teleworking, since it could no longer be structured according to a strategic model of the consulting engineering firms. Based on the collected empirical data at the time, a series of codes and categories were developed and initial propositions were formed based on these. The theoretical basis for these propositions followed afterwards, and in some cases resulted in minor modifi-cations to the propositions. I found a significant advantage of this approach to be its facilitation of focusing the development of the theoretical frame-work. For example, the initial theoretical framework based on the deductive approach included a lot of theory that did not end up being used because it was irrelevant to the collected empirical data.
There were some positives of beginning with a deductive approach since it enabled the research to start building momentum in an ordered fashion.
However, it was important to discard this approach as soon as its limitations for answering the research question became evident, despite the fact that it required reworking the entire theoretical framework. Overall, I believe the inductive approach has benefited this thesis and the process has given me a new appreciation for the feasibility of inductive approaches compared to deductive ones.
3.6 Summary
In this chapter, the following main points were covered:
the research strategy, design, and method were explained in detail;
an evaluation of the research quality was provided;
an explanation of the impacts of COVID-19 was presented; and,
my final reflections on the overall research process was provided.
In the next chapter, the empirical data collected through the interview pro-cess is presented.
40 CHAPTER 3. METHOD
Chapter 4
Empirical data
As mentioned in Section 3.2 (Research method), the empirical data collected in this research project involved in-depth interviews of seven employees from two consulting engineering firms. The purpose of this chapter is to present the empirical data collected in an organized manner. First, a description and comparison of each participating firm is provided for context. Then, the remainder of the chapter presents data from the interviews and is structured based on the codes and categories developed through analysis of the data, as discussed in 3.2.6 (Analyzing the data). The data presented in this chapter forms the basis of evidence used in Chapter 5 (Analysis) for evaluating the propositions previously established in Chapter 2 (Theoretical background).
4.1 Case firm descriptions
In this research project, two consulting engineering firms were selected for data collection which are henceforth referred to by their fictional names of Seinfeld Inc. and Benes Inc. Both firms primarily operate in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), the largest metropolitan area in Canada, which means teleworking is optional since they are located relatively close to both staff and clients. Moreover, high-speed internet access is prominent in this area and does not represent a barrier towards teleworking. Therefore, the teleworking practices that have developed at each firm are due to reasons beyond these rather obvious factors. The teleworking practices of each firm are drasti-cally different despite being subject to the same geographical and industrial context, which allows for a unique insight into how teleworking practices are shaped in isolation of these factors. The following subsections briefly describe each case firm and compare them in terms of relevant firm characteristics.
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42 CHAPTER 4. EMPIRICAL DATA
4.1.1 Seinfeld Inc.
Seinfeld Inc. is a small engineering consulting firm with a total staff size of five, consisting of four engineers (including the president) and one admin-istrative staff. It has been in operation for about one year, and all of the engineering staff have good relationships with each other based on prior work experiences. A unique aspect of Seinfeld Inc. is that they operate almost exclusively via teleworking, with the exception of occasional duties such as client meetings, field work, or strategic planning. There is no central office at Seinfeld Inc., and due to this staff are free to work from their homes, which is most common, or wherever they are able to work effectively. Their client meetings typically take place at their clients’ offices and field work at the respective project sites, however, such non-telework activities represent only a small portion of their project work. Although staff are free to choose their work location, they are required to work during certain core hours which essentially results in about 75% or more of their regular working hours be-ing shared collectively. All staff at Seinfeld Inc. are provided with laptops, monitors, and a printer/scanner for their home. They use the Office 365 plat-form extensively for teleworking to, for example, handle file sharing through Sharepoint and day-to-day communication through Teams.
4.1.2 Benes Inc.
Benes Inc. is a medium size engineering consulting firm with 225 employees total, where approximately 70% of employees are engineers. Over its nearly decade long history, the majority of employees have been stationed at its head office, however, they have also established a few small offices across the GTA for employee convenience. Despite corporate encouragement towards tele-working in recent years, it is still commonplace for the majority of employees to work at a physical office location. The official corporate policy on tele-working places the decision authority with direct supervisors, which means that telework practices can vary from team to team within the firm. All em-ployees are equipped with laptops to enable teleworking, however, there is a limited number of VPN licenses for connecting to the central server remotely.
The primary software used for teleworking is Skype for Business. Similar to Seinfeld Inc., staff at Benes Inc. are also required to work during certain core hours which results in comparable overlapping of employee regular work hours.