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How Swedish audit team managers implement the Full-Range Leadership model in their daily practice, according to non-managing audit staff. The study also discusses the implications of leadership on culture, performance, and audit quality in the context of Swedish audit firms. Keywords: Transformational Leadership model, Swedish audit firms, Full-Range Leadership, transactional leadership, passive leadership.
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Author: Song Pantaléon Supervisor: Anders Hytter Examiner: Hans Lundberg Date: Spring 2015 Subject: Business Administration
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Business Administration, Entrepreneurship; Strategy and Business Development, Degree project G2E Level (Bachelor), 15 Higher education credits, 2FE11E, Spring 2015
precisely theories about the Full-Range leadership model (FRL) and its features. However, key facts about the audit are also displayed in this part of the report to present it to readers.
universalistic feature of the Full-Range Leadership model through the case of Swedish audit team managers. Such purpose entails the definition and the explanation on how the model of Full-Range Leadership is enacted by Swedish audit team managers in their day-to-day practice of leadership.
existing researches to contribute clearly to the Full-Range Leadership model - as developed by Bass and Avolio- in the audit context. Furthermore, this is the first study aiming at defining and explaining Swedish audit team managers’ leadership practice and emphasizing the non-managing audit staff for so.
corporate financial scandals and the discovery of high level of dysfunctional behaviors occurring in the audit/accounting profession worldwide, growing number of studies investigated further financial systems and particularly audit professionals since they are supposed to be the ‘public watchdog’/‘public guardian of trust’ of worldwide markets and Economies and so, display strong values and rigor. In parallel, considerable number of studies demonstrated that leadership was the key to those issues. This study while putting the light on leadership practice in Swedish audit firms, wide opens the door for further reflections and improvement of the existing systems.
audit staff working in Swedish audit firms, which were asked to assess their managers through the use of the Multi-factor questionnaire X5 (short version).
enacted leadership by Swedish audit team managers and that so before transactional and passive/avoidant leadership, a great misalignment existed between the found-out empirical FRL model and the FRL model as defined theoretically. Accordingly, this study unveiled that the FRL model was not as universal as claimed when investigated in the Swedish audit firm context.
Leadership, laissez-faire leadership style, transactional leadership style, Swedish audit firms, transformational leadership style, global leadership model, leadership, Swedish audit team managers
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Table 1: Operationalization (owned by author) .............................................................. 16 Table 2: Respondents characteristics .............................................................................. 35 Table 3.1: Descriptive Statistics: Leadership style sample means ................................. 36 Table 3.2: Descriptive Statistics: Leadership Style sub-component sample means ....... 37 Table 4: One sample T-Test: Theoretical means vs. Empirical means .......................... 38 Graph 1: Theoretical Full-Range Leadership Model (owned by author) ....................... 40 Graph 2: Empirical Full-Range Leadership Model (owned by author).......................... 40 Table 5.1: ANOVA (age) ............................................................................................... 42 Table 5.2: Tukey B a,b Age/Intellectual Stimulation ...................................................... 42 Table 5.3: Tukey Ba,b^ Age/Contingent Rewards ........................................................... 43 Table 5.4: Tukey Ba,b^ Age/Transactional Leadership .................................................... 44 Table 6.1: Group Statistics (gender) ............................................................................... 45 Table 6.2: T-Test analysis (gender) ................................................................................ 46 Table 7.1.1 Tukey B a,b : Intellectual Stimulation/job title ............................................... 47 Table 7.1.2. Tukey B a,b : Idealized Influence(attributes)/job title ................................... 47 Table 7.1.3. Tukey Ba,b: Contingent Rewards/ job title .................................................. 48 Table 8.1. ANOVA (size of the Firm) ............................................................................ 49 Table 8.2.1. Tukey B a,b : Management-by-exception(active)/Firm Size ......................... 49 Table 8.2.2 Tukey Ba,b: Laissez-Faire /Firm Size........................................................... 50 Table 8.2.3 Tukey Ba,b: Passive Avoidant Leadership /Firm Size ................................. 51 Table 9: Correlations ...................................................................................................... 52
vi The empirical results for leadership styles or leadership “composites” ........................... 36 The empirical results for Leadership composite sub-‐components ..................................... 37 5.2.2 Comparison of the empirical result with Research validated norms ...................... 38 5.2.3 Influences of background variables over the empirical results ................................. 41 Respondents’ age influenced the way they assessed their leader: ...................................... 41 Respondents’ gender influenced the way they assessed their leader: ............................... 45 Respondents’ job position influenced the way they assessed their leader:..................... 46 The size of structure from which belongs each respondent influenced the way they assessed their leader: .............................................................................................................................. 48 5.3 Correlation analysis ............................................................................................................. 52 Interpretations of correlations of leadership composite sub-‐components: .................... 53 ‘intellectual stimulation’ ......................................................................................................................... 53 ‘idealized influences (behaviors)’ ...................................................................................................... 53 ‘idealized influences (attributes)’....................................................................................................... 53 ‘inspirational motivation’....................................................................................................................... 54 ‘individualized consideration’.............................................................................................................. 54 ‘contingent rewards’ ................................................................................................................................ 54 ‘active management-‐by-‐exception’ .................................................................................................... 55 ‘passive management-‐by-‐exception’ ................................................................................................. 55 ‘laissez-‐faire’ ................................................................................................................................................ 55 Interpretations of correlations of leadership composites: ...................................................... 56 ‘transformational leadership’............................................................................................................... 56 ‘transactional leadership’....................................................................................................................... 56 ‘passive/avoidant leadership’ .............................................................................................................. 57 6 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 57 6.1 Conclusive Discussion ......................................................................................................... 57 6.2 Limitations of the findings ................................................................................................. 60 6.3 Recommendations for further researches ................................................................... 60 References ................................................................................................................................ I v Written References: ....................................................................................................... I v Oral References: ............................................................................................................. X Appendices ............................................................................................................................ XI Appendix A: Hypothesis Test Tab (Job Title) .......................................................................XI Appendix B: Hypothesis Test Tab (Level of Education) ................................................. XII Appendix C: Corporate Financial Scandals involving audit firms (non-‐exhaustive) ..........................................................................................................................................................XIII
1 1 Introduction 1.1 Background Leadership paradigm is one of the most aged in the management field. Indeed, it could be dated back to the Antiquity referring to its first definitions by Sun Tzu, Plato, Socrates and Machiavelli (Gill 2010, pp. 1 - 2; p. 12; Hytter 2014). Though, more than hundred papers about Leadership are still published everyday (ibid). In reality, Leadership is present everywhere at every time in our life, which sets it at great importance (ibid). Despite this, finding a unique and perfect definition of Leadership is nearly impossible (ibid). When considering Leadership in a business context, it is important to specify that Leadership is often confused with Management (ibid). According to Statt (1999, p. 98) Management as a process is the running of an organization and so, of every resource owned by it, machinery, financial and human included. The aim of Management as a process is to pilot and then, optimize performance of the organization (Styrhe et Al. 2013, p. 17). Though, considering management as an activity or the work done by managers theoretically only includes ‘POSDCoRB’ (Styrhe et Al. 2013, p. 18; Gill 2010, p. 26; Watson 1997). ‘POSDCoRB’ refers to the course action of planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting (Styrhe et Al. 2013, p. 18; Gill 2010, p. 26; Watson 1997). In other terms, management as an activity is a rational and technical process, which is closer to a Science rather than an Art (Gill 2010, p. 26 ). On the contrary of leadership as an activity which is the Art of influencing subordinates and persuades them in order to achieve a goal (Gill 2010, p. 26 )(Barnard 1938). Consequently, the activity of leadership calls upon the notion of vision, mission, values and power (Gill 2010, p. 26 ). However, effective leadership is required for effective management of the organization (ibid). Accordingly, Management and Leadership are bounded paradigms that ‘go hand in hand‘ (Sharma et Al. 2013, p. 309; Gill 2010). Those paradigms are so much bounded together than most remarks and even criticisms applied to the Management field might also concern the Leadership field. For instance, the Management field is often said to be led by Anglo-Saxon models and theories (Whittington 2001; Bell & Thorpe 2013, p. 115; Gantman et Al. 2015), which is also
3 TrueandFair.org.uk 2012; Deloitte 2015; Herda et Al. 2014, p. 820 - 1). Audit refers to “the process of verifying the accounting records of an organization to see whether they contain a true, fair and accurate account of business transacted” (Statt 1999, p. 11; Harris 2014; Stuart 2012, pp. 1 - 20; TrueandFair.org.uk 2012; Deloitte 2015; Herda et Al. 2014, p. 820 - 1 ). However in practice, auditors often provide organizational value- added services while attaching comments on the management, general business issues, taxation issues and, accounting and internal control to the audit report (Stuart 2012, pp. 1 - 20; TrueandFair.org.uk 2012; Herda et Al. 2014, p. 820 - 1 ). According to Herda and Lavelle 2013; Manson et al. 2001; Metzler 2005; Fontaine and Pilote 2011,2012; Fontaine et al. 2013; ACCA 2010 (Cited in Herda et Al. 2014, p. 820 - 1), those audit reviews - observations and recommendations- are seen as very valuable to investors, creditors and regulators since it does not only help at monitoring the organization effectiveness, it also helps at improving it (Stuart 2012, pp. 1 - 20; TrueandFair.org.uk 2012). The latter point is also emphasized by the fact that an audit stimulates shareholder (investors; creditors) investment while insuring them on the reliability of the bid they are about to make (Stuart 2012, pp. 1 - 20; TrueandFair.org.uk 2012). Indeed, the financial crisis of 2008 and the corporate governance scandals (ibid) (e.g., Enron; other scandals in “Appendix C”) contributed at discouraging creditors and investors funding in organizations (ibid) while at the same time resulting in huge financial losses (cf. Coulter 2010, p. 17; Enron: loss of billions dollars in shareholder value, Kustinah 2013; The Economist 2002). However nowadays, more and more financial funds are asked by organizations in order to keep their competitive advantage on the market and to spread the organization worldwide (Coulter 2010 ). Though, audit while spreading objective trustworthy financial information report also facilitate mergers and acquisitions in a worldwide span since its norms are getting standardized (Armstrong et Al. 2010; Daske et Al. 2008). The standardization of audit and accounting norms, in addition to request amendments in every national legal text (Europa.eu 2015; Diamant 2000; Ifac, 2015), urged the corporate investment in control systems and audit services worldwide (De George et Al. 2013; Daske et Al. 2008)(cf. Swedish example, Hellman 2011). According to macroeconomic principles, such investments impact organizations resources and profit worldwide and so, country Economies (GDP), which itself impacts countries growth rate (ibid)(Ireland 2010). However, as market regulators to reassess bounds in the capital market use Audit
4 reports, we acknowledge that audit also matters at the societal level since it directly impacts household investing their saving in the capital market (Stuart 2012, pp. 1 - 20; TrueandFair.org.uk 2012). It is important to remind that the Enron scandal, itself, wiped out life savings of a significant number of people because of drastic stock market decline (Paulsen 2002; BBC news 2002a;b). Furthermore as most financial corporate scandals ended up in involved companies bankrupt (or company restructuring), severe employee lay-offs occurred (Graham et Al. 2002; Paulsen 2002)(cf. “Appendix C”). 1.2 Problem discussion In 1981 , Pratt & Jiambalvo carried out a study aiming at uncovering potential relationships between audit team performance and leaders behavior. The outcome of this study displayed that factors such as the empowerment and support, openness, trust, respect and consideration, encouraging innovation and the participation at challenging task, delegation, task structuring and providing regular feedback were positively correlated with audit staff performance, satisfaction and motivation (pp. 134 - 138). Paradoxically, a number of studies highlighted a disturbingly high level of dysfunctional behavior in the audit profession (Kustinah 2013, pp. 118 - 120; Svanberg and Öhman 2013; Kelley and Margheim 1990, p. 23; pp. 24 - 25; Otley and Pierce 1995, pp. 411 - 412). In the audit profession, the most acknowledged dysfunctional behaviors are the premature sign-off of financial statements with no or nearly no reviews of the statements; the under-reporting of time spent by audit staff in a mission and the over- reporting of time spent on a mission by audit staff; the refusal to report potential frauds and the sign-off of questionable corporate documents while accepting weak (vague) client explanations (Kustinah 2013 , pp. 118 - 120 ; Svanberg and Öhman 2013 ; Kelley and Margheim 1990, p. 23 ; pp. 24 - 25 ; Otley and Pierce 1995 , pp. 411 - 412). Considering the importance of audit, such behaviors have a dramatic impact on audit quality and it can lead to serious consequences (ibid). In a 1990 research, Kelley and Margheim correlated those dysfunctional behaviors with leaders’ personality and leadership and time budget pressure, which latter is common to the profession (Kelley and Margheim 1990, p. 40). In fact, audit quality reduction acts are less likely to occur when leaders entailed both a high level of consideration and structure on tasks (Kelley and Margheim 1990, p. 40; Otley and Pierce 1995, pp. 408 - 409). However, their findings also unveiled that higher the structure of task is, higher acts of underreporting
6 perceived leaders effectiveness, subordinates’ willingness to do extra effort and work, subordinate’s satisfaction and willingness to report issues to higher hierarchy. In 2014, the researcher Jan Taylor Morris extended the line of those studies to the importance of an ethical culture and purposed another leadership model which is itself close to the ethical leadership model (cf. Brown and Treviño 2006, pp. 598 - 599): the Authentic Leadership. The Authentic Leadership is defined by authors as “ a pattern of leader behaviors that draws upon and promotes both positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical climate, to foster greater self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparency on the part of leaders working with followers, fostering positive self-development.” (Walumbwa et Al. 2008, p. 94 cited in Morris 2014, p. 3), whereas the ethical culture is defined as an effective/ ‘positive’ culture based on moral, principles and individual concerns (ECOA.org and ERC 2009, pp. 6 - 7; pp. 10 - 17). The outcome of such culture are strong membership within a team, increase of the quality and of the volume of work done, high level of commitment, motivation and satisfaction, synergy of knowledge (ibid). However, an ethical culture is only achievable via a compatible leadership e.g. Ethical Leadership (ibid)(Bass and Avolio 1993,p. 113). Puzzling out each of those previous lectures on effective and efficient leaderships in audit teams drives us back to a single leadership paradigm (cf. paradigm definition from “background” and “Theoretical framework”; Brown et Al. 2005 cited in Brown and Treviño 2006, p. 597 ): The Full-Range Leadership model. In fact, this model is the one that ticks out the most leadership characteristics stated above and which overlaps by its outcomes the notion of ethical culture (cf. “background” and “Theoretical framework”). However, referring to Barnes’ work (2013) on the relations between the different dimensions of the Full-Range Leadership model (FRL) - transformational; transactional and laissez-faire- and subordinates’ perception of workplace efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction in the certified public accounting firms in Utah, literature linking audit/accounting and the FRL model are sparse and fragmented but it needs to be investigated for practical reasons (Barnes 2013, p. 1569). This paper as itself is to some extent a response to Barnes’ call in a Swedish context. In addition to bring a contribution to the field, Barnes’ study (2013) strengthened well- debated claims on the global/universalistic feature of the Transformational Leadership
7 model (FRL) (Bass 1997) while finding evidences on the relationships with each dimension of the FRL model (Barnes 2013, p. 1567; p. 1575). Global means that Transformational Leadership model (FRL) is common at every organization in any country independently of their activity and of the sector they belong to (Bass 1997, p. 132 ). However, a wide range of critical researches (e.g., House et Al. 1999; Den Hartog 1999), displayed that in reality the Transformational Leadership model (FRL) is ‘overall’ global since depending on the national culture and customs (Leong and Fisher 2010; House et Al. 1999) and even the level of the management (Den Hartog 1999), multiple translations of the model occur. In other terms, it depends on how individuals make sense of it according to their personal characteristics and cultural background (cf. “the implicit leadership theory”). More, as stated earlier most management and leadership theories were developed and tested in Anglo-Saxon countries more precisely in the U.S. and so, those theories contains American idiosyncrasies which are not necessary shared with the rest of the world (Den Hartog 1999, pp. 227 - 228). For instance, one of those idiosyncrasies involves emphasizing on one’s goals, being the best (hedonistic motivation) despite of others and not caring for them (caring for others: altruistic motivation) and according to Hofstede (2015), Sweden is not for lifting oneself above others and being the best but rather enjoying what ones do and caring for others. Accordingly, we are wondering how the Full-Range Leadership is displayed in Sweden in the context of audit firms, as this has not been studied earlier. Our other reasons for carrying out this inquiry in Sweden relies on the following: First, according to Hofstede center (2015): ‘Swedish take the edge that there should be no more rules than necessarily and rules that are ambiguous or do not work, should be changed or abandoned’. Accordingly referring to researches on other fields, we acknowledged that Sweden is inclined to translations of US business models when they are seen as partially true or not compatible e.g. Scandinavian management model, societal entrepreneurship paradigm (Lundin 1995; Cicmil 2006); amendments over International Accounting/Audit norms to make them fit with local systems (Ifac 2015; Revisorsnämnden 2015d; Diamant 2000). Then, referring to a study of 2013 by Svanberg and Öhman on the impact of ethical culture and environment on audit dysfunctional behaviors and audit quality reduction acts in Sweden, Sweden is concerned by audit reduction acts (cf. descriptive tab in Svanberg and Öhman 2013, p. 579). And considering the fact that previous researches proved the impact of leadership
9 permit us to be out the Swedish context and so, generalize our statement in a worldwide span. However such issues also applied to the Swedish context since time constraint and our limited mobility across Sweden did not allow us to investigate the case further and so, to imply various methods of research e.g. qualitative interviews. Other limitations of our study entailed the number of employees willing to answer our questionnaire, the normative feature of leadership assessment tests and our low chances at figuring out the causality of our result because of our chosen research design (cf. Bryman and Bell 2011, pp. 53 - 54 ; p. 346 ): cross-sectional (survey research). Consequently, this report would not entail consistent causal explanations of the phenomenon such as the determination of whether variable(s) cause(s) (an)other variable(s) (cf. Ibid, p. 346 ). 1.5 Research Question How do Swedish Audit team managers enact the Full-Range Leadership model in their day-to-day practice of leadership according to the non-managing audit staff? 2 Methodology 2.1 Philosophy of the research 2.1.1 Ontological and epistemological positions _According to Bell and Thorpe (2013), epistemology and ontological concepts are important since they determine who will read the research, which journal will publish it (pro-positivist or pro-interpretivist), how researcher community will regard it (ibid, p.
10 something that has been made up by social interaction (ibid, p. 20). According to authors (Bryman and Bell 2011, p. 15 - 20 ), there are two different epistemology stances available in Research: the positivist stance and the interpretivist stance. Interpretivists consider management as soft science (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2006 cited in Bell and Thorpe 2013, p. 115), situation-specific (e.g. on history, culture) and so, which theories are not generalizable (Bell and Thorpe 201 3, p. 11). They believe “people shape their understanding of the world by interacting with one another”-constructionism ontological stance- (Ibid, p. 46). Consequently, natural science (scientific) research methods cannot be used for grasping the subjective meaning of the social world (Bryman and Bell 2011, pp. 15 - 16 ). In fact according to interpretivists, management can only be understood from the point of view of the people who are directly involved in, including the managed and the one who manage (Bell and Thorpe 2013, p. 46). On its opposite, positivist assumes that there is reality beyond any interpretation and phenomenon - objectivist ontological stance- and so, the social world is investigable with the use of scientific research method (Bryman and Bell 2011, pp. 15 - 16; Bell and Thorpe 2013, p. 44). Indeed, positivists think knowledge must be on what might be posited through direct and observable experience (Bell and Thorpe 2013, p. 44). Even more, they think knowledge is senseless unless they are capable to verify it empirically by gathering sense-date (ibid). Positivists assume knowledge has to be value free and objective whereas researcher is neutral agent and that the researcher and the ‘object of study’ are independent entities (ibid). Additionally, the aim of positivist is to generate causal explanations (Bell and Thorpe 2013, p. 44 ). Even if we do acknowledge with the fact that social world is investigable through the eyes of humans, we believe there is a constancy or rather a trend in the social world. Consequently in this paper, we discussed an organization as a ‘tangible object’, which ‘adopts standardized procedures’ (cf. Objectivism; Bryman and Bell 2011, p. 21). This decision relied on the prior researches made on the Leadership field such as Bass (1997), who stated the Transformational Leadership model (FRL) is global. Our paper relies on this assumption. More, even if we limited our inquiry in a specific context- audit firms in Sweden- we still aimed at a generalization of our result, at least within this context and so, producing a “law-like” statement (cf. (Bell and Thorpe 2013, p. 9). Nonetheless as stated in “limitations and Delimitations of the study”, causality was not investigated.
12 401). In fact, research studies have to correspond to certain standards to be considerate among research community (ibid). In this research we planned to match with those standards as much as possible. To achieve our aim of relevance and legitimacy, our paper targeted at providing correct research formatting (ibid, pp. 111 - 116). In addition to bring out credibility to us, as authors, and our paper (ibid), this will help others to follow up the research and to understand it as it is properly structured (ibid). Another key fact is that research formatting helps at assessing the research: is it relevant? Legitimated? Properly conducted? Clear? Are argument/material used are appropriate (e.g. bibliography from a literature review, ibid). Formatting is also important to consider regarding growing interest about ethics in Research field (ibid, pp. 116 - 118; 140; Bell 2013, p. 94). In fact, many case of errors in formatting led to the condemnation of authors’ researches on issues like plagiarism e.g. an university expert (2006) forgot to put quotation marks on a quote he used from someone else in his paper and got accused of plagiarism (Bryman and Bell 2011, pp. 116 - 118). In our paper, we chose to use the academic Harvard referencing system since it is convention in research community (ibid, p. 111). Appropriate use of empirical materials was also used to achieve stated quality standards. For instance, literature review part is as much important as the result/findings part (ibid, pp. 91 - 94 & 103). Indeed, it justifies our research and its relevance (ibid). And so, it needs to be assessed properly before integrating it in a research paper (ibid). On this research study, we assessed every empirical material referring to the relevance and legitimacy of papers and its origins (credibility and authenticity); the clarity of its meaning; its meaningfulness the distinctiveness of its purpose; its accuracy on representation different actors perception of situations and, its linkability with other researches (ibid, pp. 394 - 401). Another purpose of literature reviews involves helping others to assess the research and oneself as author (Bell 2013, pp. 56 - 57; Bryman and Bell 2011, pp. 91 - 94). Indeed, authors are supposed to pick material they feel relevant, analyze and demonstrate their understanding and knowledge about the subject area (ibid). This demonstrates authors’ ability at doing research and its ‘critical eye’ (ibid). Additionally on the carried study part, we aimed at providing as much details as possible to insure the ‘replicability’ of our study. As a result, our study will be verifiable (cf. replication, Bryman and Bell 2011 , pp. 165 - 167 ). Nevertheless, some information
13 was hidden because our research study needed to consider ethics to be legitimate (Bryman and Bell 2011 , pp. 122 - 123). Considering ethics means being responsible on the way we carry out the research (ibid, pp. 128 - 142) e.g. respect original interpretation/findings from other researchers or even interviewees and include them in our paper as citations/sources (no plagiarism and respecting eventual copyrights); respecting person privacy and confidentiality purposes; not harming or corrupting people to force them at participating to our inquiry; not cheating on people consent at being studied while providing unclear/incomplete information about the research and its purpose and processes and avoiding affiliation and conflict of interest while setting a distance between us and the ‘objects of study’. Furthermore, we selected a diverse and significant sample of individuals in order to better appreciate reality since greater is the sample, greater is the precision (Bryman and Bell 2011, pp. 187 - 188 ). The latter helped us at limiting bias in our research paper, making it more relevant to research community and its practitioners (cf. Bell 2013, pp. 93 - 94; p. 97) but also, at helping at the generalization (or ‘external validity’) of our findings (cf. Generalization; Bryman and Bell 2011, pp. 163 - 165). And to make the generalization would be even more relevant, the used sampling method was random (cf. external validity; ibid, p. 56) which by the way insured the reliability of findings. However in order insure even more reliability, we made use of a questionnaire developed by famous researchers, validated by research community and which, is used worldwide to evaluate managers’ leadership profile. The chosen questionnaire (MLQ) is the questionnaire used for assessing leadership according to the FRL theory and the same researchers - Bass-, which developed the FRL theory, made it. Accordingly, we might fulfill two important criterions: ‘Measurement validity’ or “the right measure tools to measure the right concept” (Bryman and Bell 2011, p. 42; p. 159; cf. face validity: ibid, p. 160) and the ‘internal reliability’ criterion which is about the consistency and the stability of the measures (Bryman and Bell 2011, pp. 157 - 159). More, we reduced the probability at getting respondents understanding questions differently and at getting a lack of coherence between what we wanted to find out and what measures we used for it (ibid). However, we acknowledge that survey research design impacted the internal validity of the research (Bryman and Bell, p. 56). Indeed, survey research design provides no evidences on the real causality of results (ibid) but it
