They can help management better understand the thoughts and sentiments of the employees during this time of economic crisis. At the same time it can be a venue for gaining new ideas on how to keep the business afloat during these hard times through ideas from the employees themselves. However, care must be taken in reading findings from focus group discussions as they are only meant to give indications and not to act as a conclusive research where a final course of action will be based upon. Another limitation of focus group discussions is the presence of a participant who dominates the discussion. The reaction of the other participants to the dominant participant might have a "halo" effect on the responses of the other participants.
An important aspect of focus group discussions is the synergy created among the participants. It is both essential and advantageous. It is for this reason that it is better to present concepts during the group discussion rather than before the discussion. It would be better for a focus group moderator, for example, not to administer a questionnaire about compensation concepts prior to starting a focus group discussion in order to capture the spontaneous reactions and interactions of the participants which could provide rich qualitative insights.
Due to technological advancements, group discussions can now be held by telephone. While this allows participants to be more comfortable and relaxed, group discussions by telephone do...
Also, research which requires touching, smelling or tasting something won't be possible through this technique.
Projective techniques used in qualitative studies such as word association tests and sentence completion tests can help draw out ideas on ways to improve managing styles among employees in learning what they like and what they don't like about the current management style.
References
Al Awami, Hussain. (n.d.). Business Research Methods [PDF document]. Retrieved at http://cvlearn.com/Documents/Exploratory%20research%20and%20Qualitative%20analysis.pdf
Blaxter, L., Hughes, C., & Tight, M. (2006). How to Research. McGraw-Hill International.
Gladstone, B., & Volpe, T. (2008). Qualitative Secondary Analysis: Asking 'New' Questions of 'Old Data [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved at http://www.phs.utoronto.ca/qualmethod/attachmentDL/Upload/Qualitative%20Secondary%20Analysis_Gladstone_Volpe.ppt
National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2006). Bridging from Project Case Study to Portfolio Analysis in a Public R&D Program: A Framework for Evaluation ad Introduction. Retrieved January 25, 2009, at http://www.atp.nist.gov/eao/gcr06-891/part-1.htm
Van Teijlingen, E., & Hundley, V. (2001). The Importance of Pilot Studies. Social Research Update, Issue 35. Retrieved January 25, 2009, at http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU35.html
