Challenges and practices of interviewing business elites. (February 2021) - Ma, Shenghui
Interviews are an important method for studying a wide range of phenomena, especially those that directly involve members of the so-called business elite, which typically includes CEOs, top managers, and boards of directors. While it is necessary to get close to these actors and their settings for gaining valuable research insights, interviews are challenging interactions to accomplish. Even when one has negotiated access, members of the business elite are typically time-constrained, knowledgeable, used to being in a dominant position, and visible in the public domain and involved in impression management. These particularities pose distinctive challenges for collecting rich and authentic empirical material about important organizational, managerial, and societal matters. Drawing on our own experience, as well as the literature on qualitative interviewing and elites research, we discuss how different research designs and interview practices can help deal with these challenges.