Participant information leaflet

Participant Information Leaflet

Study Title:	Maximising productivity through managing new technology
Investigator(s):	Peter Dickinson and Emily Erickson (IER, University of Warwick)

Introduction

You are invited to take part in a research study. Before you decide, you need to understand why the research is being done and what it would involve for you. Please read the following information carefully. Please contact us if there is anything that is not clear or if you would like more information. Take the time to decide whether or not you wish to take part.

A downloadable version of this information leaflet is available here.

Who is organising and funding the study?

We are undertaking this study in partnership with the West Midland’s Combined Authority (WMCA). The study is being funded through by the Regional Productivity Forum’s Business Innovation Fund.

What is the study about?

The study is exploring whether it is the management of new technology, or the technology itself, that is important to increasing a firm’s productivity. If it is the management of new technology, then how can this be developed and supported in West Midland businesses.

Do I have to take part?

Your participation in this interview is entirely voluntary and you can withdraw at any time without giving a reason.

What would taking part involve?

It will involve undertaking an interview with IER researchers which should last for 30-45 minutes. The researchers will explore how you decide on and implement new technology within your organisation, and what support (if any) you might require.

Any information you provide will be kept securely in a password-protected folder at the University of Warwick for the purposes of the research.

What are the possible benefits of taking part in this study?

It will help WMCA develop new, or improve existing, management and business support.

What are the possible disadvantages, side effects or risks, of taking part in this study?

There are no anticipated risks to you as a research participant.

Expenses and payments

There will be no payment for taking part in the telephone interview.

Will my taking part be kept confidential?

Yes. We will follow strict ethical and legal practice and all information about you will be handled in confidence. All the information and data you provide will be pseudonymised, this means your contact details will not be stored in the same file as your interview data. All data will be stored securely in a password-protected folder at Warwick University. Only the named researcher will have access to the data. No interview data will be transferred outside of the University of Warwick.

If during the course of the interview you disclose anything which may highlight harm to you or to others, the interviewers have a duty of care to report this to the relevant authorities, but otherwise, your confidentiality will be maintained throughout.

What will happen to the data collected about me?

As a publicly-funded organisation, we have to ensure that it is in the public interest when we use personally-identifiable information from people who have agreed to take part in research. This means that we will only use your data in the ways needed to conduct and analyse this research study.

We will be using information from you in order to undertake this study and will act as the data controller for this study. We are committed to protecting the rights of individuals in line with data protection legislation. The University of Warwick will destroy contact details immediately after the end of the project (April 2023). Consent information will be kept securely for 10 years after the study has finished and then destroyed securely.

Research data will be pseudonymised as quickly as possible after data collection. This means all direct and indirect identifiers will be removed from the research data and will be replaced with a participant number. The key to identification will be stored separately and securely to the research data to safeguard your identity. It will be possible for us to withdraw your data up to 3 weeks after the data has been collected and this data will then be securely destroyed if you wish us to do so.

Data Sharing

Data will not be shared with any other organisation.

Your rights to access, change or move your information are limited, as we need to manage your information in specific ways in order for the research to be reliable and accurate. The University of Warwick has in place policies and procedures to keep your data safe.

This data may also be used for future research following review and approval by an independent Research Ethics Committee and subject to your consent at the outset of this research project.

Please refer to the University of Warwick Research Privacy Notice which is available here: https://warwick.ac.uk/services/idc/dataprotection/privacynotices/researchprivacynotice or by contacting the Information and Data Compliance Team at infocompliance@warwick.ac.uk.

What will happen if I don’t want to carry on being part of the study?

Participation is entirely voluntary, and a decision to withdraw participation from the study without giving a reason, will not affect you in any way. If you decide to withdraw from the study, please tell us before or during the interview and we will destroy your contact details securely and will not contact you again for the purposes of this research. You can stop the interview at any point without giving a reason if you do not want the interview to continue.

It will not be possible to withdraw your data 3 weeks after data has been collected. To safeguard your rights, we will use the minimum personally-identifiable information possible and keep data secure in line with the University’s Information and Data Compliance policies.

What will happen to the results of the study?

The findings of the study will be presented in a report to WMCA. All data will be presented in an aggregate form e.g. in tables and graphs. The report will be made available on the University of Warwick’s website.

Who has reviewed the study?

This study has been reviewed and given favourable opinion by the University of Warwick’s Humanities and Social Science Research Ethics Committee (HSSREC).

Who should I contact if I want further information?

If you have any questions about any aspect of the study, or your participation in it, not answered by this participant information sheet, please contact:

Peter Dickinson at p.dickinson@warwick.ac.uk; or

Stef Poole at Stefanie.Poole@warwick.ac.uk

Who should I contact if I wish to make a complaint?

Any complaint about the way you have been dealt with during the study or any possible harm you might have suffered will be addressed. Please address your complaint to the person below, who is a senior University of Warwick official entirely independent of this study:

Head of Research Governance

Research & Impact Services

University House

University of Warwick

Coventry

CV4 8UW

Email: researchgovernance@warwick.ac.uk

Tel: 024 76 522733

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer, Information and Data Director who will investigate the matter: infocompliance@warwick.ac.uk.

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data in a way that is not lawful you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Thank you for taking the time to read this Participant Information Leaflet

PRIVACY NOTICE

How we will ensure that we are using your personal data fairly and transparently in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

How we will use your personal data

If you agree to participate, we will ask you to confirm your name and email address. We will use the information you provide as a basis for analysis in order to develop the study’s findings.

The nature of your personal data that we will be using

The categories of personal data that we will ask for are:

· Name and contact email when completing the consent form.

· Your participation in managing technology training and/or business support, and your experiences of using the service;

· Personal data such as your job title and email address.

Why our use of your personal data is lawful

Under the GDPR, we are required to have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. For the purpose of this project, the lawful basis is that processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest (i.e. providing unbiased research evidence to the WMCA).

Who will have access to your personal data?

Access to your personal data will be restricted to members of the Warwick Institute for Employment Research (IER) project team for this research project. We will not report your name or anything that would make you personally identifiable in any outputs from the research and will use our best endeavours to ensure that data in any project outputs (e.g. reports and presentations) will not allow individuals or their organisations to be identified.

For the purposes of reporting, any identifying information will be removed to ensure confidentiality. Your interview data will be stored safely on a password-protected folder at the University of Warwick and will only be accessible by the research team. Contact details will not be stored in the same file as your interview data. The IER and its data storage procedures are fully compliant with GDPR. Aggregated research data will be made available to WMCA but they will not have access to any individual interview summaries, names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying details of participants. The collated research findings will be published in a research report and a journal article but none of your personal data will be included in the report.

Your right to withdraw consent

Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. Refusal to participate will not affect you in any way. If you do agree to participate, you may withdraw from the study at any time: there will not be any consequence of this. You have the right to withdraw from the study completely and decline any further contact by researchers after you withdraw.

How long we will keep your personal data?

We will retain your pseudonymised data for ten years in accordance with the University of Warwick retention requirements for research data. Your contact data will be deleted as soon as is practicable after the end of the project.

Your data protection rights

Under certain circumstances, you have the right:

· to ask us for access to information about you that we hold;

· to have your personal data rectified, if it is inaccurate or incomplete;

· to request the deletion or removal of personal data where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing;

· to restrict our processing of your personal data (i.e. permitting its storage but no further processing);

· to object to direct marketing (including profiling) and processing for the purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics;

· not to be subject to decisions based purely on automated decision-making.

If you need to contact us regarding any of the above, please email the University of Warwick’s Data Protection Officer at infocompliance@warwick.ac.uk. For further details see https://warwick.ac.uk/services/idc/dataprotection/datasubjectrights

Your right to complain

If you are unhappy with our use of your personal data, please let us know by contacting:

Head of Research Governance