Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

the development of qualitative methods.
My study will include also another methodological innovation. On the basis of evidence
form qualitative studies, I will conduct a typology of firms which will picture the degree to
which they externalise or internalise older workers and the degree to which they are
pursuing a holistic age management strategy, or resorting solely to reactive policies. I will
take into accounts several criteria for several fields of personnel policy, which goes beyond
the approach applied by other analyses of ´good practice´ (Bertelsmann Stiftung/BDA 2003;
Taylor 2006).
Another advantage of my study is the inclusion of expert interviews with both
management and employee representatives on the topic of ageing workforce. Most
frequently, corporate analyses on the employment of older workers concentrate solely on the
opinions and reporting of management (e.g. IAB Establishment panel; Koller/Gruber 2001).
2.7. Methodology
In my dissertation, I will utilise the following empirical methods:
1) Qualitative case studies at establishment level in Poland and Western Germany.
There are various meanings to the concept of a ´case´ which complicate a precise
delineation. I adhere here to the definition of Vaughan (1992: 175) who understands cases
as “organizational forms that are analyzed regarding some similar event, activity, or
circumstance.” My analysis of two (country) case studies can be more distinctly described
as ´collective case studies´ (Stake 2000: 437), as each of the country studies consists of
several case studies of single firm sites, or as ´layered´ or ´nested´ case studies (Patton 2002:
447).
My expert interviews were of the ´systematising´ type (in distinction to exploratory
interviews) and were conducted in order to collect pertinent information on the subject of
interest in a systematic way, serving the purpose of comparison, after experts have been
identified and the interview guideline set up (Vogel 1995: 74).
2) qualitative expert interviews based on a semi-structured guideline with
representatives of intermediary organisations and public administration (trade
unions, employers´ associations, employment office, placement service, ministries,
administration of German Statutory Old-Age Pension Insurance) and with
researchers, conducted in Germany in autumn and winter 2003).
32