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This paper aims to widen knowledge of and explore how convergent interviewing can be used to identify key issues within an organization.

This paper introduces the convergent interviewing technique and describes the method of selecting the interview subjects. The construction of a round of interviews is explained. The content of the interviews is described and the particular probing nature of the questions demanded by the convergent interview process is explained. The ways to analyze the full set of interviews for groupings or categories is also described. The case study example of a broad research question about influences on work behaviors in a local government council is used to illustrate the convergent interviewing technique.

The key issues revealed by using the technique can be subsequently used for a variety of research and consulting purposes and settings. Convergent interviewing is an effective research method, which conserves resources.

Convergent interviewing enables researchers to determine the most important and/or key issues within a population rather than a full list of issues in an organization or barriers to change in a particular organizational context.

This research used the somewhat new methodology of convergent interviews to develop a conceptual framework about relationship constructs in an Internet environment. More generally, this article describes and illustrates the processes and the strengths of convergent interviewing to investigate under‐researched areas, and compares it with alternative qualitative techniques like in‐depth interviews, case research and focus groups. The illustration involves interviews conducted with marketing managers and business consultants from ten service companies, about Internet and relationship marketing. It is argued that convergent interviewing is more appropriate than some other qualitative methods to investigate under‐researched areas where there are few experts because it provides a way of quickly converging on key issues in the area, an efficient mechanism for data analysis after each interview, and a way of deciding when to stop collecting data. Convergent interviews could become another useful qualitative research method to explore new issues about emerging marketing phenomena.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how fund managers in a non-Western country like Malaysia follow investment processes developed in the West and taught in the finance departments of universities.

This convergent interview research investigates how fund managers in Malaysia actually make their decisions, and develops a framework about their investment process.

Understanding the economy was important for the managers but was an ongoing learning process. Their analyses sometimes started bottom-up or top-down, but all followed a four-layer process. The managers did not believe the investment process could be quantified.

Convergent interviewing is meant to be a first step in a complete research program. So, future researchers could consider extending the research to different periods, different research settings in other countries like Singapore, India or Indonesia, different types of investors and different methodologies like surveys.

Practitioners should build on their experience, and understand principles of behavioral finance. Students in business schools should be taught in an experiential way, and school staff should use qualitative methods like convergent interviewing in their research projects.

Contributions centre on the article’s behavioural finance findings that experience and non-quantitative methods are the core of Malaysian investment managers’ decision-making, and on its detailed description of the unusual research methodology in finance of convergent interviewing.

The authors seek to better understand the critical incidents and factors that influence the switching behaviours of back pain sufferers who use mainstream and/or complementary and alternative medicine (Edvardsson, 1998). That is, the purpose of this paper is to uncover how they switch between treatments and treatment providers; in particular, this research investigates two issues: the triggers of their switching and their switching paths, and how their emotions are involved in that switching. The contribution is the first empirical foundation for an understanding of these two issues in the context of back pain.

The qualitative technique of convergent interviewing was used. It involved conducting a series of long, initially rather unstructured interviews to converge on the important topic areas to the back pain sufferers and why they engage in their treatment behaviour.

This study investigated the triggers and categories of triggers that impact upon switching behaviours between bio-medical and CAT healthcare. Four main areas of findings were identified. First, although the literature identified four categories of triggers for switching, namely, situational, reactional, influential and personal characteristics, the findings of this research confirmed only two of these: reactional and situational triggers. The influential category of triggers was found to be more of a moderating factor between switching triggers and switching behaviours rather than a trigger factor on its own. Further, no evidence came to light that could confirm or disconfirm the roles of personal characteristics on switching behaviour and so this issue remains unresolved.

The methodology used in this research was an exploratory one and so the findings must be used with caution. Further research, using a more quantitative methodology, is warranted to confirm the findings of this research. Also, this research focused on a subset of switching issues and so might not provide a holistic framework. Future investigations should therefore consider and clarify the role of emotion, time and voice in the switching model devised from this study.

This paper provides new evidence on the reasons for back pain sufferers consuming different treatment modes and the reasons for their switching and includes an exploratory investigation of the role of emotions in this decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to address the research question using qualitative research methods: how and why medically trained managers choose to undertake postgraduate management training?

This research used two qualitative methods to gather data. Both methods used purposeful sampling to select interviewees with appropriate management expertise, qualifications and experience. The first stage utilised convergent interviews and was exploratory. The five interviewees were managers and academics. The second stage used case research methodology and was confirmatory. The fifteen interviewees were medically qualified chief executives and chief medical officers. In total, 20 in-depth interviews were carried. Rigorous content analysis of data collected showed emergent themes.

The first theme that emerged was that doctors move into management positions without first undertaking training. The second theme was that doctors undertake such training in the form of a masters-level degree and/or a specialist fellowship. The third theme was that effective postgraduate management training for doctors requires a combination of theory and practice. The fourth theme was that clinical experience alone does not lead to required management competencies. The fifth theme was that doctors choose to undertake training to gain credibility.

This research was exploratory and descriptive in nature and limited to analytical rather than statistical generalisation.

This research has provided insights into the importance of understanding how and why doctors undertake postgraduate management training, and may assist policy makers and training providers in the development of such training for doctors.

There has been little research about incident management decision making within real-life, dynamic emergencies such as urban fire settings. So this research addresses the research problem: how do incident managers make decisions in urban fire settings? These decision behaviours cover five areas: assessment of the fireground situation, selection of a decision strategy, determination of incident objectives, deployment and management of firefighting resources and ongoing review of the incident. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Case research was used to examine management of different types of fires, through in-depth interviews with a range of incident managers.

This research identified five key behavioural elements associated with incident management in urban fire settings such as their application of a mix of recognition-primed, value based, procedural and formal decision strategies throughout the course of an incident rather than a single style.

The in-depth framework of decision making could provide foundations for later research about other emergency settings. And this research is limited to analytic generalisation (Yin, 2009); so quantitative research such as surveys and large scale interviews could be done to further extend the research for statistical generalisation.

The decision procedures uncovered in this research will assist incident managers in many emergencies, assist policy making and foster the development of future incident managers.

The findings expand the knowledge of how incident managers develop situation awareness, make decisions and plans, implement them, and review the incident as it evolves. Another contribution is the comprehensive framework of decision making developed from these findings.

Given the increase in the globalisation of the world's economies, the importance of building successful cross‐cultural business to business partnerships is emerging as a critical strategy for organisations to consider. For these forms of relationships trust has been identified as an essential component of success. However, little is known about the development and formation of trust in cross‐cultural business to business relationships. Consequently, triangulating two qualitative techniques, this paper examines the development of trust through the initial three stages of the relationship lifecycle. Findings suggest that trust develops in markedly different forms dependent on the lifecycle stage of the relationships.

This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the motivational incentives driving franchising choice from the franchisee's perspective and, in particular, to investigate a comparison of single and multiple unit franchisee incentives.

A qualitative methodology was adopted to gain a clearer picture of the salient issues influencing an individual's evaluation of franchising options. Both single and multiple unit franchisees within the McDonald's restaurant chain were interviewed.

Major contrasts were identified between single and multiple unit franchisees with regard to their motivations for entering franchising. In addition, franchisees who were previously employed were found to be different from those who were self‐employed.

Because it is difficult to identify potential multiple unit franchisees prior to joining a franchise, it was necessary to interview existing franchisees for this research. It is possible that their post‐hoc rationalisations may restrict the value of the research. In addition, motivational disincentives were not examined within this research. However, on balance, the reflections offered by the participants provide a rich and valuable source of information about their motivations.

Franchisors need to consider upfront whether they wish to recruit franchisees who remain single unit holders, or select and groom franchisees who show potential for managing multiple units. Thus, franchisors may need to redesign their selection strategies and communication methods to ensure the recruitment of suitable candidates who have the capacity to activate franchisor goals and promote a harmonious franchising relationship.

Whereas previous research has investigated motivations for entering franchising, this paper supplements that literature by comparing single and multiple unit franchisee incentives.

Measuring service quality in higher education is increasingly important for attracting and retaining tuition‐based revenues. Nonetheless, whilst undergraduates have received substantial academic exposure, postgraduate‐based research has been scant. Consequently, the objectives of this paper are threefold: first, to identify the service factors used by postgraduates in their quality evaluations. Second, to analyse the appropriateness of importance‐performance analysis (IPA) in the measurement of service quality and, final, to provide a working example of IPA's application in a UK‐based university.

Convergent interviews were used to elicit attributes of service that were deemed important by taught postgraduate students. These findings were then tested using an online survey. Exploratory factor analysis was used to group the service attributes into latent “service factors”. Each service factor was then tested for service quality using Martilla and James's IPA technique.

About 20 service attributes were educed from the qualitative stage. From these, four service factors emerged; being, academic, leisure, industry links and cost. Using IPA in a UK university, the findings suggest that the “academic” and “industry links” aspects of service quality are the most critical to postgraduates. The paper's conclusions suggest that IPA is an appropriate tool for measuring service quality in postgraduate education.

Through the application of the IPA framework presented in this research, practitioners can successfully identify areas of service priority and thus allocate appropriate resources to encourage continuous service improvement.

This research provides a valuable insight into the service quality needs of the UK postgraduate segment and also a potential conceptual framework for policy makers to use when evaluating their service delivery.

Previous studies point to a range of factors as influencing managerial decision‐making processes. There are four major trends with regard to the studies. They are environmental antecedents, organisational antecedents, decision‐specific antecedents and individual managerial characteristics. While the majority of literature has chosen to focus in a specialised way on the influence of unidimensional variables there are a number of studies advocating the study of multiple dimensions simultaneously. This paper examines the findings from a qualitative research methodology, convergent interviewing, focussing on the impact of environmental, organisational, decision‐specific and individual characteristics, in combination with environmental and organisational characteristics on managerial decisions. Information from managers suggested decision‐specific and individual characteristics in combination with environmental and organisational characteristics, were highly relevant to the process of decision making. For all managers, managerial years of experience and the complexity and politicality of decision content were indicated as an important preconditions for determining the nature of managerial decision making. Furthermore, environmental and organisational factors such as environmentally determined time constraints (e.g. government policy) and staff conflict were important issues influencing managers’ decisions. A number of multidimensional interactions were posited from the findings. Implications for future research are discussed.