Getting the right interview in Asia

There has recently been a significant increase in the number of Western researchers conducting business research in Asia. Whether the research is cross-cultural (etic) or within culture (emic), the researcher must adopt an appropriate research methodology and tactics for obtaining reliable data in a non -Western oriented domain. This paper focuses on the techniques used in three studies in Asia that relied on gaining the 'right' access to the 'right' interviewees, so that, with the use of appropriate interview techniques to gather the quality of data required, meaningful outcomes were achieved. The aim of the paper is to assist future business researchers to improve their data collection techniques in these difficult primary research domains. The contribution of the paper is to provide guidance on obtaining good interviews by describing a suitable process and identifying 13 key success factors.