Interest‐Talk as Access‐Talk: How Interests are Displayed, Made and Down‐played in Management Research
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12021 |
| Author | Frank Mueller,Alan Gilchrist,Peter Lenney,Andrea Whittle |
| Date | 01 July 2014 |
| Published date | 01 July 2014 |
Methodology Corner
Interest-Talk as Access-Talk: How
Interests are Displayed, Made and
Down-played in Management Research*
Andrea Whittle, Frank Mueller, Peter Lenney1and Alan Gilchrist1
Newcastle University Business School, 5 Barrack Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4SE, UK, and
1Department of Marketing, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK
Corresponding author email: andrea.whittle@ncl.ac.uk
This paper addresses the methodological issue of how researchers gain access and build
trust in order to conduct research in organizations. It focuses, in particular, on the role
of interests (what actors want or what they stand to gain or lose) in the research
relationship. The analysis shows how notions of interests, stake and motive were
managed during an action research study in a UK subsidiary of a multinational corpo-
ration. The study uses an approach to discourse analysis inspired by the field of discursive
psychology to identify four discursive devices: stake inoculation; stake confession; stake
attribution; and stake construction. The paper contributes to the understanding of
research methodology by identifying the importance of interest-talk in the process of
doing management research.
Introduction
This paper examines how researchers gain access
and build trust in order to conduct research in
organizations. We focus in particular on the role
of ‘interests’. By ‘interests’ we mean the more or
less stable and more or less shared understanding
that the researcher and participants have about
what they want, what stake they have in a par-
ticular situation, what agenda they might (or
should) have, and what they stand to (potentially)
gain or lose from a particular course of action.
For example, a researcher might ‘inoculate’
against (by denying or downplaying) the idea that
they have a certain stake by stating ‘Don’t worry,
I am not a spy sent here by your competitor to
steal industry secrets!’ (‘stake inoculation’; see
Table 1). A researcher might also confess a par-
ticular stake by stating what they seek to gain,
such as: ‘I need to gather this information for my
PhD’ (‘stake confession’; see Table 1).
Interests are rarely discussed in the research
methods literature, perhaps because it is a some-
what ‘dirty word’: the instrumental concern with
‘what’s in it for me/us’. This omission is a
problem, in our view, because research – particu-
larly (although not exclusively) in commercial
organizations – fundamentally depends upon con-
vincing subjects that participating will either
further their interests or, at the very least, not
damage them. An individual’s reputation and
career might be furthered or damaged by cooper-
ating with an outside researcher. In addition,
social groups (such as particular departments or
project groups) also have resource implications,
power bases and political battles to consider.
The authors would like to thank the company for pro-
viding the generous access and assistance in this study,
and also the Economic and Social Research Council for
their funding of the research upon which this paper is
based.
*A free Teaching and Learning Guide to accompany this
article is available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-8551/homepage/teaching
___learning_guides.htm.
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British Journal of Management, Vol. 25, 607–628 (2014)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12021
© 2013 The Author(s)
British Journal of Management © 2013 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
Table 1. Discursive devices for handling interest
Discursive
device
Definition Referent Relevant examples Relevance to research
methodology
Stake
inoculation
The discursive process
through which people
deny, or downplay,the
notion that they have a
stake, interest or motive in
a particular argument or
course of action (Potter,
1996, p. 10).
Like ‘inoculation’ against
diseases through
immunization, people
also ‘inoculate’ against
the actual (or potential)
accusation that they have
a stake, interest or
motive.
Self Whittle, Mueller and Mangan (2008) – stake
inoculation by change agents implying they have
nothing to personally gain: ‘We’re just delivering
this’.
Wooffitt (2000) – presenting something as
counter-dispositional as common device for
stake inoculation e.g. telling ghost stories:
‘I’ve always been a sceptic . . .’ Counter-
dispositional device renders the account factual
and truthful by presenting the speaker as
someone who had either an ‘absence of
interest’ or ‘opposing interests’, implying they
have no ‘axe to grind’, no interest in getting
media attention, no history of ‘crying wolf’
(fabricating stories), no ‘agenda’ to ‘convert’
others to believing in the supernatural.
By denying or downplaying a stake using
stake inoculation, a researcher can
present themselves as more neutral,
objective, unbiased and without
pre-existing organizational allegiances.
Can also be used to avoid accusation
of having a vested interest: profiteering,
snooping, being a management spy.
Stake
confession
The discursive process
through which people
admit or ‘confess to’
having a particular stake,
interest or motive (Potter,
1996, p. 130).
Self A dispositional statement could be used as stake
confession: Edwards (1997, pp. 122–123) shows
how a celebrity who endorses a product on a
television advert claims that his preference
pre-dates any financial interest, i.e. payment for
the TV commercial (i.e. ‘I liked the product even
before I was asked to advertise for it’).
Rather than providing ‘ammunition’ (Potter
1996, p. 130) to one’s critics, stake confession
works by ‘disarming’ them by removing their
‘target’. Stake cannot be invoked to undermine
a person or position, because it has already
been accounted for.
Presents the speaker as someone who can put
their own personal agenda to one side,
someone whose belief is heartfelt and genuine.
Helps reassurance of others and builds trust by
providing legitimate vocabularies of motive
(Mills, 1940) for a person’s conduct.
When a researcher confesses a stake –
wanting to gather data for a PhD
thesis, for instance – participants
may be reassured that the researcher
is not a ‘management spy’ or there to
steal industry secrets for a competitor.
In cases where a potential stake is
thought to be so ‘obvious’ or ‘relevant’
that stake inoculation is deemed
counter-productive,
confessing stake can act to make
an argument appear more balanced,
honest, genuine or heartfelt. For
example, in cases where ‘altruism’
would be doubted as a motive,
confessing another motive (e.g.
financial gain) could assist with
negotiating access.
Stake
attribution
The discursive process of
ascribing (illegitimate)
interests, stake and motive
to other individuals or
groups.
Attributed interests are
typically characterized
as illegitimate in some
way – that is, deemed
unacceptable according
to some socially defined
standard, norm or ideal.
Other Potter (1996, p. 125) – When the controversial
author of the book Satanic Verses, Salman
Rushdie, was interviewed by journalist David
Frost, he was asked what he thougoht of the
claim that the fatwa (so-called ‘religious death
sentence’) against him could not be cancelled by
the religious community that imposed it. Rushdie
replies: ‘Yeah, but you know, they would
wouldn’t they . ..’. Rushdie thereby characterizes
the claim as something that is an outcome of an
ulterior motive or vested interest. The religious
community who imposed the fatwa are presented
as having some kind of stake (i.e. something to
gain or lose) in claiming it cannot be revoked.
In organizational contexts, actors can be
accused, explicitly or implicitly, of having
a ‘turf’ to protect, having personal or
professional allegiances that skew their
judgement, having an ulterior motive to
promote their own ‘career’ or ‘reputation’, or
trying to maximize the amount of resources or
power of their department.
Stake attribution enables the researcher to
undermine other positions (such as
arguments against giving access) by
presenting them as motivated by some
kind of stake or vested interest. For
example, arguments against giving
access could be undermined by
suggested the actor in question has
‘something to hide’.
Stake
construction
The discursive process
through which an
understanding is built
about what (legitimate)
interest, stake and motive
an individual or group has,
or should have.
Other Whittle, Suhomlinova and Mueller (2010) – study
of organizational change agents showed how the
proposed change was ‘translated’ to encourage
its recipients to think it would benefit them
individually and collectively – making their
jobs ‘easier’. The change agents used stake
construction to encourage the recipients to see
the change as ‘in their best interests’ (p. 17).
Negotiating access to organizations relies
upon skills of persuasion – what
Harrington (2003, p. 595) calls
‘informed improvisation’ – to convince
participants that the research is ‘in their
interests’. This involves using discourse
to frame what others do want (making
sense of what might benefit them) or
should want (giving sense to what
would benefit them). These interests are
typically characterized as legitimate –
that is, deemed acceptable, such as
‘wanting to improve the way the
organization is managed’.
608 A. Whittle et al.
© 2013 The Author(s)
British Journal of Management © 2013 British Academy of Management.
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