INTERVIEWEE RESPONSE

Compared with questionnaires, interviews avoided the need for respondents to commit significant time to providing answers in written form. Questionnaires were also not deemed appropriate because specific responses may require clearance from administrative hierarchies within organisations. Within the context of this PhD research project, compared with interviews, questionnaires would create particular uncertainty in terms of interviewee response rate and time. 

Interview questions needed to address the research questions, but were elaborated and defined after the literature review. Specifically, the questions needed to cover 10 broad topic areas relating to policy, rules, practice and experiences with official risk reduction strategy processes at national and EU levels (as described in Section 2.3.4 and defined in Appendix 2.4). These 10 topic areas were anticipated as minimising potential overlaps between interviewee reports of national and EU dimensions while being sufficiently wide to group variations in interviewee responses. 

Questions were carefully constructed so as not to influence interviewee response. Interviews should be a one-way process because researcher bias can be more easily introduced in a two-way process of communication [298]. Interviews were also constructed and conducted so as to avoid confrontation and challenge, allowing the interviewees to respond freely. Most interviews were conducted between January 2004 and March 2005 at the organisation s headquarters five interviews were conducted over the telephone when scheduling meetings proved difficult. Interviewee responses over the telephone tended to be shorter and therefore less detailed, even when using follow-up probes. 

To create a complete and in-depth understanding of national policies and practices, interviewee responses have been combined with publicly available literature, such as policy documents and research studies. Summaries of the interviews are included in a separate annex, available upon request. Overviews of the national policies in Appendix 4.1 provided a further source of material that has been incorporated and referenced in the research findings. 

This is referenced in Section 3.8 and supported by several interviewee responses. 

Judging by the interviewee responses, many companies require clear guidance on how to adopt preventive measures, such as coherent and predictable regulation. Companies need a consistent set of regulatory demands that creates a constant and level playing field while promoting best practice. 

In addition to recording quantitative information, assessors can use these forms to record observations and opinions for future use. It s important, however, to make sure that the interviewer s opinion can be clearly distinguished from an interviewee s response use brackets, asterisks, or other symbols to set opinions apart. 

For most interviewees, the decision to attend graduate school was made while in college. When asked who or what most influenced their decision to attend graduate school, the top response was self, followed closely by mentor (see Fig. 3.5). As was true for the decision to attend college, teachers once again played a pivotal... 

Approximately 80% of the interviewees provided useable 12-month salary data for 1993-1994. The monthly salary ranged from 3,333 (academe) to more than 15,000 (industry). The median monthly salary was 7,583. The median years with the doctorate were 24 years. Two academic chemists earned the lowest salaries despite having their doctorates an average of 30 years. An industrial chemist reported the highest annual earnings but felt underpaid given the number of years and job responsibilities with the company. Not surprisingly, both the median monthly salary and median years with the doctorate varied considerably across employment sectors (see Table 4.6). 

Approximately 10% of interviewees were ambivalent about their level of job satisfaction. Specifically, industrial chemists were more likely than either academic or government and other chemists to express a neutral opinion. Nevertheless, most interviewees were either satisfied or very satisfied with their positions. In sharp contrast, academic chemists were less ambivalent. For example, 16 of the 22 were satisfied or very satisfied with their j obs, while five were very dissatisfied. Only one academic chemist indicated a neutral response. All government and other chemists were either satisfied or very satisfied with their jobs. 

When asked who had influenced them most in their careers, interviewees identified a variety of individuals (see Table 4.10). The most frequent responses were mentor and spouse (among those currently married). The mentor emerged as an inclusive category. For example, interviewees included former high school... 

In this chapter I will present the accounts of three of my interviewees, whose stories illustrate three broad and persistent patterns of response to psychotropic drugs. Naturally, it is problematic to generalize from three cases after all, no two individuals face precisely the same contingencies as they try to work out the puzzles generated by their illness and the medications prescribed for it. Nonetheless, these cases preview my thinking in later chapters about commonalties in people s thoughts, feelings, and actions toward medications. 

One comment captured best the interviewees shared sentiments T am not responsible for being depressed. I can t help it. But I am responsible for what I choose to do with it. Of course, these thoughts cannot erase the opinions of the uninformed who stigmatize the mentally ill. But recognizing both that illness is only one part of who you are and that you did not cause it can help diminish the self-blame that only deepens the pain of depression. 

Interviews were conducted with 10 firms. (Because some firms spanned more than one productive segment, we were able to gain information about all twelve productive segments.) Interviews of about two hours duration were conducted by two members of the study team with one to four people from the firm. The discussions were informal and flexible in order to allow the interviewees ample latitude to enlighten us about the aspects of the regulations covered, the industry, and the technical responses which they considered particularly significant. In all cases, the interviewees performed one (or both) of the following functions in the firm ... 

More work needs to be done in the investigation of ancillary responses. However, we do feel that their existence is beyond doubt. One of the problems in investigating ancillary responses arises from the fact that they are very diffuse and indirect and not likely to be appreciated fully by any single individual in the firm. Indeed this fact was cited often by interviewees in response to our questions. 

First, our own experience of communicating with DG Sanco officers (Unit C7) - two of our interviewees - revealed an unexpected attempt to politically control research, namely the very study presented in this chapter. In response to a draft of the present chapter, the DG Sanco officers not only - and contrary to our explicit request - sent the draft to at least one other EU officer, the head of the responsible unit in DG Sanco, and to one of our other interviewees (the Chair) but also threatened to take action to prevent the publication of this chapter if the revisions suggested were not made. For the sake of clarity and scrutiny, we are quoting the officers e-mail in full without editing it (except for typos and the added italics) - sent to us on 17 July 2009 ... 

A semi-structured interviewing technique was used to allow interviewees sufficient flexibility in articulating their responses while ensuring sufficient topic coverage for the subsequent analysis. Interview questions acted as guides or probes, based on a funnelling technique (see [294]) ... 

If an interviewee expressed uncertainty as to the validity of his/ her response, the data were omitted from the research findings. Information provided by the interviewees that was outside the scope of the study was excluded, for example ... 

The research findings were disseminated to the interviewees, certain members of the European Commission, and the relevant European Parliament committee reporters. The systems framework was formatted and submitted as a short document to the RIP responsible for developing TGD for restriction and authorisation. Responses received were considered in terms of the overall contribution of the research project. 

Interviews number of interviewee A gap in towards the end-use of the supply chain - Retailers are playing an increasing role in chemicals policy - Chemical distributors may have specific views on chemicals policy and risk management - Geographical and temporal accessibility to interviewees - Choice of major actors in chemicals policy - Environmental and consumer NGO are likely to be involved in the activities of retailers - Regulators and industry trade associations are likely to be aware of the role and responsibilities of chemical distributors... 

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