1 Agent-Based Modelling Incorporating Qualitative and Quantitative ...

The research questions therefore centred on the impact of Internet-based e-commerce upon
intermediaries role and market share, upon the internal processes, efficiency improvements and
resource savings that could be realised, and the identification of inhibitors and incentives for
customer adoption of the electronic mall. Section 1 identified a number of research propositions
and hypotheses from the literature in this area: other questions were raised by stakeholders at the
inception of the project, and emerged during the evaluation phase. For example, they were
interested in understanding better the impact of e-commerce upon internal productivity and upon
the company’s reputation amongst customers. Some of these issues would be addressed with
fieldwork interpretation and some by means of the ABSS modelling, as described in the following
section.
3. Methodology
The research methodology outlined in this section incorporates agent-based social simulation
(ABSS) with qualitative fieldwork and stakeholder participation in the design and evaluation
phases. The research therefore draws upon several different paradigms and combines individual
methods, in particular integrating the qualitative with the quantitative. We emphasize here that the
qualitative nature of this research allows a perspective that is fundamentally inclusive because it
permits collection of a wide spectrum of different data types. The approach is justified by the
argument that flexibility in choice of research methods allows a richer understanding to develop of
complex issues such as the impact of technological change. This is what Mingers (2001) terms
strong pluralism where "all research situations are seen as inherently complex and
multidimensional, and would thus benefit from a range of methods." It is argued that the research
presented herein exemplifies this multi-methodology approach.
The methods outlined in Table 1 below each contribute significantly to the research design, and as
we shall argue, complement each other well in developing a richer understanding and meeting our
research aims. By the definition of Mingers, this design is multi-method. The methods are listed
with the corresponding research approach (underlying philosophical perspective of the research)
and the type of data which we are at each stage working with:
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