5.3 Conducting the Interviews
63
regulatory institution when asked about the guidelines s/he adopted to support the
company’s investment practices. S/he explained that although the institution did not
directly refer to a specific document, it provided workshops and seminars that guided
company social investment practices. Table 5.3 provides a list of all the documents
and institutions that experts referred to as guidelines. Table 5.3 also specifies the
number of participants who chose each of the identified documents. Some participants
chose more than one document to support their social investment practices.
As Table 5.3 indicates, the most frequently adopted documents were the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards on Environmental and
Social Sustainability and the World Bank Group’s Community-Driven Development
Principles. In this research, I refer to these documents as The Performance Standards and The Community-Driven Principles, respectively. In Chapter 7, I present
an in-depth analysis of these two documents.
5.3.3 Analysing the Interview Transcripts and Social
Investment Guidelines
In this research, I initially adopted a general inductive approach to data analysis
(Braun & Clarke, 2006). Inductive analysis is a detailed reading and rereading of
the data in order to identify recurring concepts and themes (Thomas, 2006). In other
words, it is the process of organising the data so that it is not constrained by a specific
coding frame or analytic preconception (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Although I adopt
an inductive approach to organise my data, I am aware that I cannot free myself from
my own theoretical and epistemological positioning and that data is not coded “in
an epistemological vacuum” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 84). I, therefore, recognise
that in many cases I ‘foreshadowed’ some of the thematic organisation that emerged
from the analysis of transcripts and guideline documents. Because my research questions focussed on identifying the discourses embedded in social investment experts’
narratives, I initially looked for the themes that emerged from participants’ talk of
social investment when analysing data. Themes such as ‘top-down’, ‘social compensation’, ‘license-based’ and ‘participatory approaches’ were preliminary themes that
emerged from the initial analysis which informed my identification of the four broader
discourses of social investment which I elaborate on in Chapter 6.
The process of inductive coding entails a close reading of the documents in a search
for the multiple meanings that are embedded (Thomas, 2006). Meaningful units, or
the discursive formations (Willig, 2001, 2013) of the text provides the conditions “for
reflections and elaboration of specific discourses which thereby host the statements
which construct the objects of which we speak” (Parker, 2013, p. 231).
While I acknowledge the material conditions and impacts of O&G operations
(for example see Sims-Schouten, Riley, & Willig, 2007), my focus in this book is on
how social investment is discursively constructed by social investment experts and
guidelines. I therefore adopted a Foucauldian discourse analysis informed by Willig’s
63
regulatory institution when asked about the guidelines s/he adopted to support the
company’s investment practices. S/he explained that although the institution did not
directly refer to a specific document, it provided workshops and seminars that guided
company social investment practices. Table 5.3 provides a list of all the documents
and institutions that experts referred to as guidelines. Table 5.3 also specifies the
number of participants who chose each of the identified documents. Some participants
chose more than one document to support their social investment practices.
As Table 5.3 indicates, the most frequently adopted documents were the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards on Environmental and
Social Sustainability and the World Bank Group’s Community-Driven Development
Principles. In this research, I refer to these documents as The Performance Standards and The Community-Driven Principles, respectively. In Chapter 7, I present
an in-depth analysis of these two documents.
5.3.3 Analysing the Interview Transcripts and Social
Investment Guidelines
In this research, I initially adopted a general inductive approach to data analysis
(Braun & Clarke, 2006). Inductive analysis is a detailed reading and rereading of
the data in order to identify recurring concepts and themes (Thomas, 2006). In other
words, it is the process of organising the data so that it is not constrained by a specific
coding frame or analytic preconception (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Although I adopt
an inductive approach to organise my data, I am aware that I cannot free myself from
my own theoretical and epistemological positioning and that data is not coded “in
an epistemological vacuum” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 84). I, therefore, recognise
that in many cases I ‘foreshadowed’ some of the thematic organisation that emerged
from the analysis of transcripts and guideline documents. Because my research questions focussed on identifying the discourses embedded in social investment experts’
narratives, I initially looked for the themes that emerged from participants’ talk of
social investment when analysing data. Themes such as ‘top-down’, ‘social compensation’, ‘license-based’ and ‘participatory approaches’ were preliminary themes that
emerged from the initial analysis which informed my identification of the four broader
discourses of social investment which I elaborate on in Chapter 6.
The process of inductive coding entails a close reading of the documents in a search
for the multiple meanings that are embedded (Thomas, 2006). Meaningful units, or
the discursive formations (Willig, 2001, 2013) of the text provides the conditions “for
reflections and elaboration of specific discourses which thereby host the statements
which construct the objects of which we speak” (Parker, 2013, p. 231).
While I acknowledge the material conditions and impacts of O&G operations
(for example see Sims-Schouten, Riley, & Willig, 2007), my focus in this book is on
how social investment is discursively constructed by social investment experts and
guidelines. I therefore adopted a Foucauldian discourse analysis informed by Willig’s