Some qualitative researchers wait with data analysis until data gathering is completed and this is "…making the task of final analysis more difficult and discouraging" (Maxwell, 2005, p. 95). Although this is a suitable approach for some researchers the researcher of this thesis agreed with Coffey and Atkinson (1996) who argued that: "We should never collect data without substantial analysis going on simultaneously" (p.2). Therefore data analysis for this research began directly after data gathering (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The coding started directly after the first interview in March 2012 and ended after the last interview in November 2012.
4.6.1 Coding and developing concepts and categories
According to Miles and Huberman (1994) "coding is analysis" (p. 56). Therefore the transcribed interviews were coded by segmenting, categorising data, and assigning names to the segments (Charmaz, 2006, p. 43). Blumer (1931) remarked that: "Much conceptual usage is mere labelling without yielding anything but the label" (p.532). For
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this reason a clear definition what concepts and categories are was required, especially since they are often inconsistently defined (Bryman & Bell, 2007, p. 591). For this thesis the definition by Corbin and Strauss (2008) was chosen due to its clarity. According to Corbin and Strauss (2008) "Concepts vary in levels of abstraction. There are basic-level concepts and higher-level concepts that we call categories. Lower-level concepts point to, relate to, and provide the detail for the higher-level concepts" (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 52). Coding and developing concepts and categories was an essential part of the analysis and was performed directly after each interview. In this research, the categories are named management capability/business activity (see chapter 5). The concepts are the CSFs, the SSFs and the key risks. These are discussed in the following section. The provisional conceptual framework (see Figure 3-1) that is based on the critical literature review provided an initial classification (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 40) of factors, which contribute to the successful switching of ITO providers. Based on the literature review and the provisional conceptual framework the initial categories were developed. The initial categories were also the foundation for the initial research sub-questions. This researcher started the coding with the following initial categories:
1. Project management 2. Knowledge transfer 3. Transfer of key experts 4. ITO client governance 5. Sufficient resources 6. Top management support 7. Trust
8. Escalation management
4.6.2 The identification of CSFs, SSFs, and key risks
The business world becomes increasingly complex for managers and one way of reducing complexity to necessary information is by applying the CSFs method (Bullen & Rockart, 1981). The CSF method was introduced by Rockart (1979) in a Harvard Business Review article titled: "Chief executives define their own data needs." Rockart (1979) developed the CSF method to determine top management’s information requirements, so that top management can direct attention to the critical areas which determine the success for the organisation. Rockart (1979, p. 85) defined CSFs as:
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Critical success factors thus are, for any business, the limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization. They are the few key areas where ‘things must go right’ for the business to flourish. If results in these areas are not adequate, the organization’s efforts for the period will be less than desired.
Managers need to focus their attention and the limited resources available to these critical areas to ensure enduring success of the business (Boynton & Zmud, 1984, p. 17). For this thesis, this means focus needs to be given to the CSFs to ensure that providers can be successfully switched. Boynton and Zmud (1984) suggested that CSFs emerge from interview data after a series of interviews, typically taking one to two hours, between a "skilled CSF analyst" and key experts of the company. The scheduled interview duration for this research was ninety minutes. According to Boynton and Zmud (1984, p. 18) the CSFs method is criticised for three major limitations:
1. The appliance of the CSFs method in difficult for CSF analyst without the necessary competences.
2. Bias of the CSF analyst and the interviewee negatively affect the validity. 3. CSFs analyst or interviewee are not able to identify causalities between cause
and effect and are therefore not able to identify the CSFs
These potential weaknesses have been addressed and mitigated in this thesis as described below:
1. This researcher has wide experience in managing transitions both in initial ITOs and provider switching ITOs (see section 4.7.1). Additionally, this researcher has explicitly addressed the challenges of interviewing (see section 4.5.2).
2. Identified bias of this researcher was discussed (see section 4.7.1) and detailed validation procedures and verification strategies were developed and executed (see section 4.8).
3. This potential weakness was mitigated through the verification strategies and validation procedures (see section 4.8), in particular through:
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a. The appropriate sample (ensured with the theoretical sampling approach)
b. Collecting and analysing data concurrently c. Thinking theoretically
d. Member checking
e. Spending prolonged time in the field
CSFs are well received at top management level since this method has the power to reduce complexity to the essential core factors for success (Boynton & Zmud, 1984, p. 18). The CSF method is widely used within IT research for example by Holland and Light (1999) and by Teo and Ang (1999). Various studies on ITO (Gottschalk & Solli- Sæther, 2005; Khan, Niazi, & Ahmad, 2009) have successfully used the CSF method. Interestingly the CSF method is often applied by enterprise resource planning studies (Akkermans & van Helden, 2002; Umble, Haft, & Umble, 2003).
In this study, also SSFs have been identified. Although the effect on success is not as robust as for the CSFs, the SSFs still have major impact (Storey & Easingwood, 1996, p. 43) on the successful switching of ITO providers and therefore need to be considered. In this thesis, also key risks emerged from the interview data. Key risks are the risks for which interview participants have suggested that these risks have the potential to lead to an unsuccessful transition. This researcher has not explicitly asked for key risks.
4.6.3 The use of memos
Corbin and Strauss (1990, p. 10) remarked that omitting memos would negatively impact the complete analysis procedure. Therefore, memos were written during the complete research process as shown in Figure 4-3. The memos enhanced the analytical process and through memos implicit thoughts, questions, assumptions, and musings became explicit. Memo-writing was an important analytical link between data gathering, writing conclusions, and recommendations (Charmaz, 2006, p. 72). The memos were an ideal place for storage and the later retrieval of articulated conjectures which were derived from constant comparison (Charmaz, 2006, p. 72).
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4.6.4 Constant comparison
Constant comparison was integrated into the analytical procedure. Constant comparison is a process of constantly "…comparing data with data, data with category, category with category, and category with concept" (Charmaz, 2006, p. 187) or how Glaser and Strauss (1967) put it - "…comparing incident with incident" (p.108). This process helped reducing the bias in this research (Corbin & Strauss, 1990, p. 9) and enhanced the process of inductively creating concepts and categories (Charmaz, 2006, p. 187).
4.6.5 Theoretical sampling and saturation
For researchers it is an important issue to define which kind of data will be collected, where, how, (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 144), and from whom. Theoretical sampling was used to address this issue. Theoretical sampling is different from other methods of sampling as it responds to emerging data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 144). In theoretical sampling not interview partners but emerging concepts (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 144) are sampled.
In contrast to theoretical sampling - purposeful sampling requires that the characteristics such as "who" and "how many" need to be defined before the data gathering procedure begins (Creswell, 2007, p. 125). With theoretical sampling - emergent concepts directed who was chosen as next interview partner and what specific questions were asked (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 146). For example after the category "transition strategy" emerged from the interview data (see appendix 3) a research participant was chosen who was believed to be a transition strategy expert. The consecutive and interrelated procedure of data collection, and analysis helped this researcher to recognize relevant, and significant concepts, and categories, and follow them with relevant sub-questions (Corbin & Strauss, 1990, 2008). A concept needed to occur repeatedly during data gathering or analysis to demonstrate its relevance. The constant absence of a concept or a category either demonstrated its irrelevance for the descriptive conceptual framework or it was reflected as absent (Corbin & Strauss, 1990, p. 10). Interviews ended when additional interviews no longer produced additional insights (Silverman, 2011, p. 72). This means that theoretical sampling involves inductive and deductive reasoning (Charmaz, 2006, p. 103) which also helped to reduce the bias of this research (Corbin & Strauss, 1990, p. 7).
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The term "sampling" in qualitative research is not without problems as its roots are in quantitative research and therefore could imply "the purpose of ‘representing’ the population sampled" (Maxwell, 2005, p. 88). But the purpose of this research is not to represent the sampled population but to select those type of interviewees that allows this researcher to gather the information needed to answer the research questions (Maxwell, 2005, p. 88).