Focus Groups, Meaning Making and Data Quality

Data quality represents a major strategic asset for organisations and privacy is one of the main influencing factors impacting on organisations ‘practices related to customers’ data collection. Other elements which affects this relationship are individuals handling data within the organisation and their different needs, however there is limited research focussing on these aspects. This work presents early findings of an empirical qualitative research using focus groups within a social constructivist approach to delve into managers’ perception of data quality and to understand the impact of privacy on organisational practices. Focus groups have been widely adopted in academic research as an exploratory method to collect people’s opinion. This study shows how some features, like involving pre-existing groups, the adoption of questionnaires and the workshops’ setting can positively influence focus groups’ outcome, encouraging participants’ co-operative interaction, helping them to clarify concepts and raising awareness about privacy and data quality.