It is a suitable time to have an accurate judgment of the Palestinians contribution in hi-tech and startup business and to take a fresh view of the available theoretical methods that until today did not admit the achievements of Palestinians businessmen and women to the Israeli economy and the global efforts.
Research Design: To arrive at a holistic understanding of the experiences and challenges faced by Palestinians startup entrepreneurs, I used the interpretive qualitative case research ‘paradigm’ or a group of objectives studies assumptions, investigation process, descriptive model, and interoperation according to Leitch et al. (2009).
To highlight the Palestinian situation within the borders of Israel I had to collect information from various resources including social production efforts by Palestinian NGOs, institutions and Parliament members. Include those social production efforts towards developing the startup entrepreneurs’ challenges.
To identify the essence of human experiences about a phenomenon as described by participants, the study focused on voices and perspectives of 15 Palestinians startup entrepreneurs in Galilee, Israel. It is the story and narratives of their lived experiences to help understand their past, present, and future. This qualitative research study relied on interviews, questionnaire and the review of relevant literature to arrive at an understanding of the startup entrepreneurial work of Palestinian business owners in Israel.
Bogdan and Biklen (2007) suggested phenomenological researchers advanced while knowing little about the participants (people) and visited places; the researcher tries to loosen themselves from any prejudices regarding the findings – what the participants and the setting will be like. The interviewer plans progress after learning about the setting. The spirit of the phenomenological approach is by exploring how people make logic of experience and convert the experience into consciousness, individually and in joined meaning (Patton, 2002).
Patton added that the phenomenology goal is to have a deeper knowledge of the nature of the meaning of our everyday experiences. In other words, Patton (2002) suggested that qualitative research gently and thoughtfully attains and explains how participants experience, perceive, describe, feel, judge, remember, make sense and talk about some phenomenon with others; during in-depth interviews with participants who lived the phenomenon through their experience. Indeed, the methodology created opportunities for participants to share freely and most of the participants felt that it was time for this kind of research and are anxious to see the result.
On the other hand, the researcher collected data (Qualitative research) by examining documents, observing behavior, and interviewing participants. Creswell (2009) noted that qualitative researchers often use special lenses to view their studies, as the concept of culture. According to Patton (2002), privet narratives, family stories, and life stories tell cultural and social patterns through the lens of personal experiences.
As Heppner and Heppner (2004, 65 p. 172) noted that criterion-based sampling is used in a phenomenological study to select participants like this research who meet the following: (a) they experienced the phenomenon under study, and (b) they can articulate their lived experiences. The rationale for choosing this method was to know what people experienced and how they interpreted the world.
The interviewers shared their lived experiences regards to the research questions and responded according to Creswell’s (2008) choice of open-ended questions that permits participants to best voice their experiences, unconstrained by any of the perspectives of the researcher or past research findings (p. 225) and engaged the participants in conversation which allowed them opportunities to freely share information. During the interviews, while guiding against personal biases, I ensured that the participants were allowed to share their perceptions and let their voices be heard without interruption.
Research Setting: The observations and interviews were carried out at the participants’ business places in the Galilee area, Israel where the major of the Palestinian startup business is located. One interview was done using the WhatsApp facility.
The businesses are located in community Incubators in Nazareth, Haifa and Shfa Amro. The oldest is a grassroots organization, the Galilee Institute established in 1982. Nazareth Incubators NBIC established in 2002, is a non-profit NGO established by MATI and Haifa municipal incubators as well as Amazon office where one startup had been sold to Amazon and privet offices.
The startups’ progress was in deferent stages, some already had their customers, others are in the stage of marketing, production and one startup had an exit. One startup had stopped for almost two years for not receiving funding but recently they are back to activities the company as they received funding.
Research Participants: The 15 Participants are not heterogeneous group rather they are from different age groups, professional backgrounds, religions, and gender. They were randomly chosen according to their availability and willingness to participate.
Instrumentation:
The instrumentation for this research consisted of an interview, questionnaires, and observations. The interview consisted of three open-ended questions.
The open questions allow participants to freely state their views without much reservation. Structured phenomenological interviews were conducted that addressed the research questions. The following interview questions were designed to address the research topic:
- Please elaborate on your life experiences and the trail you have pursued to reach where you are today?
- Took them back to school to their families and how and when they were introducing to the computer. Step by step until the startup starts producing.
- Please could you evaluate your experience, challenges as well as your obstacles?
- Other questions were raised by the researchers during the evaluation that was raised by some startup organizations and observations the first concern the Palestinian culture that not support to have startup initiatives and the second that Palestinians lack the administration capacities does not support the creation of a startup and therefore they need a Jewish co-founder to fill the gap?
- Could you please elaborate on how the Palestinian culture does or does not support startup initiatives?
