University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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Nordic hospitality industry. Three key informants from the case company were
interviewed: two from Sweden and one from Finland. Characteristic for this data
collecting method was its flexibility and capability that allowed new questions to be
brought up during the interviews. These theme interviews were conducted on a oneon-one
basis and took from 70 up to 140 minutes each. The purpose was also to
uncover underlying practices and attitudes behind the case company's CR.
The first key informant was a CEO of Scandic, the second key informant was
Scandic’s former Vice President in Sustainable Business, and the third key informant
was the case company’s Sustainability Controller.
The secondary data collection consisted of selecting the most essential documents
and archival records about the case company and the Nordic hospitality industry. The
purpose of the secondary data was to prime and support the collection of the primary
data, and prevent the collection of the same primary data twice.
Evaluation of the Study
Since reliability and validity are rooted in positivism they should be redefined to fit
qualitative methods (Golafshani 2003). Guba and Lincoln substituted reliability and
validity with a similar concept of “trustworthiness,” consisting of credibility,
transferability, dependability, and confirmability. (Guba & Lincoln 1981; Guba &
Lincoln 1982).
Dependability – Since opinions of management, strategies and other codes of
conducts change over time – the results are not repeatable. However, the
interviewees were rather unanimous. The data triangulation also increases the
dependability, as the company documents were compared with the interviews.
Critical documents from impartial sources and higher amount of interviewees would
have enhanced the dependability of the study.
Transferability – The purpose of the generic theoretical framework was to increase
the transferability of the study since the theory was not context-specific. However,
the empirical results are transferable only to similar competitive environments.
Creditability/Confirmability – The study was conducted with transparancy. The
interviews were recorded, listened twice and transcriptions were written. The
researcher conducted all of the interviews in person.
A common problem of case studies is the generalization of the results as they only
aim to make theoretical or analytical generalizations (Yin 1989: 38-40). However,
what is lost in the generalization can be won in the depth and richness of the content
(Uusitalo 1991: 39). And the results of the research should be evaluated based on the
pragmatic usefulness of the results – hence it becomes a question of the relevance,
simplicity, and handiness of the results (Niiniluoto 1980).