in the West and which arise
mostly when researchers conduct participative social science research in China (Peng
and Nunes, 2008). For example, Manion (1994) reports that “sampling is not the only
serious obstacle to survey research in the PRC [People’s Republic of China], many other
problems (e.g. gaining respondents’ trust, getting earnest responses) greatly challenge
the ingenuity of social scientists in adapting standard methods to distinctly
non-standard conditions [in China]”. These issues of access to informants, willingness
to discuss organisational issues openly, trustworthiness of the responses and,
consequently, credibility of the findings become critical in inductive studies conducted
in China. Failure to address these very carefully may lead to either a complete failure of
the research project or non-significant and non-transferable flawed research findings
(Peng and Nunes, 2008).
This led Roy et al. (2001) to point out that research strategies, approaches and
methodologies developed in the West may often “not be applicable or viable when
studying many managerial and other issues in China”. Practical experiences of a
number of other researchers (e.g. Gamble, 2003; Alon, 2006) reinforce this view by
admitting that it may be extremely difficult to conduct successful participatory
research in China and to generate meaningful findings by using routine research
methods developed in the West. In order to devise an appropriate research design to
increase the likelihood of project success, Roy et al. (2001) conclude that “it is necessary
for scholars [who engaged in research in China] to make every effort to anticipate likely
problems” at the initial stage of their research and to adapt methods of informant
selection and data collection to the Chinese cultural context.
This paper aims at describing and discussing a set of adaptations that were made to
a standard Grounded Theory (GT) research design, namely in what concerned getting
access to informants, gaining their trust and guaranteeing that their responses could
shed light on the phenomenon being studied. The study itself aimed at exploring and
explaining barriers and enablers in knowledge sharing between Traditional and
Western healthcare professionals in Chinese healthcare organisations. Interviews were
selected as the main data collection process, due to their effectiveness in helping
inductive researchers to gather valid and reliable data (Saunders et al., 2007). However,
the Chinese context in which these interviews were conducted created a number of
problems and difficulties that are reported and discussed in this paper. A number of
mitigation strategies were adopted that resulted not only in a successful data collection
process but also in some added side effects that had to be addressed in the analysis
process. The paper uses Hofstede’s cultural dimensions as a lens to interpret and
understand both the behaviour and the preconceptions of the participants. It is hoped
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