Our Group Plan for a Qualitative Research Study

1
Our Group Plan for a Qualitative Research Study

• by John W. Creswell, Ph.D. and Vicki L. Plano
  Clark, M.S.
• University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• jcreswell1_at_unl.edu vpc_at_unlserve.unl.edu
• and Workshop Participants
• Andrews University, July, 2004

2
Title

• The adventure of leadership
• Leading team leaders
• The CEO as change agent in the university setting
• Setting sail on leadership
• The stressors of women in leadership
• How women leaders cope in the corporate
  environment A multiple qualitative case study
• Environmental concerns of nanotechnology
• Developing leadership awareness in qualitative
  research
• Leadership journey

3
Topic

• The topic for this study will be coping of women
  leaders in the corporate environment.

4
The Research Problem

• This study needs to be conducted because there
  are not many women in top leadership roles
  (Catalyst, 1998). There is an extensive drop out
  rate (NYTimes, 2004). There is a lack of mentors
  for women in corporate leadership roles (ref).

5
Purpose Statement

• The purpose of this qualitative study (replace
  later with type of qualitative tradition) will be
  to explore the coping strategies of six senior
  executive women in leadership positions (CEO,
  CFO, CNO) in Fortune 500 companies.

6
Central Research Question

• How do these women leaders cope?
• What coping strategies do these women leaders
  use?

7
Sub-questions

• How do they cope using a balance between family
  and work?
• Relationship with others
• How do they use exercise to cope?
• Coping strategies related to length of time in
  role
• Family
• Support groups

8
ProceduresTradition to be Used

• This study will use the multiple case study
  tradition (Stake, 1995). It was selected because
  it will give us an in-depth perspective on six
  women leaders in the corporate environment.

9
Revised Purpose Statement(with tradition in mind)

• The purpose of this qualitative multiple case
  study will be to explore the coping strategies of
  six senior executive women in leadership
  positions (CEO, CFO, CNO) in Fortune 500
  companies.

10
Data Collection

• Site Six Fortune 500 corporations
• Participants Six women in leadership roles (CEO)
• Sample selection Purposefully select using
  maximum variational sampling based upon working
  in different types of corporations
• Access and permissions From the organization,
  IRB approval for study, permission from the six
  participants
• Type of data Interviews, observations,
  audiovisuals
• Data collection forms Face to face interviews
  with participants and coworkers Observe board
  meetings Picture of office Email times of
  difficult situations describing how reacted
  Participants take digital pictures of situations
  where they need to cope

11
Data Analysis

• Organizing the data into a qualitative data base.
  All interviews and documents are transcribed and
  entered into qualitative data analysis software
  such as N6.
• Reading through the data to become familiar and
  memoing initial ideas.
• Coding the data by assigning codes to text
  segments
• Developing themes from the codes and developing
  description of each of the cases
• Interrelating the themes using a multiple case
  analysis resulting in cross case themes (Stake,
  1995 Yin, 2003)

12
Presenting the Findings

• Discussing the findings, reflecting on what was
  learned
• Use of figures and tables. Use table to show
  cross case comparisons.

13
Validity

• Member checking
• Take description of themes back to the
  participants and have them react to the findings.
  Incorporate their reactions as data into an
  ongoing analysis.
• Use multiple data types and triangulate the
  findings from the different sources.
• Have a colleague from Andrews do a peer review of
  the studys process.

14
Interpretation (discussion)

• Overall summary
• Personal views
• Comparisons with literature
• Limitations
• Future research
• Implications for practice