**3. Methodology**

In order to provide an appropriate framework for the study, we employed descriptive type of research design through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions (FGD). Semi-structured interviews are made with directors from two urban land administration institutions; ULDMB and ULARIA across all ten sub-cities of Addis Ababa. The aim of the interview is to know how the directors feel about institutional merger between the two institutions. The second research design, FGD, is aimed to collect experts' perception related to institutional merger in these two institutions. Figure 1 illustrates the overall research design. Populations of the study are all professionals who are working in urban land administration across ten sub-cities of Addis Ababa. Our target populations are selected purposely since the study requires professionals who are working directly in the urban land administration and management.

**Figure 1.** Overall research design.

To analyze the effect of institutional merger between ULMNB and ULARIA, we used desk review and case study research methods. The desk review helped to extract relevant and useful information related to whether merging or separate institutions are effective. The emphasis of case study was to understand existing phenomena. Figure 2 presented location map of the study area, Addis Ababa. Hence, from the study area primary data are collected through semi-structured interview and FGD. These type of data collection instruments believed to provide advantages of accurate screening, capture verbal and nonverbal questions, keep focus, and capture emotions and behaviors [43]. For this purpose, we conducted semi-structured interviews with the directors of ULDMB and ULARIA institutions in all ten sub-cities of Addis Ababa, and did a focus group discussion (FGD) with professional experts. In order to get detail information from our respondents, semistructured interview tool was selected purposely since interview is a flexible approach, allowing for posing of new questions or check-questions if such a need arises. In conducting FGD, the paper follows the recommendation by Krueger and Casey [44] that indicates a well-designed FGDs should consist of 6–12 participants for the rationale that focus groups should include enough participants to yield diversity information. Focus groups are less threatening to many research participants, and this environment is helpful for participants to discuss perceptions, ideas, opinions, and thoughts [44,45].

**Figure 2.** Location map of the study area (Author developed).

With this justification, required data were collected from all institutional directors of ULDMB and ULARIA across the ten sub-cities, which is in total 20 interviews. Apart from this, to understand the views and perceptions of professional experts working in these two institutions, FGD was made in a group of six for these two institutions across all ten sub-cities, which in total 20 FGDs (see summarized information in the Table 1).

**Table 1.** Summary of Planned and Actual data collected through Interview and Focus Group Discussion.


The collected data were transcribed from Amharic to English. The responses are categorized and written based on their thematic similarity: responses supporting merging the two institutions improve in achieving institutional goals, or the opposite. In addition to this, institutional documents (unpublished) such as: Growth and Transformation Plan II (GTP II) and annual reports were analyzed in order to synthesize the result. Based on the GTP II and annual evaluation reports, a 1–5 Likert scale rating, in the form percent, (refer Table 2) used to evaluate institutional goal achievements.


**Table 2.** Likert scale rating in Percentage.

Finally, these data were analyzed and interpreted through qualitative type of data analysis being thematic analysis is at the center of interpretation. Thematic analysis is convenient to interpret the data since the collected data are organized on the basis of thematic similarities [45]. Basically, it emphasizes on identifying, analyzing and interpreting patterns of meaning (or "themes") for qualitative data such as interview and FGD. Finally, these data are presented qualitatively supporting with tables.
