1.2.2 Interviews
Interviews were used to collect information of a more subjective nature, such as perceptions and feelings. Three categories of participants were interviewed: active co-operatives, inactive co-operatives and other stakeholders. RAs took notes during the interviews on specially prepared question and answer sheets, which they mailed or scanned and emailed to KEDV, which translated them into English. Each interview was then coded using NVIVO.5 Codes were created from the research questions, activities and objectives.
Using this coding technique allowed analysis to be driven by the research questions, while also allowing findings to emerge based on common themes.
In total, 16 active women’s co-operatives and 11 inactive ones were interviewed.
Interviewees included co-operatives’ founders, employees, treasurers, board chairs, executive directors and members. The women’s co-operatives were purposely chosen to be interviewed in order to have a diversity of responses based on region, status, size, length of year operational and type. Forty-five people were interviewed under the category of other stakeholders, including employees of municipalities, funders, governorship, government ministries, development agencies, the Chamber of Commerce (CoC), universities, non-governmental organizations (NGO) and foundations. Appendix 2 provides a list of the 25 stakeholders out of 45 who provided consent to be identified. Again a purposive sampling process was employed in order to have a diversity of stakeholder voices based on region
5 NVIVO is a software program for doing qualitative analysis.
WOMEN’S CO-OPERATIVES Active
Inactive Inaccessible
and relationship to women’s co-operatives. In total, RAs conducted 72 face-to-face interviews with participants in the field.
1.2.3 Micronarratives
Using micronarratives allows contributors to lead the conversation and to share experiences that are important to them, as opposed to following the lead of a pre-designed interview or focus session questions. Told through short stories to RAs, such narratives provide a source of information for understanding individuals or groups, as these narratives represent lived experiences infused with meaning perceived by the storyteller. One of the main advantages of using micronarratives is that contributors are treated as “experts” about their own lives, enabled to share an experience within their own environment and to assign meaning to that experience. The SenseMaker software program allows a researcher to conduct a statistical analysis, as well as understand and nuance patterns as well as meanings.6
For this study, women were asked to tell personal stories about the impact of women’s co-operatives on their lives. In total, RA’s collected 268 micronarratives from members and former members of women’s co-operatives and beneficiaries (Figure 3).
Figure 3 NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS IN MICRONARRATIVES ORGANIZED BY MEMBERSHIP STATUS
As a measure of validity, story contributors stated that stories like theirs happened sometimes (25 per cent), frequently (23 per cent), rarely (22 per cent), all the time (17 per cent) and not sure (13 per cent). Ninety-five per cent of respondents stated that they were part of their story as opposed to seeing it happen or hearing about it.
6 The approach used here was developed by Cognitive Edge, which also designed and supports the SenseMaker© software used to analyze the micronarratives.
1.2.4 Literature reviews
Two literature reviews were done to support the primary data collection. The first provided contextual information on the following: co-operatives internationally; co-operatives in Turkey; women’s co-operatives in general; women’s co-operatives in Turkey; women’s empowerment; entrepreneurship; and women’s economic development. It consulted materials including academic articles, reports, development agencies reports and books.
The second detailed the current legal framework for women’s co-operatives in Turkey. It reviewed the main features of Turkey’s co-operative law, as well as international examples of co-operative law, in order to propose reforms based on best practices.
1.3 Limitations of the methodology
While the methodology was designed with expertise and the methods of this research study were scrutinized with care and thoughtfulness, any research methodology has its limitations.
Primary data was not collected from other types of organizational structures such as companies, sole proprietorships, family businesses, multinationals, foundations, associations and organizations about their experience using their chosen organizational structure.
Therefore, comparisons between the co-operative structure and these other types of business or organizations are not possible.
Primary data was not collected from or about the general co-operative sector of Turkey, therefore direct comparisons to women’s co-operatives and the sector are not able to be done through a standardized and similar dataset and analysis.
Similarly, no other women’s co-operatives or co-operatives that employ mostly women from other parts of the world were contacted. Thus no direct comparisons can be made to women’s co-operatives globally. There is very little empirical data collected about women’s co-operatives, co-operatives that employ mostly women or co-operatives that greatly impact women thus making it difficult to draw conclusions about a women’s co-operatives sector.
Socio demographic data (micronarratives) was collected separately from survey and interview data, so therefore the database and findings from the survey and interviews are unable to be cross tabulated or connected to the database or findings of the micronarratives. For example, queries around the revenues of the women’s co-operatives cannot be connected to the individual earnings of women.
In some cases, findings from the analysis pointed to the need for much deeper analysis and investigation. For example, a detailed review of tax law as it relates to women’s co-operatives would provide more information as to how the tax burden can be tackled.