Leah had recently changed employment and was now working in a further education college close to her home. Her main reasons for choosing the college were her assumptions that the job was likely to be more flexible and would enable her to achieve a better balance between her work and personal life.
The college was able to offer Leah some hours on a fixed-term contract for the next 12 months. However, if she wished to be considered for a more permanent role she would have to become qualified and undertake further study. Leah had begun a business degree several years earlier but had dropped out due to work commitments and never submitted her final dissertation. This now seemed the ideal opportunity to complete her studies and develop her career.
Leah asked her employer for approval to use them as a case study in order to collect primary data, thus enabling her to finish her dissertation and complete her degree. She was interested in finding out whether it was possible for employees to achieve balance between their work and personal life and the strategies they used to accomplish this. Leah chose her research topic for purely personal reasons as it was her own desire to achieve a greater degree of work–life balance, which had led her to seek a position at the college. From the moment Leah commenced her position she began to record her observations and experiences of this new working environment and how this related to her own attempts to balance work and life.
She was also interested in exploring how the organisational context of the college supported employees in their attempts to balance work and life outside work. Her assumption was that the working patterns and holidays afforded to those working in the college meant work–life balance would be easier to achieve there, than in other more traditional work settings. An early extract from Leah’s journal is given below:
‘Now that I have returned to work it seems a great opportunity to get my dissertation finished so I can complete my degree. I have decided to investigate work–life balance because I found this very difficult to achieve in my previous job, but I think it should be very easy to do at the College. Because of the long holidays, lecturers get lots of time off and it is much easier for them to get a good work–life balance. It is also an ideal career for someone with a family because they only have to work during term time. I expect this is why most people choose it as a career.’
Keeping a research journal recording her observations, reflections and experiences encouraged Leah to consider using similar techniques with her research participants. Leah had read about ethnographic approaches to research where data collection is ongoing and based upon direct observation (Gobo 2011). This strategy appealed to Leah because it allowed her to examine behaviour and practices that might otherwise be hidden and inaccessible (Miller et al. 2004). Nevertheless, there were also challenges with adopting this strategy, not least of which was its time-consuming nature and identifying the most appropriate technique for data analysis.
The college had a strict ethical code and this was something else Leah had to be mindful of in her role as participant-as-observer. According to Brannan and Oultram (2012), a key ethical concern for observers is the extent to which information is disclosed. Leah’s diary was a personal, private record and although she was using it as a major part of her data collection, she did not really want it read or scrutinised by others. She had also read about issues relating to researcher bias and introspection (Holt 2003). This caused her to question how reliable or valid her diary was as a data collection method. Furthermore, the diaries completed by her participants would also be personal and subjective and Leah did not know how she could ensure the legitimacy of these, or indeed her own diary. In other words, how could she establish whether the truth was being recorded? On the other hand, writers such as Watson (2011) had argued for greater use of close and intensive observation in management research.
Another dilemma for Leah concerned the participants she had asked to take part in her research. They were also her colleagues, meaning she was already developing working relationships with many of them. The staff members who agreed to keep diaries for Leah included both senior and more junior employees within the organisation. This caused concern for Leah in as much as she was unsure of how her involvement with these individuals might influence her research, or even alter her working relationship with them. In the literature Leah found this type of relationship between the researcher and participant being referred to as an ‘insider researcher’ (Chavez 2008). According to Chavez (2008) an insider researcher can benefit in a number of ways in terms of the equalised relationships that can be achieved between researcher and participants, the ease of access to research participants and the potential to gain greater insight (including the possible observation of emotions, cognition and less obvious behaviour) than might otherwise be possible. However, Chavez (2008) also noted that some disadvantages can exist under these circumstances in relation to, for example, constraints placed upon the researcher by their existing position within the research group, researcher bias upon entering the research arena (including their selection of participants) and the potential for reporting bias. Nevertheless, Leah felt that the literature suggested the overall implications of being an insider researcher were predominantly positive and far outweighed these difficulties (Brannick and Coghlan 2007; Chavez 2008).
From her review of the literature so far, and her own experience of being an insider researcher, Leah could see strong arguments for adopting the role of participant-as-observer in her own organisation role to data collection. Yet, from her reading she was beginning to have doubts as to whether her chosen methods were the most appropriate. She wondered if she would be better off considering less intrusive, less time consuming, more objective strategies that she felt would allow her to maintain a distance and detachment from the subject of her research and her participants.

Questions 1 Read the extract from Leah’s journal. How might the assumptions she makes affect the way in which she approaches her research?
2 Outline what you consider the advantages and disadvantages of Leah undertaking overt, as opposed to covert, observation in her employing organisation.
3 What are the implications of Leah being an insider researcher in this case?
4 Do you think a researcher can or should be ‘detached’ from the phenomena she or he is observing?
Provide a justification for your answer.