RES 724 Week 2 Qualitative Research Questions Example

From Puzzle to Question: Writing Qualitative Research Questions on Family Business Succession

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

RES/724: Qualitative Methods and Design

Week 2 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The learner, the firms, the successors and the planned study are composites written for a model paper.

Week 1 established the composite Des Moines banker's research interest: how successors experience taking over family-owned manufacturers while the founder remains involved. It also identified interpretative phenomenological analysis as the preferred tradition. This paper turns that interest into research questions.

The Problem in the Literature

Handler (1994) reviewed early research on succession in family business and found that it concentrated on the founder's reluctance to let go, the succession process as a series of stages and the effects on the firm, with comparatively little attention to how the next generation experienced the transfer. The review called for more work on successors' personal experience and on the relationships among family members during succession. Later studies have examined successor satisfaction and preparation, often through surveys, but the meaning of the early years in charge, especially with the founder still present, remains less explored.

Locally, the banker's experience supplies the practical problem: successors of sound firms sometimes struggle in ways that financial measures do not show, and two firms she knew were sold soon after succession. Advisers, lenders and families lack an understanding of that experience from the successor's side.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological analysis is to explore how successors in family-owned manufacturing firms in Iowa make sense of their first years leading the firm while the founding parent remains involved in the business.

A First Draft and Its Problems

The banker's first draft was: "Why do some successors fail to lead family manufacturing firms effectively?" Agee (2009) describes developing qualitative questions as a reflective, iterative process in which researchers examine their assumptions, refine focus and ensure questions open space for participants' perspectives rather than closing it. Read that way, the draft had four problems. It asked why, inviting causal explanation rather than understanding of experience. It assumed failure, a judgment participants might reject. It implied comparison between groups, which IPA does not do. And it named effectiveness, an outcome the study will not measure.

Revisions

A second draft, "What is it like to lead a family manufacturing firm after succession?", was open but too broad: it would include successors whose parents had died or left. A third draft added the founder's presence, which the banker had identified as central, and the focus on sense-making that defines IPA.

The Central Question

How do successors in Iowa family-owned manufacturing firms make sense of leading the firm during the first years after succession while the founding parent remains involved?

The final question names the people, the experience, the setting and the time, and still leaves the answer open.

Subquestions

Maxwell (2013) presents qualitative design as interactive, with research questions at the center connecting goals, conceptual framework, methods and validity, so that each question should be answerable by the methods and should serve the study's goals. Following that logic, three subquestions divide the central question into parts that interviews can address:

SQ1: How do successors describe their authority in the firm in relation to the founder's continued presence?

SQ2: How do successors experience relationships with long-serving employees who knew them before they led the firm?

SQ3: How do successors understand their responsibility for the family's legacy in the business?

Each uses how and describe language, focuses on experience and meaning and corresponds to an area the banker's conversations and the literature suggest matters.

Fit With IPA

IPA asks how particular people make sense of significant experiences. The central question does exactly that. The subquestions do not presuppose answers; a successor might describe authority as fully held or as shared, relationships as supportive or strained. The questions concern a homogeneous group, successors in a specific industry and situation, which suits IPA's small, purposive samples. And they invite detailed accounts that IPA's case-by-case analysis requires.

Research Questions Versus Interview Questions

The research questions say what the study wants to understand; interview questions are what the banker will actually ask. They differ. A successor asked "How do you make sense of your authority?" would likely be puzzled. Instead, the interview might ask, "Tell me about a decision you made in your first year that your father or mother disagreed with," and "What happened afterward?" The answers will feed SQ1 without using its abstract wording. Week 4 will develop the full interview guide, but drafting a few interview questions now confirms that each research question can be reached through ordinary conversation.

Checking the Wording Word by Word

The banker reviewed each word in the central question. "Make sense of" signals IPA's interpretive focus. "Leading" was chosen over "managing" because successors often describe the challenge as leadership, not administration. "First years" is defined in the sampling plan as one to five years. "Remains involved" covers founders who hold a board seat, keep an office or simply visit the plant daily, a range she will describe in the findings rather than restrict at the outset.

Why Iowa and Why Manufacturing

Limiting the study to one state and one industry keeps the sample homogeneous, as IPA prefers, and reflects the banker's knowledge of the setting. Manufacturing firms share features that shape succession, such as long-serving skilled employees and capital-intensive equipment that ties family wealth to the business. Findings may resonate with successors in other industries, but the study will not claim they apply there.

What the Questions Exclude

The questions do not ask whether succession succeeds, how founders experience it or how firms perform. Those are worthwhile but would need different traditions or data. Founders' and employees' perspectives may appear in successors' accounts, but the study is about the successor's sense-making.

Can the Questions Be Answered?

The banker checked each question against the planned data. Successors can describe their authority, relationships and sense of legacy in interviews; they are the only people who can. The time frame, the first years, means recruiting successors one to five years into leadership, which is feasible in Iowa's manufacturing sector. Her network and the state's family business center can reach enough potential participants.

Sensitizing Ideas, Not Hypotheses

The banker expects themes about divided authority and the weight of legacy. In IPA, such expectations are sensitizing ideas to be set aside during interviews and analysis, not hypotheses to confirm. She records them in her reflexive journal so she can check later whether her analysis simply found what she expected.

Questions Will Evolve

IPA allows questions to be refined as interviews proceed. If successors consistently raise an unexpected issue, such as siblings who did not inherit leadership, a subquestion may be added, with the change documented in the audit trail.

Conclusion

A causal, judgmental first draft became an open central question about how Iowa successors make sense of leading with the founder still present, with three subquestions on authority, employee relationships and legacy. The questions rest on a documented gap, fit IPA and can be answered by the people the study will interview. Week 3 will plan sampling and access.

References

Agee, J. (2009). Developing qualitative research questions: A reflective process. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22(4), 431-447. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390902736512

Handler, W. C. (1994). Succession in family business: A review of the research. Family Business Review, 7(2), 133-157. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-6248.1994.00133.x

Maxwell, J. A. (2013). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (3rd ed.). Sage.