Interviews

Interviews were open and semi-structured. With an interpretive research approach it is common that interviews are unstructured, in order to allow the interviewee to openly describe how he or she experiences a situation (Silverman, 1993.)

The first question in each interview, was normally: “How do you experience the current situation at PA/RRV/RiR?”. The aim with this question, was to let interviewees explain in their own words what issues were on the agenda currently, while attempting not to influence their responses. Interviewees were asked how they felt about each of the three aspects: career, communication, and culture, at the current stage of the merger process – and sometimes also about these aspects in previous stages of the process, to provide perspective. Other questions were asked too, as interviews were of an open character. One of these concerned future expectations.

In connection to culture, leadership was mentioned, in accordance with Schein’s (1985) argument that these are closely intertwined.

Communication was divided into two parts: Information and feedback/influence. This aimed to avoid the lack of attention to the latter dimension in the M&A theory concerning communication.

Apart from this, issues of formal organization were discussed, and so was the relationship between RRV and PA. As conflicts started to arise between management and personnel, this aspect was added to the interview guide. Finally, contextual factors were discussed, in order to understand the impact of the specific context of the merger on events and resistance in the merger process. To sum up, seven areas were covered in most interviews:

• Organization

• Culture and leadership

• Information and influence (communication)

• Employment and career

• Relationship RRV/PA

• Relationship management/personnel

• Context

Most interviews lasted for 1-2 hours. If they were short or spontaneous, they were normally categorized as conversations, and not included in the list of interviews. A number of (usually informal, sometimes spontaneous) conversations took place, sometimes over the phone, but more commonly during my presence at seminars or information meetings.

Most interviews were conducted at RRV/PA/RiR, but some took place over the phone or at other venues. Generally, they were recorded on minidiscs. On some occasions, the recorder did not capture the interview and notes were too fragmented, and then the interview was erased from the reference list. Some employees were interviewed a number of times, to see changes in attitudes over time. In total, 92 interviews were conducted.

Some information on how (and why) interviews were spread over time and regarding to sex, profession/position, and organization, is provided in the following.

Phases. In the pre-merger phase, 31 interviews were conducted, and in the post-merger phase, 61 interviews were conducted. Moreover, a longer period of the post-merger phase than the pre-merger phase, was covered.

Sex. In total, 52 women and 40 men were interviewed. A reason for the higher portion of women is that many of the key people in the merger process were female.

Profession/position. In total, 41 interviews with performance auditors (Swedish: Utredare inom effektivitetsrevision) were conducted, 2 interviews with other non-managerial employees, 10 interviews with managers within performance audit (most of these in charge of a department), 20 interviews with other (middle) managers, 15 interviews with management (Director-General, Auditor-General or member of NAC)⁸, and 4 interviews with external parties. These

8 There was no time to interview the three Auditors-Generals during the pre-merger phase, unfortunately. From 10 Dec. 2002, they were busy terminating their previous assignments (employments). After they had taken on their duties at full time, from April 2003, the most hectic period in the merger process followed and there was little time for interviews. However, they have been

external parties were a former NAC (the National Audit Committee) member, a (central) union representative, a representative at ESV (following an event in the merger process, of which this organization was a part), and the Secretary-General of Parliament.

Organization. In total, 41 employees from RRV have been interviewed, and 26 employees from PA. The remaining 25 people either worked at RiR and had a background external to RRV and PA, or were positioned at another organization at the time of interview.

A reason why more interviews were conducted with RRV personnel than with PA personnel was that RRV was a much larger organization.

Relative to size, more PA employees were interviewed, but given the initial intention by NAC/Parliament to allow PA and RRV equal influence in the merger process, for political reasons, this relative number was not of great importance. The aim was to allow employees at both RRV and PA to share their opinions and reflections on the merger process in these interviews, in order to understand their perspectives.

Many interviewees have been anxious that management would find out what they had said, and emphasized the importance of anonymity.

Code names were therefore assigned to all interviewees. However, in cases where the positions of these people has been central, I have not been able to offer full anonymity despite of these code names (code names for these people can rather easily be decoded, based on the central position that they held in the process).

As a way to secure anonymity, some statements have been included in a more general description, without reference to the specific interviewee.

Because the department managers, especially those at PA, were rather few, these will sometimes be called auditors in Chapter 4, again out of respect for anonymity requests.

When describing the purpose of the study in interviews, I have usually talked about the three aspects of culture, communication, and career, rather than resistance. A reason for this was that I wanted to widen

interviewed a number of times during the post-merger phase, and merger preparations have also been discussed on these occasions.

perspectives, and motivate interviewees to move freely between those areas they themselves considered relevant.