Marjolein Dennissen

28 The Herculean task of diversity networks meetings with the organizational management and cross-network meetings between multiple networks. I endeavored to attend a variety of aforementioned network meetings. With regard to network events, I observed small-scale events such as workshops or masterclasses, as well as larger events such as organization-wide conferences. I was able to attend most of the network meetings when asked if I could, with the exception of five particular meetings. Although I provided extensive information beforehand why I wanted to attend a meeting, why observations were important in my research, what my role as observer would look like, and that I would respect and ensure confidentiality of both network members and the organization, I could not attend these meetings. The reasons varied from content that was too sensitive to have a researcher present, meetings that did not take place anymore due to changing network boards, or board members forgot to notify me of their meeting. In total, I observed 46 network meetings that comprised 145 hours of observation. Depending on the nature of the meeting, I could be either an anonymous spectator or a visible participant (Bleijenbergh, 2013). During large-scale conferences, I was less visible and could have been seen as an employee. However, during smaller meetings such as board meetings, I often sat at the same table as the network members and was also included in a round of questions at the beginning or end of the meeting. This also allowed me to introduce myself and explain my presence and the goal of my research when I was present for the first time. I used either a laptop or a notebook to take field notes on as many details as possible. Documents Lastly, I collected and analyzed available documents for each diversity network. These documents contained annual plans, newsletters, and meeting minutes, as well as policy documents, PowerPoint presentations, websites, blogs, and emails. These documents provided valuable information about the network’s goals and activities (annual plans, newsletters), how the board presented their network to the organizational management (PowerPoint presentations), how the network envisioned organizational policy with regard to their target group (policy documents), and how they communicated with each other with regard to their ideas about the future of their network or collaboration between different networks (various emails). In addition, documents such as meetingminutes provided information about meetings that were not included in observations and any follow-ups of previously made agreements. Data analysis Due to the different perspectives and research questions in this dissertation, the used data sets and data analyses differ per chapter. Although a discourse analysis differs from a practice analysis, several steps in the data analysis were similar for all studies. All data analyses rely on an abductive approach, going back and forth between theory and empirical material (Van Maanen, Sørensen &Mitchell, 2007). In Chapter 2 and 3, the focal data consists of the interview material; in Chapter 4, the most important data were the observation material (see Table 1).