Conveniencing the Family In Agri-Based Processing Enterprise

various ways (e.g. national media coverage of various entrepreneurial training activities in which the researcher played a leading role). In this regard, the researcher was fully aware of being construed as an “expert”. Instead, in this research, the participants were the experts by virtue of their experience in the SMEs as leaders. As such, the researcher always made it clear that the interviews were about the actual experiences of the participants and that they were in the best position to talk about their own experiences.

The interest of the researcher in the study of cultural assumptions of strategic leaders in agribased processing small and medium enterprises emanates from the general observation that development assistance in the form of financial support and business development services support continue to be rendered to small and medium enterprises in Malawi by different institutions (e.g. government, state-owned enterprises, and agencies of the United Nation).

However, there is still little success at the enterprise level. This prompted the researcher to ponder-how strategic leadership culture contributes to the prevailing state of SMEs in Malawi.

There are several sources of theoretical sensitivity and experience is certainly one of them. In the words of Strauss and Corbin (1990:42), “even if implicit, it is taken into the research situation and helps you to understand events and actions seen and heard, and to do more quickly than if you did not bring this background into the research”. The researcher may also enhance his theoretical sensitivity through being more creative in the iterative collection and analysis of data; opening up his existing assumptions, and emerging assumptions about meaning of phenomena to constant questioning and prepare to abandon unsubstantiated concepts, rather than enforce prejudice in the study. In the wise counsel of Strauss and Corbin (1990:45): all theoretical explanations, categories, hypotheses and questions about data, whether they come directly or indirectly from making of comparisons, the literature, or from experience, should be regarded as provisional……until supported by data.

Without theoretical sensitivity, experience can potentially block the researcher “from seeing things that have become routines or obvious” (Strauss and Corbin, 1990:42). Constant comparison, development and verification of hypotheses of relationships between categories and 169