The interviews are meant to be the objective evidence that the chosen method (questionnaires) is fit for its intended use. The interview can reveal whether there is inconsistency between the questionnaire’s content and the perception of the respondents.
The interviews are based on the questionnaires, they are semi-structured, the predefined questions come from the questionnaires. The interviewee has freedom to express her/his perceptions related to the domain and how she/he interprets the questions, the interviewer avoids advice-giving, getting involved, and being suggestive.
However, the participation rate in filling the questionnaires was lower than the expectation, organizing the interviews happened without obstacles, the first pool covered five people, and everybody showed intention to participate immediately. Two interviewees were selected from the volunteering group of the questionnaire-fillers.
In order to have a simple overview, the results are presented partly in table format.
Table 9 presents the interviewees’ profile, Table 10, Table 11, and Table 12 the discrepancies within the domain-related awareness. Since the content was well-understood and the response happened based on the interviewees’ intention, just some of general remarks are highlighted.
Table 9 - Interview - Interviewee profile Attributes Interviewee A Interviewee B
Sector service service
Designation leader associate
Table 10 - Interview validation - BPM
Domain A - BPM Interviewee A Interviewee B
15 Are there reoccurring abandoned problems within the organization?
understanding:
small discrepancies answers: small
discrepancies
understanding: OK answers: as
intended
The interviewees described the business processes according to the theoretical introduction of the current paper; they could identify the processes and the relevant inputs, outputs. The awareness of the BPs’ documentation is similar; the appropriate process characteristics were understood as documentable items.
The interviewees could determine whether the documentation is up-to-date, they could describe the time horizons. Based on the own documentation and the experienced internal practices it could be revealed what are the business processes and how well these processes are known by the employees.
The business process’ changes and the related cycles are known and understood as well. The business process metrics were available for the interviewees: the relevant aspects and the measurement’s periodicity could be determined.
The role responsibilities were understood, the interviewees could tell whether those are defined, whether they could identify if there are overlaps, and they could also distinguish the value adding and supportive roles.
The competent roles’ and persons’ characteristics could be revealed, and they could share whether the organization is hierarchical.
The only misunderstanding was in one case: whether there are reoccurring abandoned problems, since the reoccurring abandoned problems are usually not part of the internal documentation the interviewee answered the question as per his own perception, the other interviewee’s answer was more factual.
Table 11 - Interview validation - KM
Domain B - Knowledge management Interviewee A Interviewee B 3 Can the competent persons be
reached immediately?
Domain B covered the knowledge management related questions. The identification of the most active roles and persons was understood. The high impact employees’ role allocation could be interpreted properly, however the competent persons reachability was mixed up with the competent role in one case, even so the answer was not ambiguous from the point of research.
The interviewees could give a comprehensive feedback about competence documentation: they gave feedback about the passive knowledge and the different types of the knowledge (substitute, complementary, rare-unique, critical, competitive advantage), and they could estimate whether the employees know each other’s competencies.
Distinguishing the explicit knowledge was not properly understood in one case, but the interviewee’s answer is close to the original meaning.
The routines and procedures of knowledge sharing and its level is known by the interviewees, in addition they can judge whether it is successful or not.
The interviewees are also aware of the knowledge management system and of their internal measurements. They could also give a feedback about the trainings: whether the training have dedicated time, what is the origin of the content and what the role-specific plans are.
The hand over process’ magnitude is known and they could determine its level within their services. The interviewees could give feedback about how their organizations
handle the potential business losses with regards of knowledge management, they could give a feedback about the utilized solutions.
The interrelation of the corporate strategy and the knowledge management could be revealed as well, just like the internal communication issues.
Table 12 - Interview validation - Renewal
Domain C - Renewal ability Interviewee A Interviewee B 4 The usage of public knowledge
sources might be a concern? 6 Does the organization have
outdated knowledge? available knowledge’s characteristics at their organizations.
The interviewees were aware of how the knowledge was stored, they could handle in which format the knowledge was maintained and who could access it. They could distinguish the public and private sources of the knowledge, and they could appraise whether their current practice is a subject of concern or not. In one case the public knowledge source was meant solely as Internet’s public domain, since it is about a digitized organization, this answer is accepted as relevant.
Renewing the current knowledge and evaluating the presence of outdated knowledge was also quite straightforward for them, however in one case the outdated knowledge was interpreted as the not actively used knowledge, since in this specific context its meaning is similar, it is accepted as well.
The interviewees could also tell whether the required knowledge was available within their organizations, and if it was there they could give a relevant answer about the timeframe of its rediscovery of (re)finding.
The answer givers had confident feedback about the changes by hiring new employees, they could evaluate whether the newly hired employees already had the required knowledge.
The situation of incorporating the new knowledge could be also pointed out without any difficulties.
Based on the answers of the two interviewees, the questionnaires’ results are accepted as valid, there are few, marginal discrepancies and there are no coincidences.
In the next section, the research results are interpreted from the original viewpoint of the research.