To echo the spread of business in the
south Wales area, it was decided that the
following industry sectors should be
included in the sample: retail, tourism and
leisure, service and manufacturing. The
purpose of this was to obtain as balanced a
viewpoint as possible and to identify any
significant differences in each of the
industry sectors. The firms were all small,
serving their local area or a very small
niche market. Consideration was also
given to the job function and job level of
the potential interviewee. The reasons for
doing this was to ensure that those
interviewed were in positions of authority
and were recognised as having sufficient
overall knowledge of their organisation at
a decision-making level.
In all 17 interviews were conducted:
all respondents were either
owner-managers or senior directors and
all had some marketing, sales or
customer responsibility. Having decided
to adopt a loosely structured approach to
the interviews, a list of the issues to be
investigated was constructed. An integral
element in the interview design was to
give full weight to the information
gleaned from the literature review. This
was vital in determining what kind of
questions need to be asked. The areas
considered appropriate for investigation
were based on the Hogarth-Scott et al.
49
research which sought to investigate the
small business owners’ understanding of
marketing concepts and attitudes to
marketing. The areas identified for
investigation were