3.1.2.3 Procedure and analysis

The validity of the collected data and the analysis were tested with the technique of qualitative data triangulation. Triangulation entails the use of a plurality of methods to validate data which describe various facets of the same social phenomenon.1 Initially, some data were retrieved from applicable regulation and each social enterprise’s legal documents, whereas empirical in-depth data were collected with the conduct of semi-structured interviews. Data accuracy and validation were achieved primarily with follow-up questions and through the thorough revision of the interview transcriptions and the interview reports by the respondents. Subsequently to data collection, the constant comparison method (coding) was used for the data analysis, according to which codes were created to constantly compare and contrast the text ideas collected in the interviews. By using codes, all data were sorted, grouped, subdivided and matched to categorised themes. Even though some pre-selected codes were used deductively, which emerged from the legal analysis of the topic, i.e. governance and stakeholder participation, the majority of the codes were extracted from the existing data inductively. We used an a priori framework with a list of the definitions of the selected concepts and contrasted these definitions with codes emerging from the data. The codes emerged from the content of the interview transcrip-tion. The process consisted of creating codes using open in-vivo coding with the use of software for qualitative analysis, i.e. ATLAS t.i. The emerging codes from the interview transcriptions were: influence, board of directors, decisions of directors, stakeholder participation, stakeholders meeting, informal meetings, shareholder types, trust, voting process, general assembly process, social report, voting rights, consensus, services, stakeholder information, and values. Following the completion of the interviews, we processed the data further by refining the already existing codes to directly relate them to the research question of this article; we created the following themes, i.e. decision-making processes, employee participation, membership rights, incentives for membership, incentives for employment, profit distribution, formal participation, informal participation, voting cap, and incorporation. Template analysis was the main analytical method.2 By applying template analysis we contrasted pre-existing concepts with emergent concepts from the data and we integrated them into patterns with respect to stakeholder and employee participation in the governance of social enterprises.3 In the following section, we will discuss the results of the empirical investigation.