Essay: Lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHOD
Chapter Overview
The purpose of the proposed qualitative phenomenological study is to explore the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace.  This section will present a detailed methodological plan for the study.  The chapter will be organized based on the following sections: (a) research questions, (b) research design, (c) population and sample, (d) procedures, (e) validity, (f) instrumentation, (g) data processing, (h) assumptions, (i) limitations, and (j) ethical assurances.  A concluding summary will be provided to recap the important points of the study and transition to the results.
Research Questions
Baby Boomers are retiring and millennials are taking over the vacancies in the workplace, including leadership positions (Kaifi et al., 2012).  The specific problem that will be addressed in the proposed study is that the understanding of the nature of leadership of millennials in a generationally diverse workplace remains limited (Chou, 2012).  Given this research problem, the purpose of the proposed qualitative phenomenological study is to explore the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace.  Based on the problem and purpose identified, the research questions of the study are the following:
RQ1.  What are the lived experiences of millennials with regard to leading a generationally diverse workplace?
RQ2.  What are the challenges encountered by millennials with regard to leading a generationally diverse workplace?
Research Design
A qualitative phenomenological research design will be used to explore the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace.  Qualitative research is exploratory in nature, which means that the goal is to generate information that has not been established in earlier studies (Silverman, 2013).  Qualitative studies are inductive, detail-oriented, narrative-based, and reliant on subjective interpretations (Merriam, 2014).
A qualitative research approach is appropriate for the study because exploring the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace requires the detail and depth that qualitative research can provide as a research design.  The methodological framework of quantitative research is not appropriate because statistical tools and numeric conclusions will not provide the desired information needed to address the purpose of the study (Goertz & Mahoney, 2012).  Quantitative research approach is used in studies that involve examining relationships, conducting experimentation and manipulation of variables, and determining the cause and effect association between two or more variables (Goertz & Mahoney, 2012).
Phenomenology is a qualitative research design that utilizes the lived experiences of a small group of individuals to understand the key processes and mechanisms involved in a particular event (Moustakas, 1994).  In phenomenological research, the goal is to generate universal aspects of a lived experience based on patterns and themes extracted from the analysis of data (De Felice & Janesick, 2015).  Phenomenological researchers rely on the subjective experience of a small group of individuals through interviews to generate a narrative that will provide a detailed description about a research phenomenon (Moustakas, 1994).
The selection of a qualitative phenomenological research design is appropriate because exploring the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace needs tools embedded in both qualitative research approach and phenomenology, which is the use of semi-structured interviews.  Other qualitative research designs such as case studies, ethnography, and grounded theory are not appropriate because of lack of alignment with the purpose of exploring the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace.  Case studies involve the use of multiple sources of data to examine a complex phenomenon (Yin, 2013).  Even though exploring the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse is a complex phenomenon, semi-structured interviews is the best tool that can provide rich information relevant to the purpose of the study.  Conducting observations or collecting documents may not be applicable given the purpose of the study.  Grounded theory is not appropriate because theory generation is not the goal of the study (Charmaz, 2014).  Finally, ethnography is more appropriate in research studies that involve exploring a phenomenon specific to an ethnic or cultural group (Van Maanen, 2011).
Population and Sample
The population will include millennials who are in leadership positions in various profit and not-for-profit organizations in the United States.  From that population, the sample will consist of 10 millennial leaders in various work settings ranging from religious organizations, health care, and non-profit companies in Chicago, Illinois.  The use of 10 participants is sufficient in qualitative studies to reach data saturation, which is measure used to indicate that no new information can be discovered even if more participants are interviewed (Francis, Johnston, Robertson, Glidewell, Entwistle, Eccles, & Grimshaw, 2010).
Convenience sampling technique will be used to recruit participants in order to accommodate the limited time of collecting, analyzing, and presenting the results.  Convenience sampling involves the selection of eligible participants who are easy to reach (Marshall, 1996).  By using personal relationships of the researcher to select participants in the sample, the ethical implication of using the convenience sampling technique is the possibility of collecting information that can be considered as confidences, forecasted data that lack accurate support, and the objectification of participants (Brewis, 2014).
Procedures
Recruitment will be accomplished by inviting several people known to the researcher who qualify for the study based on the inclusion criterion of being a millennial leader who is leading a generationally diverse company or organization.  The potential participants will be informed of the purpose and nature of the study.  The researcher will emphasize that the invitation is not intended to compel participation.  The intent is to find volunteers who are willing to share their experiences in leading a generationally diverse workforce.
Data will be collected using individual, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews.  Semi-structured interviews combine organization and flexibility to maintain order while remaining open to issues that may arise during the conversation (Rabionet, 2011).  Prior to the scheduled interviews, an interview guide will be prepared to enhance the flow of the interview, to ensure that every participant is asked with the same key questions, and to improve the quality of the data that will be collected.
For the actual data collection, a scheduled session for each of the 10 participants will be made, taking into consideration their availability and preference for the date, time, and location.  Two days prior to the scheduled appointment, a reminder will be made through email to confirm the interview.  During the day of the interview, after their signatures are secured in the informed consent forms, the interview will commence.  The purpose of the study will be reiterated to the participants to ensure that the topic is clearly understood.  Questions regarding the study will also be encouraged at the start of the interview to address any confusion or clarifications.  The duration of the interview is expected to last from 30 to 45 minutes.  The entire interview will be digitally recorded with the appropriate permission from the participants secured through the informed consent forms.
After the interviews are completed for each participant, a reminder will be given about the possibility of being contacted for member checking.  The participants will be informed that after the analysis is completed, a summary will be sent through email, asking them to assess if the summative report reflects the essence of their lived experience in leading a generationally diverse workplace.  The participants will be informed that the purpose of member checking is to enhance the validity and credibility of the study.
Interview Questions
Central Question
Sub Questions
Validity
Credibility refers to the extent to which the results can be considered believable and credible from the perspectives of the participants (Morse, Barrett, Mayan, Olson, & Spiers, 2008).  Utilizing member checking after the results are generated will enhance the credibility of the study.  The composite experience narrative generated from the analysis will be emailed to each participant, asking them to assess if the summary reflects the essence of their lived experience in leading a generationally diverse workplace.  The participants will be reminded that the summary provided was a composite experience based on integrating the experience of several participants.
Dependability refers to the extent to which the results can be considered as replicable if the same procedure is followed by an independent researcher (Golafshani, 2003).  As a prototypical model, the results of the study can be replicated through detailed descriptions (Shenton, 2004).  Dependability will be addressed and enhanced by having an in-depth description of the methodological decision made by the researcher so other people can replicate the same findings (Shenton, 2004).
Confirmability refers to the extent to which the results can be considered as objective in terms of other researchers being able to corroborate the findings presented (Thomas & Magilvy, 2011).  To address the confirmability of the results, the researcher will make a conscious effort to verify the codes and the themes that will be developed during the analysis phase of the study by checking and rechecking the conclusions made supported by the raw data (Shenton, 2004).  A detailed methodological description of the procedures and the data analysis will also be provided so that other researchers can assess the level of objectivity in which the results presented were based and supported by adequate rationale.
Transferability refers to the extent to which the results can be generalized to other studies, which is a responsibility placed on the judgment of other researchers (Golafshani, 2003).  The transferability of the results will be enhanced by providing detailed description of the data collection procedure and the assumptions made with regard to the methodological design of the study (Shenton, 2004).  Through these detailed descriptions of the procedure and the assumptions made, the researcher assists other scholars in deciding whether the results that will be presented in this study is applicable in other settings or situations.
Instrumentation
To enhance the effectiveness of the researcher during the semi-structured interview, an interview guide will be prepared.  The interview guide will contain several open-ended questions intended to provide information about the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace.  The pre-determined set of questions will only serve as guide, but the researcher will probe and add follow-up questions depending on the responses of each participant.  Even though the same set of questions will be asked, the final questions may be different based on the interaction between the researcher and each participant.
The role of the researcher will encompass a wide range of responsibilities and tasks, including the submission of the necessary requirements for the Internal Review Board approval, recruitment of participants, and the collection and analysis of data.  The researcher will be responsible for conducting the interviews, including the distribution of informed consent forms and the handling of the recordings.  The researcher will also be responsible for the data analysis phase of the study.  To enhance the effectiveness of the researcher in conducting interview and performing the data analysis in phenomenological research, several key references will be read such as the works of Moustakas (1994) and Rabionet (2011).
As the researcher, some of the personal biases that may affect the objectivity of the study include personal relationship with the participants and the belief that millennials are capable leaders just like any other generations.  To control the identified biases, voluntary participation will be emphasized to prevent potential participants from participating because of their personal relationships with the researcher.  To address the belief that millennials are capable leaders just like any other generations, the researcher will utilize the concept identified by Moustakas (1994) as bracketing, which is the process of consciously setting aside biases.
Data Processing
The data processing phase of the study will involve transcribing the recordings of the interviews into several transcripts that can be analyzed and inspected.  After the transcripts for each participant are generated, all files will be loaded in Nvivo for the storage and organization of all data.  Nvivo software will be used to organize the data collected from the participants.  Nvivo software is a tool that can aid in the systematic conceptualization of the data into codes and categories, which are necessary components in developing themes (Azeem, Salfi, & Dogar, 2012).  The software will only aid in the process of coding, but the researcher will perform the actual analysis in terms of assigning labels and determining categories and themes based on the data from the interviews.
Data will be analyzed using the modified van Kaam method of phenomenological analysis (Moustakas, 1994).  This method involves inspecting the contents of the transcripts and generating a list of invariant constituents that succinctly captures all the relevant experience in a single word or a few words.  These invariant constituents are further inspected and assigned in different clusters or themes based on similarities with each other in terms of meaning or essence.
After the invariant constituents and clusters are finalized by reviewing the data again, the final stage of the analysis is the creation of individual textural data and individual structural data (Moustakas, 1994).  Individual textural description is a summarized narrative of the experience of participants using their own words.  The individual structural description is a summarized narrative of the experience of each participant using the structural perspectives of time, space, memory, and concepts of self.
The last step is the generation of composite description, which involves a thick description of the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace (Moustakas, 1994).  The composite description is highly abstract in nature because the summary of experience generated is intended to be reflective of every participant.  The composite description will consist of the major themes that will emerge from the analysis.
Assumptions
The first assumption of the researcher is that the responses of the 10 millennial leaders selected as participants of the study will be honest, accurate, and full of relevant details.  To enhance the honesty of the participants during the interview, a reminder will be provided about the confidentiality of their identities and the corresponding data collected.  To improve the accuracy of the responses of the participants, the purpose of the study will be reiterated to the participants to ensure that the topic is clearly understood.  Questions regarding the study will also be encouraged at the start of the interview to address any confusion or clarifications.  To increase the likelihood that participants are able to provide detailed responses during the interview, open-ended and follow-up questions will be asked.  Probing will be utilized to encourage participants to give as much details as possible.
The second assumption is that all 10 millennial leaders selected are willing participants who are not compelled or forced to be part of the study.  Even though the recruitment will focus on people who have preexisting relationship with the researcher, voluntary participation will be emphasized.  Potential participants will not be harassed or compelled to be part of the study in any form.  Each participant will be asked to sign an informed consent form indicating voluntary participation.
The third assumption is that the selected methodology of qualitative phenomenological research design using semi-structured interviews is the most appropriate method to explore the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace.  The use of semi-structured interviews is assumed and expected to produce rich and detailed information from the participants because of the flexibility, versatility, and utility of the data collection tool (Rabionet, 2011).
Limitations
Based on the selected design of the study, the first limitation is the reliance on a single data collection tool, which is consistent with phenomenological research.  A phenomenological research design relies on the self-expression of participants, which is usually captured using semi-structured interviews (Moustakas, 1994).  Some participants may not be effective oral communicators, which may affect their ability to express their perceptions and experiences accurately.  To encourage rich and detailed responses from the participants, sufficient time will be given to respond to questions.  At the end of the interview, participants may also be given the opportunity to provide additional responses to enhance their answers to the previous questions.
In terms of access to participants, the second limitation is that there will be no measures that will be used to ensure heterogeneity in terms of level of education, age, gender, or number of years in leadership role.  The use of convenience sampling technique may limit the range of people who will comprise the final sample.  A summary of the demographics of the final sample will be generated so that readers will have a clear understanding of the source of data.
Ethical Assurances
To enhance the ethical protection of participants during the recruitment phase of the study, the researcher will emphasize voluntary participation.  The intent is to find volunteers who are willing to share their experiences in leading a generationally diverse workforce.  People who refuse to be part of the study will not be penalized and will not be harassed to join the study.
Informed consent forms will be used to ensure that participants understand the expectations of the researcher regarding their involvement in the study.  The informed consent forms will also be important in formally indicating the procedures that will be used to protect the identities of the participants, the measures that will be used to ensure confidentiality of data, and the process for withdrawal.  Participants will be required to sign the informed consent forms if they agree to be part of the study based on the terms detailed in the forms.
Preparing and accomplishing all the required documents that need to be submitted for review will address permission and approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB).  The document that will be submitted to the IRB will include information about the purpose and nature of the study, focusing on the different ways that will be used or conducted to uphold ethical research practices.  The interviews will only commence after the approval of the IRB is secured.
Confidentiality will be addressed by not sharing the identities of the participants to the public or readers through the use of descriptors or pseudonyms.  For the 10 millennial leaders who will serve as the participants of the study, their real names will be excluded from being accessed by other people.  All 10 participants will be assigned unique pseudonyms that will serve as their identifiers during the analysis of the data and in the presentation of the results.  A password-protected document will be generated to list the names of the participants and the corresponding pseudonyms assigned to maintain an audit trail.  The researcher has the sole access to the password-protected document and will be deleted after the analysis is completed and the research has been approved for publication.
Summary
Baby Boomers are retiring and millennials are taking over the vacancies in the workplace, including leadership positions (Kaifi et al., 2012).  The specific problem that will be addressed in the proposed study is that the understanding of the nature of leadership of Millennials in a generationally diverse workplace remains limited (Chou, 2012).  Given this research problem, the purpose of the proposed qualitative phenomenological study is to explore the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace.
The selection of a qualitative phenomenological research design is appropriate because exploring the lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace needs tools embedded in both qualitative research approach and phenomenology.  The sample will consist of 10 millennial leaders in various work settings ranging from religious organizations, health care, and non-profit companies in Chicago, Illinois.  Convenience sampling strategy will be used to recruit the participants for the study.  Data will be collected using semi-structured interviews, which will be analyzed using the modified van Kaam method of phenomenological analysis (Moustakas, 1994).  The next chapter will present the results of the study, organized based on categories and themes developed from the analysis.
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Lived experience of millennials in leading a generationally diverse workplace
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