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The purpose of this paper is to examine different approaches to framing interviews from the planning stage of interview design, drawing on Goffman’s (1974) notion of frame analysis.

Reflecting on previous studies the author has been involved with, in the context of accountability, three approaches to framing interviews are presented and discussed.

Framing interviews around the experience of interviewees, peers or fictitious yet familiar others provides three pathways to access interviewees’ insights, perspectives, knowledge and experience on issues relevant and familiar to them.

The approaches to framing interviews detailed in the paper provide valuable alternatives to access interviewees’ personal insights based on their worlds and worldviews.

Consideration of interviews on accountability through the use of framing and frame analysis provides novel, strategic perspectives on interview design.

In their study of reciprocity in investigative interviews, Matsumoto and Hwang (2018) found that offering interviewees water prior to the interview enhanced observer-rated rapport and positively affected information provision. This paper aims to examine whether tailoring the item towards an interviewee’s needs would further enhance information provision. This paper hypothesised that interviewees given a relevant item prior to the interview would disclose more information than interviewees given an irrelevant item or no item.

Participants (n = 85) ate pretzels to induce thirst, engaged in a cheating task with a confederate and were interviewed about their actions after receiving either no item, an irrelevant item to their induced thirst (pen and paper) or a relevant item (water).

This paper found that receiving a relevant item had a significant impact on information provision, with participants who received water providing the most details, and significantly more than participants that received no item.

The findings have implications for obtaining information during investigative interviews and demonstrate a need for research on the nuances of social reciprocity in investigative interviewing.

The findings have implications for obtaining information during investigative interviews and demonstrate a need for research on the nuances of social reciprocity in investigative interviewing.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to experimentally test the effect of different item types upon information provision in investigative interviews.

A significant autism employment gap persists in many countries. This study examines how the traditional job interview might form an obstacle to autistic people obtaining employment. It then offers a range of strategies that could make the traditional job interview more effective in allowing employers to identify and hire those who have an “autism advantage”.

A triangulated, qualitative approach is employed, comprising (1) five focus groups with a total of 23 students at a UK university who identity as autistic, and (2) semi-structured interviews with five of their support practitioners. Thematic analysis was then applied to identify causes, effects and possible solutions.

The analysis identified three main strategies, and two sub-strategies, for refining the traditional job interview by reducing or removing the obstacle it presents to autistic people seeking employment. These comprise abandoning the traditional interview, adapting it (divided in to adjusting and augmenting sub-strategies) and accepting it.

Three conclusions were developed from the analysis: first, that while the traditional interview tends to be biased against autistic people, it is not in itself a particularly acute method for selecting job candidates; second, that the application of universal design would be beneficial not only to neurodivergent people, but also to neurotypicals and employers; third, that the fear of disclosure represents a major obstacle to autistic people trusting in schemes intended to assist them.

This study aims to advance knowledge in international management research about how researchers’ cultural identity in fieldwork encounters may be grounded in the choice of language in multicultural and multilingual projects.

The study is based on critical reflections on the experience of two co-authors as Chinese nationals conducting research in overseas Chinese multinational corporations (MNCs) in developing economies.

Drawing on social identity theory, the authors demonstrate that the cultural identity and cultural insider/outsider positionality of both the researcher and research participants can be shaped by language, translation and other artefacts in cross-cultural interviews, constantly being shifted, managed and renegotiated during qualitative interviewing. This study highlights the politics of language which, when combined with other forms of power relations, such as the researcher’s perceived status, economic development of the MNCs’ home country and the participants’ organisational hierarchy, affect power distribution between the researcher and participants. Researchers often need to move from being an “insider” to an “outsider” and often to an “in-betweener” at different stages in an interview interaction to balance power.

This study contributes to international debates about the complex interplay of languages, politics and identity in multilingual and multicultural qualitative research. In contributing to these literatures, the authors focus on the relatively under-researched Chinese MNCs in other developing countries including Mongolia and Tanzania. Recommendations for researcher training and reflexivity are proposed.

Effective forensic interviewing is crucial, particularly if the interview is the only source of evidence. Whilst there are a number of interview models that advocate for reflective practice, the evaluation of interviews rarely gets the time or attention it deserves. This is concerning, given that interviewer skills drop significantly after six months, and there are limited opportunities for refresher training. This study aims to explore how law enforcement officers reflect upon and evaluate their interviews and seek their insight into what they believe an effective evaluation tool would constitute.

A total of 32 officers from three police forces in England and Wales and six international security organisations completed a qualitative questionnaire that explored their views on how interview evaluation is conducted and the impact on the interview, and how technology could assist in this important stage in terms of usability, efficacy and capability of a new evaluation tool.

Thematic analysis was used, resulting in three overall themes being identified from the data. These focused on current evaluation methods, barriers to conducting evaluations and technological solutions.

The findings are discussed in relation to interviewing and the development of tools to assist in evaluations. Implications for practice include the need for much more effort to be put into (re)introducing the evaluation stage into training to ensure that officers are allowed to reflect upon and evaluate their interview performance.

The use of interviews for data collection is prevalent in qualitative accounting research. This paper examines vignettes – sketches of hypothetical scenarios – as a promising complementary way to conduct interviews in qualitative accounting research.

The paper is based on our experiences designing and using vignettes in five separate qualitative accounting studies, which collectively involve over 200 interviews with various participants. It discusses the opportunities the use of vignettes in interviews offers to qualitative accounting research, as well as the challenges associated with designing and using vignettes. The paper also reflects on fellow researchers’ varied reactions during seminars, workshops, and the journal review process.

Vignettes emerge as a productive and engaging complementary way for accounting researchers to obtain additional insights and perspectives not usually accessible in semi-structured interviews. The paper also provides practical insights into developing, using and publishing qualitative accounting studies using vignettes, contributing an additional behind-the-scenes view of using qualitative research methods.

The aim of this paper is to increase awareness of vignettes as a complement to the standard qualitative accounting interview. It provides guidance on how vignettes might be used productively for studying rare, new, emerging, complex, or multi-period real-world accounting phenomena. It also discusses how vignettes can promote transparency, honesty, and a greater level of detail in participants’ responses, as well as facilitate the involvement of lay people in accounting studies.

This collaborative paper presents three case studies on four scholars' experiences with remote data collection. The authors highlight the challenges and strengths of online qualitative research across three disparate projects: an interdisciplinary exploration of matrilineal heritage, an examination of Irish women's sexual identity and an investigation of dress practices among Tz'utujil-Maya.

Qualitative researchers traditionally go into the field to explore and understand social phenomena. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, while people faced the daily realities of a worldwide crisis from within their homes, remote data collection became a necessary strategy to pursue knowledge. As a result, researchers adapted to unknowns regarding recruiting, scheduling, technology, interviewing and analysis.

Participant and researcher experiences during the adaptation to remote interviewing yielded important lessons on research strategies.

Outcomes from these studies highlight the potential value of online data collection alongside the necessity for flexibility in designing and conducting qualitative research.

The study aimed to assess whether transgender women, who were students at a university in London, England, faced hiring discrimination when seeking employment.

Three comparable university classmates—a cisgender woman, a cisgender man and a transgender woman—studying Engineering applied to the same job openings. Similarly, another set of three university classmates—a cisgender woman, a cisgender man and a transgender woman—studying Social Work applied to the same job openings. The degree of discrimination was quantified by calculating the difference in the number of interview invitations received by each group.

When three comparable university classmates apply for the same job openings, the rate of interview invitations differs based on gender identity. For cisgender women, the invitation rate is 31.3%, while for cisgender men, it stands at 35.1%. However, for transgender women, the rate drops significantly to 10.4%. Additionally, transgender women face further challenges in male-dominated sectors (STEM), where their chance of being invited for a job interview is even lower compared to those in female-dominated sectors, with a reduction of 8.7 percentage points. The study also reveals that firms with written equality policies on gender identity diversity show a 25.7 percentage point increase in invitation rates for transgender women compared to firms without such policies. Furthermore, the research highlights that negative beliefs among job recruiters regarding various aspects of transgender women, including their gender identity status, disclosure, job performance, vocational relationships and turnover, contribute to their exclusion from job interviews. Moreover, for transgender women who do receive interview invitations, these tend to be for lower-paid jobs compared to those received by cisgender women (by 20%) and cisgender men (by 21.3%). This wage sorting into lower-paid vacancies suggests a penalty in terms of lower returns on education, which could drive wage and income differences.

Transgender women received a higher number of job interview invitations when firms had written equality policies on gender identity diversity. This outcome can help policymakers identify actions to reduce the exclusion of transgender people from the labour market.

The study gathers information from job recruiters to quantify the roots of hiring discrimination against transgender women. It also enables an examination of whether workplaces' written equality policies on gender identity diversity are related to transgender women’s invitations to job interviews.

High-stakes decision-makers, including human resource (HR) professionals, often exhibit accent biases against second language speakers in professional evaluations. We extend this work by investigating how HR students evaluate simulated job interview performances in English by first and second language speakers of English.

Eighty HR students from Calgary and Montreal evaluated the employability of first language (L1) Arabic, English, and Tagalog candidates applying for two positions (nurse, teacher) at four points in the interview (after reading the applicant’s resume, hearing their self-introduction, and listening to each of two responses to interview questions). Candidates’ responses additionally varied in the extent to which they meaningfully answered the interview questions.

Students from both cities provided similar evaluations, employability ratings were similar for both advertised positions, and high-quality responses elicited consistently high ratings while evaluations for low-quality responses declined over time. All speakers were evaluated similarly based on their resumes and self-introductions, regardless of their language background. However, evaluations diverged for interview responses, where L1 Arabic and Tagalog speakers were considered more employable than L1 English speakers. Importantly, students’ preference for L1 Arabic and Tagalog candidates over L1 English candidates was magnified when those candidates provided low-quality interview responses.

Results suggest that even in the absence of dedicated equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) training focusing on language and accent bias, HR students may be aware of second language speakers’ potential disadvantages in the workplace, rewarding them in the current evaluations. Findings also highlight the potential influence of contextual factors on HR students’ decision-making.

This study draws on the author's experiences building rapport through online chat for data collection for the author's doctoral dissertation. The author contacted ten Korean women via online chat to recruit and faced the most challenging situation; building rapport. As the Millennial generation is known as being tech-savvy or digital natives, the author actively used emoticons (pictorial representations of facial expressions using characters) with potential interviewees and completed ten interviews. Therefore, this paper offers a new qualitative interviewing method in feminist research.

The paper briefly reviews the works of literature on interviewing women on sensitive topics and building rapport before the interview. Then, the author introduced using emoticons to create rapport during the data collection process and how a non-traditional approach positively impacts the interviewer and interviewee before, during and even after the interview.

Women participants' responses and behaviors differed after building a rapport through an online chat. They were willing to share their personal stories and memories with the interviewer even though the interviewer did not ask.

This study provides a stepping stone for developing an account of the new qualitative methodological approach, specifically feminist qualitative research.

Few studies have described how qualitative researchers create a rapport in virtual space, specifically using emoticons. Also, this study suggests a new methodological approach since nonverbal communication in online chat is inevitable when interviewing people in qualitative research.