I have a small dataset of 134 observations. The dataset consists of answers to a questionnaire. All the variables are measured in likert-scale, ranging from 1 to 5 (strongly agree). I want to perform a hierarchical cluster analysis on the variables but I am unsure about which linkage method and distance measure to use. I have initially tried running Wards linkage with squared Euclidean distance measure but I am getting conflicting answers online reading some of the posts and comments on different statistics forums. I know that Ward may not be the most appropriate linkage to use with ordinal likert scale data like mine, but when I run the analysis with Wards and squared euclidean I get clusters that conceptually make a lot of sense and are well seperated from each other. So my question is whether or not I can actually do this approach with me data or whether I should use some different measure? Thanks!

I have a small dataset of 134 observations. The dataset consists of answers to a questionnaire. All the variables are measured in Likert-scale, ranging from 1 to 5 (strongly agree). 

I want to perform a hierarchical cluster analysis on the variables but I am unsure about which linkage method and distance measure to use. 

I have tried running Ward's linkage with squared Euclidean distance measure but I am getting conflicting answers online reading some of the posts and comments on different statistics forums. I know that Ward may not be the most appropriate linkage to use with ordinal Likert scale data like mine, but when I run the analysis with Ward's and squared Euclidean I get clusters that conceptually make a lot of sense and are well separated from each other. 

So my questions:

1. Should I use this approach with my data?

2. Should I use some different measure?