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Master thesis Business Administration, Specialization: Strategy & Organization Supervisor: Prof. Dr. T. Elfring Joost de Boer Student number 1517597 Although one of the criteria at the start of the sample selection was that organizations should have separated marketing and innovation departments, it appeared during the research that this assumption turned out to be wrong. Multiple organizations had a clear overlap between functions and departments, and it appeared that some of them did not even have an actual – as what they would refer to as – ‘innovation’ department. Therefore, a selection was made mostly based on the availability of persons inside the organization that still are, or have been involved with co-‐creation projects in their organization. § 3.2.4 | Data collection through semi-‐structured interviews Having selected a sample of cases, data was collected using semi-‐structured interviews: this technique combines the advantages of both structured interviews (predetermined questions) and unstructured interviews (ability to deviate between questions and to go in-‐depth. Interviews can therefore be prepared in advance, but the interviewer has the freedom to ask certain additional questions on certain topics. Given the exploratory nature of this research, it allows one to go more in-‐depth whenever something relevant comes up in an interview (Saunders, Lewis et al. 2009). Due to the fact that all the participants were Dutch of origin, all interviews were held, recorded and transcribed in Dutch instead of <strong>English</strong>. All the questions that were used for the interviews were open-‐ended; this way, interviewees had the freedom and ability to tell everything they knew relating to the questions that they were asked. To ensure that particular sections or answers would not go unnoticed, interviews were literally transcribed. A copy of each finalized transcript was send to the participant to double-‐check and for private archiving. However, no changes have been made to its content whatsoever. § 3.3 OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS In the process of linking theory with practice, operational definitions are crucial. The literature and concepts that were discussed in Chapter 2 first have to be operationalized in order to be measured in the field. Operationalization is the process of transforming theoretical concepts and variables into testable and workable indicators and questions, or “the translation of concepts into tangible indicators of their existence” (Saunders, Lewis et al. 2009). Appendix A provides an overview of the theoretical concepts and the related indicators and questions that were used in interviews. Although the final list of interview questions consisted out of a relatively large number of questions, not all questions were proposed to each participant. Dependent on both function and expertise of each participant, some subjects were discussed more in detail than others – using the freedom that semi-‐structured interviews offers to the interviewer (Eisenhardt 1989). In addition, a number of general questions were asked to every participant, relating not only to their background, but also to the type of co-‐creation and the organization’s openness to input from the outside. Here for, participants were presented with an illustration similar to the four types of co-‐creation of figure 2.2 in Chapter 2. After having explained the difference between the two dimensions ownership and openness, they were asked to indicate what kind of co-‐creation their organization was using. This visual presentation proved to 31
Master thesis Business Administration, Specialization: Strategy & Organization Supervisor: Prof. Dr. T. Elfring Joost de Boer Student number 1517597 be a useful way of gathering information about the used types of co-‐creation. In addition, four questions referred to the DART-‐model’s building blocks of co-‐creation, asking participants how they found their organization scored on dialogue, access, risk-‐benefit and transparency. Unfortunately, many of the participants found it hard to answer these questions, which often resulted into misinterpretations. Therefore, the resulting scores on the DART-‐model will only be used for background purposes – no further analysis has been made relying on these data. § 3.4 CREDIBILITY OF THE RESEARCH In order to be able to generalize and draw proper conclusions on the findings presented in this research, the validity and reliability of the research are crucial. Reliability concerns the “extent to which data collection techniques will yield consistent findings” (Saunders, Lewis et al. 2009). Because of the exploratory nature of this research, and the fact that semi-‐structured interviews were used to collect data by asking participants for their experiences and opinions, it is difficult to generalize the gathered data (Miller and Brewer 2003). At the same time, its exploratory nature may also be considered to be a unique strength, as it collects data at multiple organizations and leaves participants with much freedom to discuss their own views and experiences. Validity refers to whether or not “findings are really about what they appear to be about”. Taking this into account, the openness of the interviews allowed participants to emphasize what they found that was important. In addition, several employees of the same organization were interviewed – this way, appealing answers could be checked with other participants working in that same organization. § 3.5 DATA ANALYSIS Once all data had been collected, recorded and transcribed, it had also to be analyzed. Rather than with quantitative research where data mostly can be analyzed using statistical analysis, the qualitative data of this research was analyzed using the Constant Comparative Method. The Constant Comparative Method (CCM) is derived from Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Eisenhardt 1989), and helps researchers to systemize the analysis process and contributes in developing a theory that is grounded in the data. Boeije (2002) managed to make a conveniently arranged overview of the process of categorizing, coding, delineating categories and connecting them. He identified different steps that can be taken in order to analyze all the collected data. In this research, first an analysis is made of each single interview, summarizing it and making categories. Next, the interviews with participants working in the same organization are compared, searching not only for organizational patterns but also for possible differences between departments. Finally, the cases of the organizations themselves were compared with each other, aiming to point out on the shared agreements and differences between cases for the use of co-‐creation. 32
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