• Recognize different primary sources and types of internal data
• Explore different ways to gather and analyze internal data

Sources of Data

primary source

A primary source is direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, or person.

Examples of primary sources are historical and legal documents, eyewitness accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, pieces of creative writing, audio and video recordings, speeches, and art objects. Interviews, surveys, fieldwork, and Internet communications via email, blogs, listservs, and newsgroups are also primary sources.^[1]

internal data

Internal data are data about your organization derived from internal primary sources.

A report by HR about turnover and hiring or financial statements from Accounting or Finance are common examples. In contrast, an article in a business magazine about your organization’s talent management would be a secondary source, even if it referenced internal data–originally a primary source.

Internal data are usually not available outside the organization unless the organization is mandated to produce such reports, for example, publicly-traded companies must file a variety of reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Depending on the size of your organization, its public filings may be a great source of material for your business reports.

Collecting Internal Data

Internal data can come from a variety of sources and departments—from sales reports, financial documents, human resources information, or elsewhere. Gathering data on your own organization is a much more complicated process than you might suspect. 

There are two primary concerns:

1. The act of gathering information about your own organization is not without political and ethical considerations. When a person from one part of the organization seeks data about another–or about the enterprise as a whole–it can have implications for the well-being and security of people’s circumstances. Think of a salesperson who is having their sales volume studied by an HR analyst or an accountant being questioned about how quickly their division processes invoices. Investigating aspects of organizational operations can be a sensitive issue.
2. Data can be dynamic and often hard to find. Some data are relatively straightforward and can be captured in time, or the gathering and publishing of the data is mandated by an outside element. However, qualitative data could be more difficult to collect, such as descriptions of processes or organizational culture. A business may not wish to have such information easily accessible because they consider it part of their competitive advantage.

An interested party, or stakeholder, is someone who has a particular interest in the organization. People who work in the organization are interested parties as are customers, shareholders, suppliers, and vendors. In short, conducting a stakeholder analysis before your research is a good idea. Although such analyses can evolve into detailed reports, the primary aim in this context is to identify and consider any sensitive issues related to your data collection process. Your stakeholder analysis does not need to be perfect or exhaustive, but consider it an important part of processing your data.

Research in the Social Sciences

Access is a key concept in social science research. Anthropologists, who often immerse themselves in subcultures to observe their lives, probably understand access issues better than most other researchers. If they do not have good access to a group, their ability to conduct their study is compromised. Anthropologists studying people of a particular culture might live among them for a time.

Since this kind of immersion may be impractical, an alternative is to do research more like a sociologist, who tend to use surveys and have less need for direct, prolonged access. Surveys can be difficult to design and hard to use. They may be completed incorrectly, incompletely, or not at all. When you are participating in “How did we do?” surveys after a customer service phone call or other service event, you are participating in sociological research.

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