4.1 Study Area
The study was conducted in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. The level of MSE activity is relatively high in urban areas such as Harare. Although only about 27 percent of the Zimbabwean population lives in urban areas, close to 40 percent of MSEs are located in these areas (USAID 1998). Also, as an urban area people are more aware of HIV/AIDS and therefore more likely to be willing to talk about it compared to rural areas.
4.2 Sample Selection
The study is based on 30 enterprises; 2 respondents were interviewed from each enterprise, making a total of 60 respondents. The sampling process took longer than the researcher had anticipated mainly because to get a list of MSEs proved difficult. The researcher had hoped to get lists from the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) and Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) for purposes of sampling. CZI was not forthcoming because they did not keep such records. ZNCC was helpful but the list included all forms of organisations - multi-nationals, large corporations and MSEs. It became cumbersome for the researcher to go through the list and select MSEs only, thus she had to scale down and look at the service sector. (1)
The service sector includes salons, take-away cafes and travel agencies. The researcher assumed that the aforementioned had their own organisations or bodies, which govern them and to which they can take their grievances. This was the case with the travel agencies. The organisation, which is named the Association of Zimbabwe Travel Agencies (AZTA), was reluctant to give a list of its members even after careful debriefing. It took a lot of persuasion on the part of the researcher to eventually obtain the list. It should be noted that this list does not actually have all travel agencies in Harare but only those registered with AZTA. It was far more difficult to obtain information for salons and cafes. Eventually, the researcher got a list from the Commercial Workers Union (CWU). The list was similar to that provided by AZTA in that it did not cover all the salons and cafes in Harare but only those registered with the body. The two lists provided by AZTA and CWU formed the sampling frame for the study. Random selection was done to come up with the sample of 30 enterprises used in the study.
4.3 Data Collection
Interview times were set with the different enterprises. The employer and one employee from each enterprise were interviewed. Of the 60 interviewees, 41 (68 percent) were females and 19 were males. Instead of administering a questionnaire as was initially desired, the researcher used an interview guide.(2) The interview guide, which was useful for probing, was administered to the owners/employers and employees of the MSEs. Each interview took 1-2 hours. The following kinds of data were collected:
• Perceptions on HIV/AIDS in MSEs;
• Perceptions on how HIV/AIDS affects productivity;
• Information on awareness of HIV/AIDS; and
• Information on methods used in the prevention of HIV/AIDS transmission.
4.4 Problems Encountered in Data Collection
As mentioned earlier, it proved fairly difficult to access lists of enterprises with registered bodies in Harare. The reason could be because the research was focusing on the MSE sector in which this information was not readily available. The researcher discovered that most MSEs were not registered with any recognised body.
In the salon industry, some clients were not willing to allow their hairdressers to be interviewed, despite the fact that the researcher would have explained the purposes of the interview. Some clients simply did not want to be disturbed even though their hairdresser was able to continue working without any inconveniences. Thus, the interviews took longer especially in this category.
Some employers and their employees were not willing to be interviewed because they thought it was difficult to talk about HIV/AIDS. They also feared that their workforce might begin to suspect each other of a disease that was not really there. They believed the issue of the pandemic was sensitive and in case there was someone working with them who had it, it would mean stigmatisation by other workers. This would risk them losing a worker, because his/her condition could be made worse by the stress of having being discovered as living with the virus.
