Introduction
A full and true report is the hallmark of the scientist, a report as accurate and faithful as he can make it in every detail.—Glass (1965: 83).
Auditability
Hercule Poirot and Auditability: Role of Narratives
Conceptualizing Audits
Internal Audits
Poirot: The case seems straightforward enough and yet, and yet, mon ami, I am not satisfied! And do you know why? Because of the wristwatch that is two hours fast. And then there are several curious little points that do not seem to fit in. For instance, if the object of the murderers was revenge, why did they not stab Renauld in his sleep and have done with it?
Christie (1923; p. 35)
External audits
Poirot: Your theory allows for the door being opened. It does not explain why it was left open. When they (the murderers) departed, would it not have been natural for them to close it behind them? If a sergent de ville had chanced to come up to the house, as is sometimes done to see that all is well, they might have been discovered and overtaken almost at once.Giraud: Bah! They forgot it. A mistake, I grant you.Poirot: I do not agree with you. The door being left open was the result of either design or necessity, and any theory that does not admit that fact is bound to prove vain.
Christie (1923; p. 51)
Reader-Centric Perspective
Second-Party Auditing in Qualitative Business Ethics Research
Internal (First-party) | External (Third-party) | Second-party | |
---|---|---|---|
Audit category | Internal | External | External |
Purpose of audit | Self-evaluation | Compliance to standards and good research practice vouched by an external member High quality of subsequent manuscript | Better understanding of the study and its trustworthiness by readers, reviewers, and editors (especially the former) Facilitation of further replications and extensions of the study High quality of academic exchange |
Selection of Auditor | Decided by the researchers involved | Not decided by the involved researchers | |
Auditors | Team members, involved colleagues | Uninvolved experts in methodology (with sufficient expertise in the area of research) | Journal editors, reviewers, readers (includes other researchers, business community, universities, government agencies, consumer groups) |
Audit period | During the course of the concerned study | From the early stages of the concerned study OR After the concerned study, before the final manuscript is prepared (Lincoln and Guba 1985) | After the manuscript is written Usually when the manuscript is submitted to a journal or after it gets published |
Problems associated | Over-identification between the researcher and the auditor (Rodwell and Byers 1997) Expectations and common value orientations between the researcher and the auditor | Early co-option (if the auditor gets involved during the early stages of the study) Paucity of information (if the auditor gets involved during the later stages of the study) (Lincoln and Guba 1985) | Have no or limited access to raw data and field procedures (especially true for the readers of the article) |
Documents reviewed | Internal reports, archival records, interview transcripts, memos, methodological logs (Patton 1990) Reflexive journals (Lincoln and Guba 1985) | Completed manuscript (for editors and reviewers) Published article (for readers) | |
Documents not reviewed | Final published manuscript | Internal reports, archival records, interview transcripts, memos, methodological logs, reflexive journals | |
Audit procedures currently available | Halpern (1983) | ‘Halpern Algorithm’ (Halpern 1993; Lincoln and Guba 1985) | Second-party audit trail (new—as proposed in this article) |
…the criminal must have been fully cognizant of Mr. Renauld's plans…. Is there anyone else who might have known of them? Yes. From Marthe Daubreuil’s own lips we have the admission that she overheard M. Renauld's quarrel with the tramp. If she could overhear that, there is no reason why she should not have heard everything else, especially if M. and Madame Renauld were imprudent enough to discuss their plans sitting on the bench.
Christie (1923; p. 135)
Marthe Daubreuil overhears what passes between Renauld and his wife...At present M. Renauld stands inexorably in the way of her marriage with Jack. But with M. Renauld dead, and Jack the heir to half his millions, the marriage can take place at once, and at a stroke she will attain wealth….
Christie (1923; p. 135)
Poirot: It did not seem very likely that Bella Duveen would be wandering about carrying a souvenir paper-knife in her hand…. If it was not Bella Duveen, the only other person who could have committed the crime was Marthe Daubreuil.I had taken steps to force Mademoiselle Marthe into the open. By my orders, Mrs. Renauld repulsed her son, and declared her intention of making a will on the morrow which should cut him off from ever enjoying even a portion of his father's fortune.… All happened as I thought. Marthe Daubreuil made a last bold bid for the Renauld millions--and failed!
Christie (1923; p. 136)
Hastings: What absolutely bewilders me is how she ever got into the house without our seeing her. It seems an absolute miracle. We left her behind at the Villa Marguerite, we go straight to the Villa Geneviève--and yet she is there before us!
Christie (1923; p. 136)
A business ethics article’s auditing does not take the form of such an explicit dialogue, but journal reviewers, editors, and readers share with readers of a detective novel the observant position of outsiders. They do not solve the issue under research, nor do they have the intention to do so (Grella 1970), but they do wish to observe and understand the sensemaking involved in the research process. The audit trail should therefore be transparent (Weiss et al. 2015), understandable, and devoid of any mysterious or complex terms. Auditability at this stage is important in decisions regarding the acceptance of the article for publication, integration of the article into the academic body of knowledge, safeguarding the replicability or transferability of results and even the ensuing scholarly impact.Poirot: Ah, but we did not leave her behind. She was out of the Villa Marguerite by the back way whilst we were talking to her mother in the hall.Hastings: But the shadow on the blind? We saw it from the road.Poirot: _Eh bien_, when we looked up, Madame Daubreuil (Marthe’s mother) had just had time to run upstairs and take her place.Hastings: Madame Daubreuil?Poirot: Yes. One is old, and one is young, one dark, and one fair, but, for the purpose of a silhouette on a blind, their profiles are singularly alike.
Novelty and Contributions of Second-Party Auditing
Second-Party Auditing: Some Caveats
Components of the report | Detective story With excerpts from Christie (1923) novel | Qualitative research With excerpts from Browning et al. (1995) grounded theory article |
---|---|---|
Purpose of investigation | To solve a crime • Sergent de ville: M. Renauld was murdered this morning. (p. 13) | To answer a research question (and thereby fill a research gap) • The current research focused on rather different issues: how the SEMATECH organization emerged out of the combined, cooperative efforts of many members of the rather diverse set of its founding companies, and how the consortium's formation and activities enabled and encouraged co-operation throughout the semiconductor industry (p. 115) |
Setting of investigation | Crime setting • Villa Geneviève (the home of the deceased) | Research and investigation setting • What is novel and theoretically interesting about SEMATECH, then, is that it offers insight into how cooperation can arise and persist in a highly competitive industry (p. 114) • Background information on SEMATECH: Founding, mission, and structure; struggles and achievements (pp. 115–119) |
Process of investigation | Choice of investigation method • Poirot: He had a certain disdain for tangible evidence, such as footprints and cigarette ash, and would maintain that, taken by themselves, they would never enable a detective to solve a problem. Then he would tap his egg-shaped head with absurd complacency, and remark with great satisfaction: "The true work, it is done from within. The little grey cells–remember always the little grey cells, _mon ami_!" (p. 6) • Hastings: "But surely the study of fingerprints and footprints, cigarette ash, different kinds of mud, and other clues that comprise the minute observation of details–all these are of vital importance?" "Poirot: "But certainly. I have never said otherwise. The trained observer, the expert, without doubt he is useful! But the others, the Hercules Poirots, they are above the experts! To them the experts bring the facts, their business is the method of the crime, its logical deduction, the proper sequence and order of the facts; above all, the true psychology of the case." (pp. 10–11) | Choice of research method • This study employed qualitative methods because we wanted to capture the development of cooperation in this organization in the rich detail that only accounts of the organizational founders and early participants could provide. (p. 119) • We chose grounded theory methodology primarily because we aspired to derive new theoretical insights from the data we gathered on this unprecedented and unique effort at building co-operation. (p. 120) |
Selecting people to interview • Christie discussed how Poirot contacted different people who were related to the murdered man (for instance, the inmates of his house) Poirot: "And the inmates of the house, monsieur?" M. Hautet: "There is old Françoise, the housekeeper, she lived for many years with the former owners of the Villa Geneviève. Then there are two young girls, sisters, Denise and Léonie Oulard. Their home is in Merlinville, and they come of the most respectable parents. Then there is the chauffeur whom M. Renauld brought over from England with him, but he is away on a holiday. Finally there are Madame Renauld and her son, M. Jack Renauld. He, too, is away from home at present." (pp. 15–16) | Sampling • As is appropriate in qualitative research, theoretical sampling was used (Glaser 1976; Glaser and Strauss 1967). To assure that our data came from all levels of SEMATECH and especially, that information from lower-level employees would inform the study, we invited all employees to participate in the study via SEMATECH's E-mail system. Six individuals volunteered and were interviewed during the first two months of the study. We subsequently interviewed 54 founding and current leaders, selecting initial interviewees by reviewing records and asking those individuals to identify others. Those interviewed included 14 industry executives, 8 SEMATECH executives, 12 SEMATECH assignees, 14 SEMATECH direct hires, and 6 industry experts (pp. 119–120) | |
Collecting evidence • Through questioning potential suspects and other parties who were associated with the murdered man • Examining the murder scene, garden (flower bed) etc. | Data collection • Interviews, which were private and conducted face-to-face, were structured to begin with brief professional histories of the interviewees and a description of how they and their firms became involved in SEMATECH. These narratives lasted approximately 10–15 min and were used as bases for follow-up questions for the remainders of the interviews. The interviews ranged in length from 25 to 120 min and were audiotaped and transcribed for analysis. …. We also reviewed, documents in ten bank boxes of organizational archives from the files of key early executives and the collection of the SEMATECH librarian. In addition, we read, sorted, and abstracted over 5000 reports and news articles on SEMATECH …. In addition, we observed and recorded the behavior of organization members at 15 SEMATECH meetings conducted in 1992 and 1993. (p. 120) • Our methods also permitted some within-method and between-methods triangulation. We could compare the data obtained from interviews with the data available from newspapers, documents, and our observations. We also employed a kind of time triangulation in which some information obtained from those involved in SEMATECH early in its history could be compared with that available from more recent participants. In addition, one of us was an independent investigator who had studied the same setting with similar methods, but different research aims. Data from this second study, which included observations of SEMATECH events and over a hundred interviews with assignees at SEMATECH from 1992 and 1994, were employed in the present study to confirm and refine our interpretations of several key points, particularly those regarding the levels of cooperation among assignees and member companies (pp. 121–122) | |
Looking for more evidence (and resolving inconsistencies) • Poirot: "The case seems straightforward enough–and yet–and yet, _mon ami_, I am not satisfied! And do you know why? Because of the wrist watch that is two hours fast. And then there are several curious little points that do not seem to fit in. For instance, if the object of the murderers was revenge, why did they not stab Renauld in his sleep and have done with it?" (p. 35) | Further data collection (and resolving inconsistencies) • The few apparent discrepancies of fact that arouse were reconciled through additional interviews with the original informants involved. To further verify the accuracy of our statements and interpretations, we submitted this article to the standard document review process at SEMATECH (p. 121) | |
Fitting in pieces of evidence to solve the case • He (Poirot) took from his pocket a small faded newspaper cutting. It was the reproduction of a woman's photograph. He handed it to me (Hastings). I uttered an exclamation Hastings: "Madame Daubreuil!" I exclaimed Poirot: "Not quite correct, my friend. She did not call herself by that name in those days. That is a picture of the notorious Madame Beroldy!" Madame Beroldy! In a flash the whole thing came back to me. The murder trial that had evoked such world-wide interest Hastings: "Poirot," I said, "I congratulate you. I see everything now." … "Why, that it was Madame Daubreuil–Beroldy, who murdered Mr. Renauld. The similarity of the two cases proves that beyond a doubt." Poirot: "Then you consider that Madame Beroldy was wrongly acquitted? That in actual fact she was guilty of connivance in her husband's murder?" "So it is definitely your opinion, Hastings, that Madame Daubreuil murdered M. Renauld?" …"Why?" Hastings: "Why?" I stammered. "Why? Oh, because–" I came to a stop Poirot: "You see, you come to a stumbling-block at once. Why should Madame Daubreuil (I shall call her that for clearness sake) murder M. Renauld? We can find no shadow of a motive. She does not benefit by his death; considered as either mistress or blackmailer she stands to lose. You cannot have a murder without a motive. The first crime was different, there we had a rich lover waiting to step into her husband's shoes." Hastings: "Money is not the only motive for murder," I objected Poirot: "True," agreed Poirot placidly. "There are two others, the crime passionnel is one. And there is the third rare motive, murder for an idea which implies some form of mental derangement on the part of the murderer. Homicidal mania, and religious fanaticism belong to that class. We can rule it out here." (p. 83–87) | Managing and analyzing data • Appendix: Chronology of Important Events at SEMATECH (pp. 149–151) • We coded the transcripts using constant comparative analysis in which each incident was assigned to an emergent open coding scheme until all interviews had been coded. Two of us jointly produced 130 codes and subsequently reduced these into increasingly abstract categories through axial coding; this stage of the analysis produced 24 categories. In a process of selective coding, we further collapsed and renamed the categories to yield the 17 categories presented in Table 3 and described in the Results section (pp. 120–121) | |
Preliminary solutions • Poirot: “…when I learned of the existence of the other girl, Bella Duveen, I realized that it was quite possible that she might have killed M. Renauld” (p. 136) | First-level codes • Table 3: Coding Theme and Core Categories (p. 124) | |
Incorporating new evidence • Hastings: "But Bella Duveen killed Mr. Renauld?" Poirot: "Oh, no, Hastings, she did not! She said she did–yes–but that was to save the man she loved from the guillotine." "Remember Jack Renauld's story. They both arrived on the scene at the same instant, and each took the other to be the perpetrator of the crime. The girl stares at him in horror, and then with a cry rushes away. But, when she hears that the crime has been brought home to him, she cannot bear it, and comes forward to accuse herself and save him from certain death." "The case was not quite satisfactory to me. All along I was strongly under the impression that we were dealing with a cold-blooded and premeditated crime committed by someone who had been contented (very cleverly) with using M. Renauld's own plans for throwing the police off the track." (p. 135) | Constant comparison • As data are collected and coded, investigators develop conceptual categories, and tentative hypotheses about them emerge. Questions about certain matters of fact will also arise as important to understanding and interpreting the data. The investigators can then collect additional data to test the bounds of conceptual categories, matters of fact, and tentative hypotheses from additional informants or from other sources of data. As the research proceeds and new data are collected, they are constantly being compared to prior data in terms of categories and hypotheses. This process is repeated until theoretical saturation is reached: until no new categories are emerging and no new information inconsistent with the categories and tentative hypotheses is being generated (p. 121) Diversity of data considered • When new data yielded new or inconsistent information, conceptual categories and the emerging theory are modified to take them into account (p. 121) Theoretical saturation • This process is repeated until theoretical saturation is reached: until no new categories are emerging and no new information inconsistent with the categories and tentative hypotheses is being generated (p. 121) | |
Incorporating comments from other parties • Discussion with policemen • Discussion with Hastings | Discussion of theoretical notions with team mates/peers • As was mentioned, two of us independently coded all the interview data, then compared the coded categories for overlaps and disagreements and arrived at a common set of categories, which was then used to recode all the data. This process helped to assure that the coders interpreted the data similarly and did not miss relevant information. We employed similar checking and reconciliation processes during axial coding. The remaining author participated in the selective coding stage, playing the role of questioner and devil's advocate (p. 121) | |
Final results | Identifying the criminal • Poirot: "…the criminal must have been fully cognizant of Mr. Renauld's plans…. Is there anyone else who might have known of them? Yes. From Marthe Daubreuil's own lips we have the admission that she overheard M. Renauld's quarrel with the tramp. If she could overhear that, there is no reason why she should not have heard everything else, especially if M. and Madame Renauld were imprudent enough to discuss their plans sitting on the bench." (p. 135) • Poirot: "Marthe Daubreuil overhears what passes between Renauld and his wife…At present M. Renauld stands inexorably in the way of her marriage with Jack. But with M. Renauld dead, and Jack the heir to half his millions, the marriage can take place at once, and at a stroke she will attain wealth….” (p. 135) | Final categories derived from data • Our analyses suggest that three sets of social conditions enabled the development of cooperation within the semiconductor industry and SEMATECH. They were (1) early disorder and ambiguity, (2) emergence of a moral community, and (3) structuring of activities. These conditions emerged as the core categories of our analysis; each contributed to cooperation in various ways, as reflected in the selective categories listed in Table 3 (titled ‘Coding Themes and Core Categories’). (pp. 123–124) |
Explanation of the crime • Marthe Daubreuil committed the crime, for the money her fiancée (and in due course, she herself) would inherit if his father was murdered | Explanation of new theory • We interpret results in terms of complexity theory, a framework for understanding change that has not been previously explored with detailed empirical data from organizations. (p. 113) • Complexity theory fitted our data on the development of SEMATECH in important ways. First, the theory describes many of the ways in which order can arise out of apparent chaos…. Second, complexity theory describes the dynamics of a self-reinforcing system-one that repeatedly builds on the results of interactions within it to achieve a more richly ordered complexity rather than repeatedly damping its own effects to remain simple and straightforward…. Finally, according to complexity theory, unpredictability, novelty, and a chance for something new to emerge accompany expansion. (p. 139) |