Examining the selection criteria for equity finance investment in social enterprise

question Methodology The of import purpose of this persona is to discuss how the primary enquiry has been carried come forward and the rationale for the choice of methodology. The conclusion of the literature review showed that in that location ar currently no publicly agreed criteria for sociable accident capital funding and very little in the way of definitive advice for social enterprisingnesss attempting to raise this kind of funding. As a result, it is Coperni jakes to gather primary info to further the development of robust conclusions and to firmness of purpose the seek questions.When proposing a drapeigate methodology for an in-depth field of study much(prenominal) as this, Saunders et al. (2009) suggest that it is practical to build the explore methodology and look into design in such a way that it supports the boilers suit necessitate and objectives of the query. As such, every aspect of the methodology must reflect the overall purpose of the enquiry , and be ge bed towards resolutenessing the enquiry question and accomplishing its objectives (Neuman, 2000).This chapter therefore outlines the methodology through which the research objectives were met, and the question answered. Several important itemors, such as the research philosophical system, design, strategy and entropy collection are highlighted. Issues relating to the researchs validity, generalizability and reliability are excessively discussed. explore PhilosophyAccording to Easterby-Smith et al (2008), it is important to understand the research school of thought being suck inive in management research, as it helps light up how the research should be designed, approached, and how data could be collected and analysed. Easterby-Smith et al also post that an understanding of the research philosophy could help the detective in creating, designing and identifying research that may not in line with previous(prenominal) experiences.Based on the research drives an d objectives, the researcher deemed it roughly appropriate to adopt an interpretivist philosophy. This is due to the overriding aim of this research, which is to understand the reasons behind social endeavour funding, olibanum implying that there is a need to understand tender responses to a situation, thereby making the result of the findings potential differencely looseive in nature (Denzin and Lincoln, 2003). Saunders et al (2009) note interpretivism is an epistemology that advocates that it is necessary for the researcher to understand differences between homophiles in our role as social actorsThe researcher volition need to make sense of the subjective and socially constructed meanings expressed by respondents, as per the interpretivist philosophy (Saunders et al, 2009). The interpretivist perspective can be argued to be decidedly appropriate when it comes to management research due to the multiplexness and uniqueness of business situations (Saunders et al, 2012 Neuman , 2000). As a result of this choice, the positivist philosophy would not be adopted in this study, as it would be ineffective to adopt a philosophy that observes and generalises social reality (Robson, 2002). Collis and Hussey (2003) also argue that the positivist philosophy cannot help understand the inner feelings, attitudes and human emotions behind social enterprise investments, as these could differ from one investor to another.Research ApproachAccording to Collis and Hussey (2003) a research that adopts an interpretivist philosophy should be inductive in its approach. An inductive approach to research can help to gain an understanding of human interpretation to events, which is especially useful in management research, where the attitude and motivation of stakeholders matter (Saunders et al, 2009). As this study is concerned with understanding how social enterprise investors determine their investment criteria, then it is useful for this research to adopt an approach that make s it possible to understand human emotions and attitudes, compared to the deductive approach that is usually based on speak scientific principles and academic theories (Bryman and Bell, 2007).Research PurposeAs the aim of this study is to identify what social venture capitalists bearing for in an investment opportunity, this lends itself very much to an exploratory research methodology. According to Robson (2002, pg. 59), an exploratory research is a valuable marrow of finding out what is happening to seek in the raw insights to ask questions and to treasure phenomena in a new light. Saunders et al (2009) also state that an exploratory research is useful if the aim of the research is to understand a problem, find out whats happening, or when the researcher is particularly shy active a research problem. As such, an exploratory study is an ideal design, as it helps to answer this researchs question more effectively.An exploratory study has been chosen compared to descriptive st udies which portray accurate events of people, events or situations (Robson, 2002), because this research seeks to find out and not to narrate. Furthermore, the literature review already shows that there is poor information on selection criteria on social enterprise investments, which defeats the purpose of a descriptive study. The resembling also applies to explanatory studies, where the emphasis is to study a situation and explain the relationship between cardinal or more variables (Saunders et al, 2009). This study is not designed to assess the relationship between variables, but alternatively to understand investor attitude. An exploratory study is therefore the just about effective form of answering the research question. information CollectionSaunders et al. (2009) suggest that when accumulation primary data for an inductive exploratory study, it is normal that much of the data leave alone be qualitative in nature. While there is a considerable amount of numerical da ta around the subject of venture capital and social enterprise, these statistics are not sufficient to clarify investment criteria. A further issue with quantitative data is that this research does not seek to patch up hypothesis and as a result, a methodology needs to be chosen that produces qualitative data. To answer the research question, and to develop a better understanding of this new development for both the social VC and social enterprise industries, it is important to collect data that is rich in opinion and explanation (as recommended by Morris and Wood, 1991). soft data collection is therefore the most appropriate for this research.As it is anticipated that much of the primary data gathered for this study will be qualitative in nature, Saunders et al. (2009) suggests that there are several techniques for gathering primary data. These include inter alia converses, surveys, focus groups, case studies, and participant observation. To obtain rich data that will be suffic ient to part with for analysis, the development of themes, and sufficient contrast of opinion, techniques such as questionnaires and general surveys with titanic samples are unlikely to be effective (Morris and Wood, 1991). Firstly due to the fact that they will not ply the necessary opinion to answer the research question but more importantly due to the fact that there is a limited sample of available respondents with the necessary experience in their industry, as will be clarified in the data sources section of this methodology.While both the VC industry and the social enterprise movement are good established, the actual colligate between them is relatively new and as a result it is important to select a technique that allows for the development of theories to emerge during data collection and analysis. A longitudinal study would potentially be ideal as would the case study method, since both of these allow for the opportunity for the discovery of interesting new ideas and th eories (Adams and Schvaneveldt, 1991). A longitudinal study is not appropriate for this harangue due to the clip constraints, and so a cross-sectional study is more appropriate. While there was the potential to carry out a case study of either a social VC fund or a social enterprise, this would puddle only provided information around one organization. To effectively analyse the link between two industries it is more appropriate to gather data from a broad cross section of organizations and links to avert either any bias or isolate opinion (Collis and Hussey, 2003).According to Belk (2008), the main weakness of qualitative data collection is that it can be limited by insufficient resources. This means that because references are resource intensive, a narrower range of opinion is gathered. However Collins & Hussey (2003) argue that if the interviews are well structured even though they only gather the opinions of a relatively small research race the depth and breadth of data ga thered and the fact that it is contextually relevant is certainly sufficient in terms of data validity and reliability for an exploratory study such as this.Having established the sentence limitations and the issue that the potential sample is limited but should be sufficiently broad, interviews emerge as the most appropriate methodology. As Sanders et al (2009) explains, there are a number of contrastive ways that an interview can be stockpileed. It is first important to establish which structure of interview is the most appropriate. There are three main categories of interview structure, and these are structured, semi-structured and unstructured. The primary distinction between them being the level of immunity given to the researcher in terms of asking different questions to interviewees, and varying the length allowed for the responses (Saunders et al, 2009).The literature showed that there is no clarity as to either the criteria used for funding or for the advice to those se eking funding, and as a result there needs to be the opportunity for the interviewees to express opinion and provide information that moves beyond the confines of a set of structured questions. To develop new and interesting theories, it is essential that the interviews allow for different responses (Robson, 2002). However, this dissertation has a limitation of length which prevents unstructured interviews from being an appropriate technique as it could potentially allow for too much data to be collected making analysis overly complex or it could prevent the necessary focus on the issues related to the research question. Semi-structured interviews allow for sufficient data to be collected while also providing the flexibility that is necessary for the researcher to develop both skipper insight and sufficient opinion for the analysis (Bryman and Bell, 2007).Data Sources and Data Collection TechniquesSince it has been established that the author shall conduct semi-structured interview s, it is important at this stage to re-visit the research questions, which are as followsWhen evaluating social enterprises for equity investment, which criteria are considered most important Do social venture capitalists differ in their evaluation criteria compared to commercial venture capitalists lowly research questionWhat are the drivers for the social venture capitalistsA questionnaire has been developed accordingly and used as a guideline, allowing for flexibility of the discussion and giving the respondents room to reject certain questions or focus on questions that was within their expertise, whilst still ensuring answers to the more critical questions. This semi-structured format is favourable also because it allows for discretion and prioritization in time management, without the need to interrupt or inconvenience the respondent (Neuman, 2000).Primary data has been gathered apply say questionnaire, from five individuals that are responsible for screening social enterpr ises in the UK for irritate to equity investment. Five interview respondents were seen as ideal for a number of reasons. Firstly, this research is exploratory in nature secondly, time constraints would have made it difficult to gather and analyse data from more than five respondents and lastly, it was difficult to gain access to these individuals.The semi-structured interviews were conducted over the phone and in face-to-face environments, as per the respondents preference. The questionnaire was shared beforehand allowing the respondents time to consider and acquire for the questions if need be, as well as to filter out respondents who were not well suited. Research participants were back up to expand upon their responses to allow the researcher to gather a wide range of data (Belk, 2008). The interviews were audio-recorded with consent and afterwards transcribed verbatim1, in order to allow the researcher to focus on the interview and fully compel with the respondent, without compromising on the accuracy of the data collected (Robson, 2002). This further allowed for the researcher to take note of spare non-verbal communication to enrich the quality of data retrieved (Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009). At the end of each interview, a summary was developed in order to reflect upon the progression of the interview process and start developing any findings. This cave in and reflect process in between interviews, as recommended by Saunders et al (2009), has allowed the researcher to adapt to this new knowledge and delve deeper into the research questions with each ensuing interview. This process has led to an additional set of questions on the questionnaire2, with the aim of addressing four new research questionsIs there in fact a market/ read for equity investment in social enterprise in the UK Is there a supply/ strike balance of social enterprises to social investment How do SIFIs interact What does the future of social investment look likeOnce the data had b een gathered, the author administered data reduction techniques (Miles and Huberman, 1994) by critically reviewing and selectively think on key parts of the extended text which are the transcripts. By extracting relevant pieces of information to answer our research questions, along with our notes throughout the interview process, the author was then able to codify the data, which was then subject to thematic analysis. Data collection, data analysis and the development and verification of the propositions have been very much an synergistic and interrelated set of processes, whereby actual analysis occurred throughout. The flexibility of this process was key to enabling more perceptive data and propositions, as enabled by an inductive approach.Issues of Reliability, Validity and GeneralisabilityReliability denotes the extent to which findings from a research can provide consistent findings, if another study were to adopt its data gathering and sampling technique (Easterby-Smith et al, 2008). The study threats to research liability respondent bias, respondent error, interviewer bias and interviewer error (Robson, 2002) were avoided bySending the questionnaires to the respondents beforehand to avoid misinterpretation of intent or questions. Audio-recording the interviews, and taking time-outs to reflect on the answers and ask further questions. Analyzing the data using data-reduction techniques, in order to prioritize the key findings and avoid loss of data.Validity, according to Saunders et al (2009) is concerned with whether findings are really about what they appear to be about. The interview questions were based on the research question, thus linking respondent answers to the overall aim of the research. Furthermore, the respondents were accredited professionals with industry insight on social enterprise investments. As a result, they were most fit to answer the interview questions. This helped ensure the data collected and analysed was valid.Generalisabil ity measures the extent to which research findings are generalizable to other research settings (Saunders et al, 2009). Due to the inductive nature of this study, it is the researchers opinion that the findings of this research are generalizable to social enterprise investments in the UK. The findings from this research could help explain how investors determine what social enterprises they would invest in the UK. This is due to socio-economic factors that may differ from one country to another.EthicsWith any primary research it is commanding that matters relating to research ethics are taken into account (Denzin and Lincoln, 2003). This includes ensuring that research participants have a unobjectionable understanding of what the research will entail and their contribution to the research. Research participants have agreed to support the research voluntarily, and so Denzin and Lincoln (2003, p.114) describe this as informed consent. The author has explained the nature of the res earch and calm down research participants of their role. Furthermore, confidentiality will be maintained through ensuring anonymity of research participants throughout this dissertation, only divulging participants call on a need to know basis to dissertation assessors. Not only is this ethical high hat practice, but Bryman & Bell (2011) also highlight the fact that it further ensures that the researcher gathers legitimate data which is not subject to inadvertent bias, for example a research participant feels that they must say nice things about their supervisor. In this instance because the research is heavily reliant on personal opinion then it is imperative that research ethics are observed.Due to the respondents varying assumptions in definition when referring to key research terms, such as social enterprise and social venture capital, all questions were clarified in full point where necessary, and the author ensured an alignment of understanding prior to collecting data. ReferencesAdams, G. R. and Schvaneveldt, J. D. (1991) Understanding Research Methods, Longman Group UK, 406ppBryman, A. and Bell, E. (2007) Business Research Methods, second Ed, Oxford University Press Oxford, 786ppCollis, J. and Hussey, R. 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