LESSONS LEARNT FROM AN ONLINE PILOT STUDY ABOUT STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT AT A HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION

This article is a report on the lessons learned when conducting an interpretive case study in a developing country. From the literature review, it was apparent that there are few reported lessons from pilot studies about strategic alignment in higher education institutions from a middle management perspective in the developing countries. The aim of this article is to fill that gap. The pilot study was conducted to assess the feasibility of collecting data from Malawi, one of the countries with low internet access in the world. The case study organisation was a university that had been identified during the time that governments across the world had imposed travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pilot study involved evaluating the feasibility of collecting data online using the Luftman questionnaire for assessing maturity level for organisations and the use of Microsoft Teams for conducting online interviews within the context of a country where the majority of the population do not have internet access, and English is the de facto lingua franca. Among the lessons learned were the need for researchers to be careful to match case study organisations to research topic, the need to support participants understanding questionnaires in qualitative case studies to minimise risk of drop out and ensure participants understand any technical language being used, the effect that external factors such as weather might have on a study, and the limitations of automatic voice recognition for interview transcription.