The Experience of Applying a Narrative Research Approach With Female Entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The area of female entrepreneurship has recently received considerable attention, which is dominated by quantitative studies. However, the narrative methodology approach offers the opportunity to gain in-depth, rich information beyond the boundaries of a question-response type of interview. Therefore, the article puts forward researching female entrepreneurship through the application of the narrative design. Fourteen women were purposively approached and interviewed. Findings revealed that researcher characteristics including understanding and respecting others, insider, outsider perspectives, and multiple identities as critical attributes of success in conducting narrative interviews. In addition, interview skills such as building trust and language were crucial to sustaining such characteristics when bringing together the stories of the respondent. Therefore, narrative design can be identified as an essential method that produces new knowledge, permitting, in this case, to better understand the complexity of women’s experiences.