Data analysis

The data analysis of the in-depth interviews will be described thoroughly according to Jacobsen‟s (2005) three steps for qualitative data; describe, categorize and combine.

Thereafter the data analysis of the remaining primary data collection will be described in section 4.4.4.

4.4.1 Describe

After each interview the notes will be written into a full document including both the questions asked and the respondent‟s respective answers. All the interviews will be conducted in Norwegian, which is the mother tongue of the respondents, and will afterwards be translated to English by the author of this thesis (which also is the interviewer) in the full document. Each of the full documents will be marked with company name, the name of the

respective respondent, and their location. Date, time and duration, as well as the “perspective”

the respondent was representing will also be included.

4.4.2 Categorize

In the full document the answers is sorted by questions. Since the data collection will be performed through qualitative methods, it is likely that the respondents will elaborate beyond the respective question in their answers. It will therefore be expected that the information given in each question may contain valuable input for other areas as well. The categorization process will therefore be performed without respect to the question, but to the content in the answers.

During this step of the analysis process it will also be a data reduction process. A data reduction process “sharpens, sorts, focuses, discards and organizes data” in order to simplify the process towards a conclusion (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Information irrelevant to the thesis will be disregarded, in order to develop a stronger picture of the information relevant to the research question, and the development of the framework. What information that is irrelevant will be considered thoroughly in order to be sure that only information not relevant to this thesis is cut.

First, the full document will be examined for the five factors suggested by the preliminary framework; cross-industry network ties (F1), career imprinting (F2), absorptive capacity (F3), cluster development (F4), and cross-industry competition (F5). When one of the factors is identified in the full document, the relevant text will be marked in yellow and the factor symbol (the symbol is equal to the square listed in the factor column in the overview scheme, see Figure 7) will be placed in the side margin. Thereby, it will give a good overview of what factors identified, what text relevant, as well as the frequency of the factor.

Secondly, the full document will be analyzed for potential “X” factors. “X” factors are factors that are not suggested on beforehand, but first discovered during the data collection. When an

“X” factors is identified in the full document, the relevant text will be marked in yellow, and a factor symbol will be placed in the side margin. The factor symbol for “X” factors will be FX, FY, FZ, Fi, Fii, and so on.

When all six of the full documents are examined for potential factors (F1 to F5, and “X”

factors), the focus will be on further exploration on the “X” factors. The different “X” factors will be sorted, and it will be looked into if there are similarities between the “X” factors discovered in the different full documents. Strong “X” factors should be present in more than one of the full documents, in order to have the necessary support for further consideration.

Thirdl, when all potential factors have been identified and sorted, they will be placed into a new sheet (the Overview Scheme). The intention of the scheme is to represent an overview of the interview analysis, thereby making it easier to remember and to separate the content of each of the six interviews. Below is an excerpt of the scheme.

In this sheet the factors are categorized according to low, medium or high influence, and there is also a field for comments where characteristics of the factor, discovered during the interview, will be written. The categorization of low, medium and high suggested influence will be determined on the basis of the respondent‟s recognition of the factor, how important the factor is considered by the respondent, and the frequency of appearance in a knowledge transfer context. The comments will mainly be key words/sentences of all the important statements in the full document, in order to capture the main core of the full document.

Factor

Present (v), Not present (x) More important than expected (+)

Less important than expected (-) Comments

V

1 Figure 7. Excerpt of the Overview Scheme.

Last, the findings will be sorted into the Analysis Scheme. In this scheme the findings will be categorized by the following subjects:

Quotes from the full document will be inserted into the Analysis Scheme under the respective category. Each quote will be marked with the company name of the company the respondent represents, thereby making it easy to identify who said what. When all the relevant data is sorted into the Analysis Scheme, the researcher will start analyzing the data.

4.4.3 Combine

First, statements representing the same factor will be combined with regards to the respondent‟s perspective; if he/she is representing the offshore oil and gas industry (“sender”), the offshore wind industry (“receiver”), or an overall view. It is considered important in

1 What

1.1. Findings on competitive advantage