¶ … ethical issues that need to be taken into consideration when using human subjects in research. The biggest thing is informed consent. The subjects need to fully understand what the nature of the research is. Where there are risk to the subject -- unlikely in an interview setting -- these need to be fully explained. In observation research, there is much more risk because the subjects are actually doing things, and this risk should be identified to the subject. It is the job of the researcher to anticipate the risks to the subject. The biggest thing with respect to minimizing risks is to understand ahead of time what those risks are. For me, I do not foresee too much risk. This means that aside from providing some opportunity for informed consent there are no real issues. If there are situations where risk is involved with human subjects, then there is often cause to redesign the research. I was looking at a research paper on texting while driving, and the researchers in that case used a driving simulator that is usually used to train ambulance drivers. This allowed them to study driver behavior without putting anybody at risk. If they had let people drive on the streets while testing this, people could get into accidents. So they had to redesign the entire study. That is something researchers must be prepared to do -- identify risks ahead of time and ensure the study design from the outset minimizes risks. If there is no way to avoid risks, you at least need informed consent, cannot use minors and must take every step possible to guard against negative outcomes. But proactive avoidance of risky situations is the best approach, even where it requires a little bit of creativity.

Phase 5 Individual Project

The central research question for this guide is to examine the ways that employees interaction in multicultural teams.

The target groups would be members of such teams. These would need to be found by talking to companies to see which ones would be willing to participate. The process of finding the right teams is important -- you get the right companies then you still need to identify individuals. If this is an observational report, the researcher will need to be on site for this research. The investigator will therefore only utilize a few different teams in order to effectively manage the scope of the research. The setting is going to be the workplace. The group will consist of multicultural teams and the researcher will need to have permissions from the team members where necessary.

There are a number of sources of data for this project. Observations need to be made and coded -- these will be the primary sources of data for the project. The observations will be largely based on what is seen and heard. So dialogue between group members, emails, texts, non-verbal communications -- any form of communication. Group interactions will also be observed, for example of people from a given culture tend to congregate, something that has been identified in the literature about such groups (Mannix & Neale, 2005). There is a large body of research that can help to inform the codes used to interpret the behavior of the team members and guide the contextual understanding of the research.

There are other sources of data available, however. Interviews will provide an opportunity for the researcher to directly probe the study participants about key issues. The interviews can be open-ended with only a loose structure, because more information can be gathered using open-ended questions. Interviews are a good way to supplement or to confirm the observational findings.

Archival information can also be used to help inform the research. Since the study is all interaction, it is important to look at written communication in particular. There will be considerable literature that has to be a part of this study as it will provide a lot of the theoretical framing. In addition, if there are any management reports, transcripts from meetings or other written communication about the way the team has performed, or that can serve as primary evidence of communication, this should be examined in the course of the research as well.

Puzzlements and Jottings

The "puzzlements and jottings" are the first stage of the research, where the topic is identified and some ideas are formed about what is problematic or interesting about it (Ritchie & Lewis, 2003). This case, the research idea comes from the body of work in psychology, human resources and sociology that looks at team performance,...

Convention theory that diversity is good for a team has been shown by many researchers to be false. Multicultural teams face communication problems, in-group clustering and other issues that result in performance well below expectations. Such teams are often still the most innovative, but only when the communication challenges are overcome. The study then is to start work on figuring out how such teams function on a day-to-day level so that we can better understand what problems exist, how they are resolved.
The key challenges with this research lie in the heavy amount of coding and the imperfect systems that there are to code interpersonal interactions. This is especially going to be an issue where cultures are difficult to identify -- how do we decode the signals from a culture we know nothing about, or cannot identify? This is much more difficult than it sounds on paper, and the researcher is likely to make a lot of assumptions along the way. What does that do for the research? This is going to be one of the major challenges associated with this research.

Observations

Observations needed will focus on the types of interactions that are observed. So this will be the nature and tone of the verbal, nonverbal and written communications between the study participants. These subjects will be using all different communication methods, but the types, combinations and different levels of effectiveness will all need to be observed. I will need to examine things like body language (standing distance, eye contact, use of hands, facial expressions), length and depth of conversations as well and the language used, and the length and writing style of written conversations.

With these observations I am seeking to understand what pathways of communication exist, and how they will be affected by the cultural differences that exist within the team. By understanding the different cultural communication styles, I can probably determine what dynamics are going on. However, it will require a lot of individual observations in order to make a determination about how communication occurs within the teams.

Questions

In this study, some follow-up questions will be needed for the study participants. The first thing that is required is that I want to ask participants about specific communications that I was able to witness. I am especially interested to see if I would agree with the participants about the nature of these communications. I would like to ensure that my coding is correct. By taking to the sender of the message and to the recipient, I would be in a better position to analyze the communication in terms of whether it met the objectives of the participants are not. Through this process, important insights can be revealed.

I would also want to ask questions about how participants felt the communications within the group were going. It is highly likely that there are going to be different interpretations of this. Of special importance is to find out what the impressions of the multicultural group dynamic are for the participants. Do they think it was working? What are their interpretations of the biggest challenges and the biggest successes? The third question would be much the same, but from the perspective of the manager who is a participant-observer and one who is trying to influence the communication. Probes are important, but I am not big on listing probes when my questions are going to be open-ended in nature. Probes will focus on getting more specific information, but there is a high risk that probes about what people think can lead the answers, so probing will probably be more like restating the original question to see if I can get a different answer.

The field notes are going to be written as I see them. I am not a big planning and structure person. I will write down my observations in what we be called a linear format, bullet points down the page. I will leave room for notes about the coding, and background information to help provide context. When compiling this information I am thinking one page for each interaction, with a code number to help keep the information sorted. Keywords will help with searching for patterns.

Phase 5 DB #2. Internal validity refers to ensuring that inferences made from the data are accurate. A lack of validity can occur when there is observer bias, or in how the data is collected. Because this work is heavy on inference I will adopt techniques to check against erroneous inference. I…