Consultancy research

Case 4b: Consultancy research for a not-for-profit organisation
Karen Handley, Oxford Brookes University
Thomas’s work placement is at a management consultancy firm, Spectrum, which provides
strategic and financial advice to organisations in the UK not-for-profit (NFP) sector. The NFP
sector has different segments, the largest of which includes organisations which have a
public interest objective, and which are known as charities. These are typically organisations
dedicated to improving the quality of life for specific groups or individuals (e.g. children or the
elderly), or focused on relieving poverty or distress. NFP organisations are growing in
importance in the UK economy, and have an increasing role in the provision of public
services (Brandsen and Pestoff, 2008).
One of Spectrum’s clients is the Association for Voluntary Organisations for the Elderly
(AVOE), a UK organisation providing a range of services to charity members who give care
and support to the elderly. AVOE is traditionally known as providing information (e.g. a
monthly newsletter on developments in the elderly-care sector); representation (e.g. at
government consultations on matters relating to the elderly, including pensions); and support
(e.g. advice on changes in Statutory Law; and networking opportunities through regional
conferences and workshops). The main source of income for AVOE is membership fees. It
also receives a fixed annual government grant to support its work.
In the past year it has become apparent that the cost of providing membership services is
rising more quickly than income from membership fees. Jill Baxter, AVOE’s Chief Executive,
recently asked Spectrum to conduct an internal operational review to identify ways of
generating additional income. Jennifer, Thomas’s work-placement supervisor, managed this
project which was completed last week.
The internal review identified several opportunities as well as potential problems for AVOE.
An important finding was that AVOE currently provides more services to its members than
was the case several years ago, even though all members pay a flat fee which has not
increased in the past five years. For example, AVOE hosts some of its members’ websites.
The review also identified that although all large charities supporting the elderly are
members of AVOE, some of the medium-sized charities and many of the small, regional and
local charities are not (or in some cases have recently cancelled their membership).
Following the review, AVOE asked Spectrum to undertake a research project to investigate
what its members really want from the umbrella body, and how it can attract new members.
Jill Baxter, Jennifer and Thomas met in AVOE’s Manchester offices, and agreed that the
principal research question would be:
Why do charities supporting the elderly decide to join (or not) or leave an umbrella
organisation such as AVOE?
The answer to this exploratory question should enable AVOE to develop strategic
options for increasing membership revenues at a reasonable cost. Jennifer has asked
Thomas to prepare a research proposal for the new project.
Thomas is now considering how to design the research so that he can answer the agreed
question. He wonders how the research is situated in relation to the two ‘paradigms’ of
research in the social sciences, which are traditionally labelled positivist and interpretivist.
Thomas has read a great deal about the ‘paradigm wars’, but feels that the arguments about
whether there is or is not an ‘external reality’ are tiresome and unproductive. On the one
hand, he believes that these metaphysical debates are relevant to a philosophical
understanding of research, and how we ‘come to know’ what we claim to know (and what we
claim to have found out from research). But on the other hand, he worries that some
researchers spend so long debating the metaphysical questions that they fail to ‘get on’ and
do research which is useful to society. He suspects that some researchers feel constrained
believing that the paradigm prescribes the method: the positivist paradigm prescribes
quantitative methods; the interpretivist paradigm prescribes qualitative methods; and each
paradigm rejects the methods used by the ‘other side’.
Thomas wants to focus on what is pragmatically useful to answer the research question. He
also wants his research design to be robust and useful to AVOE. As he reads more about
research design, he comes to realise that in fact the distance between post-positivists and
interpretivists is not as great as it might seem (after all, he argues, is anyone really a ‘pure’
positivist these days?). There are important points of agreement: for example, postpositivists and interpretivists agree that our understanding of reality is constructed, and that
research is influenced by the values of the researchers and the theoretical frameworks they
use (Reichardt and Rallis, 1994:85–91).
Reading further, Thomas is delighted to find that there really is a third way, which is the
pragmatic tradition developed by American scholars such as John Dewey and William
James in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Pragmatists are driven by the
problems which people face, and want to find out ‘what works’. They also argue (e.g. Howe,
1988) that qualitative and quantitative methods are compatible, and that good research
design often involves mixed methods. This means that the decision about whether to use
qualitative or quantitative methods (or both) depends on the research question and on the
current stage of the research cycle (e.g. using inductive or deductive reasoning).
Thomas realises, however, that the pragmatic approach is no ‘easy’ option. He can’t just ‘do
what he likes’. Instead, he has to think hard – first about the research question; and then
about which methods are appropriate to answer it. After reading some of the literature on
mixed methodology, such as Tashakkori and Teddlie (1998), he writes a research proposal
recommending a parallel mixed model design. The proposed design combines qualitative
and quantitative data collection, analysis and interference processes.
• All existing members (approximately 80) will be asked to respond to an intervieweradministered questionnaire with closed questions (for example, eliciting members’
perceptions of the utility of a range of services already provided or proposed), and open
questions (for example, asking for members’ opinions about the value of membership).
Questionnaire interviews will be conducted by telephone. The questionnaire will gather
categorical information about members’ size (e.g. measured by revenue); service
provided (e.g. residential homes, home care, in-hospital support, networking and
support facilities); and geographic coverage (e.g. national, regional or local).
• During the same time period, Thomas will organise focus groups with a sample of
members and non-members, as well as other stakeholders such as government officials
who interact with AVOE and with UK elderly-care organisations.
• Data will be analysed using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Questionnaire data
will be analysed using correlation, cross-tabulation and other descriptive and statistical
techniques. The focus group and open-question survey data will be analysed to look for
key themes and patterns. Particular attention will be given to respondents’ comments on
perceived benefits of different services. In addition, some of the qualitative interview
data will be quantified – for example by counting the frequency with which specific
services are mentioned.
Later that week, Thomas emails the draft proposal to Jennifer. He wonders if she will accept
the argument for a research design based on pragmatist principles, especially as she is
known as a qualitative researcher with an interpretivist philosophy.
Questions
1. How does pragmatism differ from post-positivism and interpretivism, and are there some
shared beliefs?
2. How could Thomas respond if Jennifer insists on a ‘pure’ qualitative method?
3. If pragmatism argues that the research questions should drive the choice of research
methods, how can Thomas be sure of the quality of the research?
References
Brandsen, T. and Pestoff, V. (2008).Co-production, the third sector and the delivery of public
services.Public Management Review. Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 493–501.
Howe, K. (1988). Against the quantitative-qualitative incompatibility thesis – or Dogmas die
hard’.Educational Researcher. Vol. 17, No. 8, pp. 10–16.
Reichardt, C. and Rallis, S. (1994). Qualitative and quantitative inquiries are not
incompatible: a call for a new partnership. In C. Reichardt and S. Rallis (eds).The
Qualitative-quantitative debate: new perspectives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Tashakkori, A. and Teddlie, C. (1998).Mixed methodology: combining qualitative and
quantitative approaches. London: Sage Publications.