Methodology

This chapter of the dissertation is concerned with the approaches to methodology used in this research and the process leading to the selection of these methodological approaches. The study is designed to answer this research question:

The main research question is:

“What role does the current Czech President Miloš Zeman play in the economic diplomacy of the Czech Republic and does he have a positive or negative impact (if any) on Czech foreign business relations?”

To answer the research question, the following aims and partial questions need to be covered:

Aim 1: To analyse what significance Miloš Zeman attached to economic diplomacy in his first term of office.

What economic and foreign policy issues did Zeman discuss in the international environment? Which countries did he visit during the first term in the office and which statesmen visited the Czech Republic?

Aim 2: To discover whether his activities can be connected to any changes in international business activities of the Czech Republic.

Could some of Zeman’s activities have infused new foreign direct investments in the Czech Republic? Is there any possible connection between his presidency and structure and balance of Czech trade?

Aim 3: To examine whether the public is concerned about the impact of the Czech President Miloš Zeman on Czech economic diplomacy.

Has the President contributed to clear foreign policy and a positive image of the Czech Republic? Semi-structured interviews on the public opinion on the President in context of the presentation of the Czech Republic abroad.

This chapter is divided into five sections. To begin with, the philosophical framework for the research will be presented; followed by the ‘Research Design’ chapter explaining the differences between quantitative and qualitative research, introducing possible research purposes and choosing the best research strategy; then data collection will be discussed;

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following that an overview of the research ethics will be given; and finally, the last step will be the selection of suitable method of data analysis.

3.1. Research Philosophy

The philosophical framework underpins the research as it deals with the source, nature and development of knowledge, on which the whole research process is based (Bajpai, 2011).

The frameworks differ mainly in the assumptions about the nature of reality (ontology) and in the view regarding what constitutes acceptable knowledge (epistemology). In business research, four main philosophies have been developed – pragmatism, positivism, realism and interpretivism (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2016). In the table below, each of them is described from both ontological and epistemological point of view.

PRAGMATISM POSITIVISM REALISM INTERPRETIVISM

ONTOLOGY based on the

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In business research, interpretivism is used the most. It is an approach used to studying people, emphasising the fact that humans are different from physical phenomena. While objectivism operates with reality as external to people therefore independent of how individuals think of it, interpretivism is explicitly subjectivist, which means that the philosophy believes that the reality is made from perceptions and consequent actions of social actors. Subjectivism believes in the individual's ability to influence events and explores the way the individual looks at the world, as that is decisive for the events (Saunders et al., 2016). As a result, it is evident that interpretivism was the philosophy used in this research, since the aim of this research is not objectification, but the research seeks to grasp the subject of study in its uniqueness and focuses on a subjective description of the situation, hence, it tries to understand the clearly defined and bounded phenomenon in the context in which it is embedded. Interpretivism emphasises the importance of language, culture and history and seeks to understand the world from the point of view of the social actors involved by adopting an empathetic stance. In addition, from the point of view of research paradigms, as developed by Burrell and Morgan (2005), the research was undertaken within the radical humanist paradigm, which is concerned with the consequences that words and deeds of an individual have upon others and does so from a subjectivist ontology. Again, it emphasises the importance of language and context.

Before moving to discussion about methodology, an essential aspect in the theoretical perspective of the research which also needs to be mentioned is reasoning. Reasoning is the action of constructing thoughts into a valid argument and can take two forms – deductive and inductive. Deductive reasoning has its origins in the natural sciences and occurs when moving from the more general to the more specific. It uses available information or premises to arrive at a conclusion. It is usually associated with quantitative data. Induction, on the other hand, is exactly opposite to deduction. Inductive reasoning works moving from specific observations to broader generalisations, therefore offers a better understanding of the way in which humans interpret their social world. It is more likely to work with qualitative data (Saunders et al., 2016).

3.2. Research Design

There are two standard ways of conducting research – quantitative and qualitative. In the most simplified words, the fundamental distinction between quantitative and qualitative

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research is that quantitative research uses numeric data, while qualitative research is based on the use of non-numeric data. However, this distinction is too narrow, because in reality, both quantitative and qualitative elements are often used in a research design. Consequently, Saunders et al. (2016) see the quantitative and qualitative research as two ends of a continuum, which are often mixed. Nevertheless, both these paths that can be taken in conducting research will now be briefly characterized:

Quantitative research examines relationships between numerically measured variables and analyses them using statistical and graphical tools and techniques. The aim is to generalize the results by uncovering patterns and establish laws of behaviour (Saunders et al., 2016).

Methods used to obtain quantitative data are e.g. experiments, controlled observations or questionnaires (rating scale or closed questions). The main advantage of quantitative research is its scientific objectivity. Not surprisingly, the two major research strategies linked to quantitative research design are experiment and survey (Surbhi, 2016).

Qualitative research is often associated with interpretivism, as it needs to interpret the subjective meanings people bring to phenomena. The aim of qualitative research is understanding the reality of social actors as nearly as possible to how they feel about it.

Qualitative research operates within a natural setting or research context and uses variety of data collection techniques and analytical procedures in order to get a deep insight into the investigated phenomenon (McLeod, 2017; Saunders et al., 2016). Typical is also the usage of non-probability sampling techniques, in contrast with quantitative research, which is likely to use probability sampling techniques. Principal research strategies connected with qualitative research are ethnography, case study, action research, Grounded Theory or narrative research (Surbhi, 2016).

Research can be designed to fulfil one of the four following purposes or a combination of them. Saunders et al. (2016) introduces these possible purposes:

Exploratory – asking open questions in order to discover a phenomenon or to acquire a better insight into it. Often an initial groundwork for future studies as it has two main forms – it can explore a new topic or a new angle.

Descriptive – providing addition information about a topic, expand understanding and gain an accurate profile. It can follow up on an exploratory research or forerun an explanatory research and usually requires a lot of data.

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Explanatory – establishing and explaining causal relationships between variables, the main question is ‘Why’.

Evaluative – assessing performance and effectiveness, uncovering how well something works. In business, usually evaluating e.g. a business strategy, policy, or service in terms of implementation, impact, outcome, finance, etc.

The research undertaken in this study uses a evaluative, mixed qualitative approach. As a research strategy, a case study was selected. Saunders et al. (2016, p. 177) define research strategy as “a plan of how a researcher will go about answering her or his research question”.

The research question this research wished to answer asks the role of the Czech president in the economic diplomacy of the Czech Republic, therefore the ‘case’ in the case study strategy is the Czech president as an actor of economic dimension of the Czech foreign policy, specifically the current president Miloš Zeman in his first term of office from March 8, 2013 to March 8, 2018. The investigated phenomenon thus meets the thematic and time limits. Moreover, case study, as an in-depth investigation examining the data within a specific context, offers possibility to go beyond quantitative statistical results and better explanations of social and behavioural problems in question. Yin (2014, p. 16) defines the case study research method as

“an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context;

when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used.” The essence of a case study is that it tries to illuminate a decision or a set of decisions, why they were taken, how they were implemented and with what results. The emphasis on the context is a crucial advantage of a case study, in contrast with e.g. an experiment, which isolates the phenomenon from its context and focuses only on a limited number of variables (Yin, 2014). The sources of evidence used in this research will be discussed in the next section, the limits of using this research strategy and the limitations of the whole research to which the definition also refers will be discussed in the Research Quality and Ethics section.

3.3. Data Collection

There are different methods used to gather information in research, which can be divided into two groups – primary and secondary data. While primary data are new data obtained by the researcher specifically for the purpose of the study, secondary data are both raw data and published summaries produced by others which were initially collected for some other purpose (Surbhi, 2016). Primary data are therefore always accurate and specific to the needs of

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researcher. From the perspective of the time horizon, primary data are real-time data, whereas secondary data are data collected previously in the past. However, although it may so far seem that primary data are better and there is no point in using secondary data, it is not necessarily true. The main advantage of secondary data is that they may have a much larger range, because an independent researcher does not have the sources to collect detailed large data sets by himself, while governments and organisations do. They analyse large volumes of data and publish official statistics and reports, which can be as reliable as primary data collected by a researcher, so it is possible to answer a research question by using only secondary data (Saunders et al., 2016). This research uses both primary and secondary data. Primary data were obtained by conducting semi-structured interviews with a sample of Czech citizens. Semi-structured interviews give participants the freedom to express their views in their own terms, while the topics and questions that need to be covered are clear, because the interviewer develops and follows an ‘interview guide’ (Cohen & Crabtree, 2008). The guide for this research, in order to achieve Aim 3, consists of twenty open questions on the representation of the Czech Republic abroad and the personality of Miloš Zeman. The questions were developed to include themes discussed in the Literature review and in the analysis of Aims 1 and 2. The questions are:

1) How do you perceive the presentation of the Czech Republic abroad?

2) Do you consider the Czech foreign policy clear and coordinated?

3) What would you say that the Czech representatives do right and what they should improve?

4) What should be the role of president in the representation and does Miloš Zeman meet your idea of the role?

5) Do you ever come across foreing reporting? Do you remember catching any news about Miloš Zeman in foreign newspapers?

6) (If yes), do you remember how the President was presented? How did you feel about it?

7) What states do you think are the most important business partners of the Czech Republic?

8) Do you consider Russia and China important business partners of the Czech Republic?

9) Do you think that the different opinion of German and Czech representatives on the migration crisis could have disrupted relations between the two countries?

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10) Can you say if you voted for Miloš Zeman in the presidential elections in January 2013 and 2018 and why? If not, who did you vote and why?

11) Are you satisfied with Miloš Zeman’s role in domestic policy?

12) In your opinion, does the President act adequately within his powers, in accordance with the Constitution?

13) Would you describe Zeman as a pro-European president?

14) What do you think Miloš Zeman wants to achieve in economic diplomacy, what is his vision?

15) Would you say that Zeman has an actual impact on foreign economic relations of the Czech Republic and would you describe this impact as positive or negative?

16) Have you ever felt proud or embarrassed of him as a Czech representative? (If yes), do you remember what caused this feeling?

17) What do you think about his relationship to Russia and China? Do you consider his close relations with these states beneficial for the Czech Republic and in what way?

18) In his speeches in international institutions, Zeman often focuses on criticism of sanctions against Russia, do you agree with his stance towards Crimea, the sanctions?

19) In a meeting with Russian president Putin in May 2017 Zeman joked that there are too many journalists and that they should be liquidated. How do you feel about this joke?

20) Would you like to mention something else?

Secondary data used in this research come primarily from the official website of Miloš Zeman, particularly transcripts of speeches and interviews given by the President. The criterion for selection particular speeches is that they must have been delivered before more than one other statesman. The development of the volume of mutual trade with individual states and foreign investments is monitored on the basis of data from the Czech Statistical Office, the Czech National Bank and other official institutions.

3.4. Research Quality and Ethics

In this chapter an overview of research limitations will be given, followed by discussion of reliability, validity and ethics of the research. It is fundamental to describe the limitations of the research, so the relevance and impact of the research results can be properly evaluated. The major limitation of this study is that in order to be able to analyse the role of the Czech president in such a wide context as the economic diplomacy of a state is, there had to be a certain reduction

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in reality. It is not possible to say with certainty that e.g. the President’s visit to a particular country, even if followed by an increase in the Czech Republic's trade with the country, was the direct cause of this increase in the volume of trade. Rather, it was only part of a set of foreign policy activities that as a whole contributed to the development of trade and most likely followed a previous impulse for the development of relations with the country concerned. This is directly related to another limitation of the research: an insufficiently demonstrable causal mechanism. Causal mechanism is a sequence of events, conditions, and processes linking the independent and dependent variable, that includes physical, social or psychological processes, some of which cannot be observed, or cannot be observed within this study (Little, 2008).

However, it is possible to derive and hypothetically assume on the basis of data obtained by observation, while with the amount of available data and relevant analysis of these data, the research is reliable and valid.

Reliability of a research refers to its replication and consistency. Basically, it says that if the research was repeated, same findings would be achieved. Reliability is a logical condition of validity. Validity means the credibility (believability) of the research. That is achieved by appropriateness of the measures used and accuracy of analysis (Saunders et al., 2016).

Ethics refer to the standards of behaviour. The research design should not subject those who are researched to the risk of embarrassment, pain, harm or any material disadvantage. It is important to follow ethical principles because it protects those who are studied, the researcher, other researchers and the whole society (Dohnalová, 2011). No data should be published which would allow the reader to identify the participants in the research. In this research, this could apply to the interviewees of the semi-structured interviews. For this reason, in the research, no specific information about the interviewees is given and their background is described only in general and does not include their name, their specific address, nor the names of the companies they work for. All four of them agreed to participate in the research. The researcher accepts responsibility for the accuracy and objectivity of the research.

3.5. Data Analysis

Data analysis is the process leading from description of data to interpretation of them.

Depending on what level of interpretation the researcher seeks, there are many different qualitative approaches to choose from. For a low level of interpretation, a content analysis or thematic analysis is suitable (Vaismoradi, Turunen & Bondas, 2013). These approaches

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examine narrative data by breaking the text into small units of content, thus they are suitable for analysing both speeches and interviews that are studied in this research.

Thematic analysis is the fundamental approach to qualitative data analysis. In thematic analysis, data sources are analysed for principal themes, that occur across the data set. These themes are developed by the researcher and enable the data to be reduced to key ideas (Mojtaba, Hannele & Terese, 2013).

Content analysis is a systematic coding and categorizing approach with the purpose to analyse the data quantitatively by counting frequencies and examining relationship between variables (Saunders et al., 2016).

For this research, thematic analysis is more appropriate as Aim 1 mainly seeks to identify most discussed themes for further exploration and to accomplish Aim 3, the analysis will be used for both identifying new key themes as well as looking for the themes from Aim 1. To summarize, the study applies mixed qualitative approach, using thematic analysis.

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