Using Elite Interviews to Investigate Corporate Perceptions of Energy Security in the International Context: Empirical Benefits and Methodological Challenges

Recent advancement in energy studies call for a more comprehensive and nuanced approach to energy security that accommodates perspectives of a variety of actors involved in functioning of energy systems (Cherp and Jewell, 2014). However, little research has been done to evaluate the way energy companies – arguably the key operators of energy systems – perceive and frame energy security vulnerabilities, and how it compares to the energy security priorities of national governments and policy-makers. One method to understand how energy companies construct their energy security discourse is through semi-structured open-ended interviews with their employees, who are of various seniority levels, but have access to decision-making processes. Elite interviews are recognised as a tool that can provide a different lens for understanding firms (Schoenberger, 1991) and generate novel and insightful data that can be difficult to obtain through conventional methods (Harvey, 2010). This paper builds upon personal experiences of interviewing representatives of energy companies that operate in the Norwegian and Russian Arctic, to reflect on the methodological implications associated with using corporate elite interviewing as a data collection method. Such issues as operating multiple positionalities and dealing with power imbalances in the energy research context are discussed.