by Marek Wessels
Introduction
Coming from Berlin, I am generally interested in the city’s relationship with its surroundings.
Großbeeren is a good example, having a strong link to the city through its big logistics complex.
Therefore, one of my research interests was the relationship to berlin for people working in this
sector. As the good traffic connection is an important local factor, I was expecting a strong link,
possibly even many of them living actually in Berlin. The other focus was on was the general
relationship between GVZ the freight centre and the nearby villages. My interview partner is
German, working in the administration for a log istics c ompany in Großbeeren and lives nearby. To
gather information on his reality of life and work I conducted a semi structured interview The main
results are the existence of a clear connection between the logistics location and the surrounding
region. While employees are connected to the area, the skill shortage and a flexible work
environment also lead to a high mobility inside of Germany and throughout Europe.
Methods
On the one hand I was interested in the interviewee’s individual perspe c tive, on the other hand, I had
a clear directi on in my research interest , which made a semi st ructured interview the best method to
gather information T he questionnaire is structured into three topics: work, life and habitation and
perspectives on politics and society. For each , there are m ultiple rather broad starting questions and
some inquir ies for backup Originally, the project was planned as a teamwork, so we found the
research interest and designed the que stionnaire together, expecting to find interview ees through my
partners personal contacts . After we had to split up because of pro blems with our capacities, I tried
to find interview ees by contacting companies telephonically , asking if their employees might be open
for an interview and found my interviewee this way. It is likely that a self selection bias has
influenced my sampling as I needed employees to be actively interested in doing an interview, as I did
not have a personal access to them. One fact the interview ee named was having studie d himself
recently and helping a fellow student this way. During the inter view it will have also been influential
that I have never worke d in logistics myself and always lived in a big city, having a completely different
reality of life. On the other hand it may have been relev ant, especially when talking about society and
migration and integration, that both of us are white cis men without migration background.
The Interview
Before the interview I did not know who would participate on this, as I only knew the interviewee from a brief phone call, explaining him my plans. Nonetheless, I was expecting someone from administration as those were the people I talked with when calling the companies. Before starting the recording, I explained to him my resea rch interest and the seminar and let him sign a privacy policy. I started the interview with broad questions on his life and work, collecting information for further inquiries. After that the conversation w as running rather organically, not always following the order of the question naire. I tried to keep it that way to get rather spontaneou s an swers and stay within topics we previously discussed. After stopping the recording we were discussing his impression of the interview and, having some time he showed me around the business premises. Afterwards, I got to Großbeeren, trying to get spontaneous interviews with locals, but without success likely because it was a weekday at noon. Looking back, I was able to fit in all the relevant questions, while the organic structure of the interview was likely helpfu l to get more open and lengthy responses from the interviewee.
Dieses Werk ist lizenziert unter einer CC BY 4.0 licenz.
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.