Page 42 - Communication in Organizations Basic Skills and Conversation Models

Interviewing 31

The open interview
With the open interview only the theme of the conversation is decided in advance. After
the interviewer has posed an open question with regard to the theme, interviewees can
freely follow their own train of thought and say what they consider important. The
interviewer guides the conversation by going more deeply into relevant aspects of the
subject.
One disadvantage of this method of interviewing is that the final data are often
difficult to process. Each respondent has given an individual answer. These answers can
be categorized but it takes a lot of time and effort. In the first place it is often difficult to
come up with the categories into which the answers can be put. Second, each answer
requires a separate decision on which of the categories it belongs to. This often leads to
unreliability of data. Moreover, the interviewer is often faced with a large ‘others
category’, where answers cannot be classified under a set category.
Regardless of all these objections, there are situations where an open interview is the
best way to obtain answers. This is true for all situations where it is important that
interviewees should be able to allow their thoughts to flow freely, which can lead to the
discovery of new aspects of a problem that might otherwise not have been discussed.

The semi-structured interview

With the semi-structured interview the theme about which information needs to be gained
is split up into several sub themes. Interviewees are not free to choose the subjects to be
discussed, although they are free to answer them in their own way. The interviewer does
not have to follow a strict order of subjects. The goal is to deal with all the subjects
within the conversation. The interviewer usually starts each new subject with an open
question and tries to use basic listening skills in order to get as much information on the
subject as possible (see pp. 13–20).

The standardized interview
The standardized interview consists of a questionnaire or some other survey where both
the answering categories and the order of answering are predetermined. The interviewee
has to choose answers provided by the interviewer. This procedure has as an advantage
that the data can be processed fast and easily (Fowler & Mangione, 1990). However, it
offers little opportunity for original ideas or opinions.
Depending on the situation, a choice has to be made between these three interview
types within a company. The choice will be the open interview when interviewers are
seeking to form an opinion about the functioning of the internal communication system.
They can use it to find out where information is stagnating and get ideas for
improvements. If the goal of the interviewer is to hear the opinion of colleagues about a
certain subject where certain questions need to be answered, then the semi-structured
interview is preferable.
If a company wants to conduct an investigation into consumer behaviour or market
research in general, they will usually choose a standardized interview. The organization is