Collective case Study

Case studies are useful where the current theory does not provide an adequate answer for the research questions (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007), as was the case in this exploratory study. Furthermore, Yin suggested that case studies are a useful means of answering “how and why” questions (p. 7) which underpin exploratory approaches.

Proponents of case study research emphasise the contribution of case studies as “one of the best (if not the best) of the bridges from rich qualitative evidence to mainstream deductive research” (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007, p. 25), as multiple sources of data can be compared and contrasted. In this case, two phases were undertaken, an initial inductive phase, followed by a primarily quantitative employee survey. However, it must be clear that this study does not propose any hypotheses for deductive analysis, rather the quantitative data will be used to provide insight into employee experiences of IM communication.

This research drew on existing theory from the promise management, internal communication, organisational culture, and the relationship marketing literature outlined in Chapter 2, to develop a theoretical framework as the basis for data collection. Furthermore, a variety of evidential approaches were undertaken to enhance rigour (Yin, 2003), as it has been stated that case study evidence is not limited to but can include “documents, archival records, interviews, direct observation, participant-observation and physical artifacts” (p. 83). Therefore, to ensure a thorough and yet insightful exploration of the research questions, this study included both primary and secondary data sources, as explained in the research design explicated in section 3.3.

Within the literature, there are varying descriptions for case studies along with differing views on their paradigmatic foundations (see Grünbaum, 2007); however, according to Lee and Lings (2008), a case is “most commonly” referred to as a “single social setting” (p. 200). Similarly, Stake suggests that the “case study is not a methodological choice but a choice of what is to be studied” and that the case can be studied in a variety of different ways including the use of mixed-methods (2000, p. 435). He also suggests that a case may be considered ‘instrumental’, where the purpose of study is to “provide insight into an issue or to redraw a generalization” (p. 437) as part of developing understanding of some other area of interest.

While brand promises are implicit with all products and services, the goal of this study was to understand and determine how organisations communicated with employees to enable them to deliver on those promises and how employees experienced that internal communication. Therefore, as suggested by Stake, the first decision was to base the research on a collective case study as there was less intrinsic interest in the actual case, but rather more in investigating the gap in the literature on relational IM communication. Thus, a collective case study incorporating multiple organisations was appropriate for this research, given the purpose of exploring the more general phenomena of IM communication practices; as they related to enabling employees to deliver on promises made.

In this study, four cases were combined to form a collective case within the single setting of the New Zealand retail electricity sector. However, it must be noted that because this study combines the data to form a collective case, between case and within case analysis is not carried out. It was integral to the case to select

organisations most likely to illustrate the area of interest, rather than to compare and contrast the individual organisations.

Using the theoretical case study framework as a guide; the selection of the case organisations was first based on identifying companies where the product offered may be considered a commodity, and where the perceived differences between the end products are minimal. Commoditisation has been said to occur when “similar firms with similar products compete in a mature market, and the emphasis shifts from product attributes to price” (Little et al., 2006, p. 28). As Grönroos (2009) further points out, “promises cannot be expected to be successfully kept by the firm unless its employees are willing and motivated to do so” (p. 355). Therefore, given the commodity nature of the product and considering factors of differentiation other than price; a second consideration for case selection was to identify organisations where employee behaviour is likely to influence customer perceptions of the brand at the point of contact, and thus identify the influence of IM communication on enabling employees to deliver on promises. Finally, organisations willing to participate in the study were required.

It was also important to recognise that case studies are not without limitations. In the past, case studies have come under various forms of criticism in regard to scientific rigour, primarily because of the predominant use of qualitative data and the supposed lack of objectivity (Patton & Appelbaum, 2003). However, Gummesson (2005) reflected that case study research does offer a substantial contribution to the understanding of complex and ambiguous issues, and he argued that case studies will provide “the researcher with an input of real world data from which concepts can be formed and propositions and theory can be tried” (p. 322). Therefore, given the recommendation for a “richer analysis of the employee

experience” of IM (Ahmed & Rafiq, 2003, p. 1183), and that the research objectives consisted primarily of how questions, the case study method was considered most appropriate to the design of this study.

Furthermore, although it is recognised that it is difficult to generalise from case study research; it has been argued that multiple case studies or even a few additional cases have been viewed as robust for the purpose of building or extending theory (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). Similarly, according to Stake (2000), the lack of generalisability can be defended by the unique perspective of the case study. Therefore, although recognising the caution of using cases to generalise to other populations, Yin (2003) proposed that analysts could “generalise findings to theory” so they may be explored further through examining other cases (p. 38). As such, a case study theoretical framework acts as a guide to both explore and interpret the results in relation to existing theory.

Flyvbjerg (2006) went further, when he argued that even a single case can provide a valuable contribution to knowledge. The author went so far as to state:

One can often generalize on the basis of a single case, and the case study may be central to scientific development via generalization as supplement or alternative to other methods. But formal generalization is overvalued as a source of scientific development, whereas “the force of example” is underestimated (p. 228).

In this study, no attempt is made to generalise the findings. However, given the limited existing knowledge of relational IM communication, greater insight to IM practice was called for. Accordingly, the collective case provided the opportunity to directly investigate the communication practices of the subject organisations and how employees experienced them.

To gain this insight, the research design explained in the section below focused on exploring IM communication to provide ‘an example’ in practice. In an attempt to overcome the limitation of a lack of generalisability, a mixed-methods data collection process that incorporated multiple data sources and analysis was undertaken to optimise the external validity of this research.