READ ME File For 'Thesis The Role of Luck in Entrepreneurial Success'

Dataset DOI: 10.5258/SOTON/D2703

ReadMe Author: Ivan Ivanov, University of Southampton ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0201-3134

This dataset supports the thesis entitled: The Role of Luck in Entrepreneurial Success
AWARDED BY: University of Southampton
DATE OF AWARD: 2023

DESCRIPTION OF THE DATA

This dataset contains:

       From March to June 2021, I conducted seven synchronous, virtual, semi-structured interviews (Salmons, 2015) with seven lay people, as part of a pilot study. From September 2021 to May 2022, I continued collecting data until I reached fourty-one interviews, as I noticed there was no significant differences among new participants’ responses. It is often considered in qualitative research that the researcher should suspend the process of data collection once theoretical saturation has been reached. I purposefully recruited participants from my professional network, followed by snowball sampling with the intention to build a heterogeneous population sample (Patton, 2002). My rationale for using a heterogeneous sample is to be able to capture a wide range of views on the topic, which entails interviewing individuals coming from diverse backgrounds. I considered the following selection criteria. First, I recruited participants, who meet the definition of a lay person, i.e., individuals with no prior professional experience, training, or qualifications in entrepreneurship. Second, I recruited participants who currently reside in the UK, so my results could be relevant in the context of the UK. Third, to increase the richness, variety of responses and data reliability, I selected individuals from diverse educational backgrounds, age, nationality, and job sectors. Variations in the obtained data are preferred to uncover fresh ideas, characteristics, and dimensions (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). To recruit participants, I personally contacted people from my professional network and attracted volunteers through sharing an invitation video on the professional social media ‘LinkedIn’. The video contained some information from the Participant Information Sheet, which I presented in a way to encourage curiosity and participation. In spite of my initial efforts to only recruit random volunteers, I found convenience sampling to be more fruitful within the context of this study. It is considered difficult to generalise statistical findings from a convenience sample to the population, due to biases. However, the present study’s aim is not to generalise the findings but to make sense of participants’ views, opinions, and perceptions. What is more, many social science studies use convenience sampling, which is a particularly appropriate method, when the study is exploratory (Herek, 2010; Zhao et al., 2012). This study is exploratory, as no previous work has been done on the topic and therefore It was difficult to obtain a random sample, due to accessibility issues. 

This data was transcribed verbatim from video recordings of interviews with participants. There is no need to specialised software to access it. 


Date of data collection: [March 2021- May 2022]

Information about geographic location of data collection: 

Licence:
CC-BY

Related projects/Funders:
NOT APPLICABLE

Related publication:
NOT APPLICABLE


Date that the file was created: July, 2023