Identifying Cases

Before identifying the cases to be studied, the case sites to be researched were considered first. Since the research objects of this study are STOs in both China and the UK, the telecommunications industries in these two countries were scoped to find typical firms.

Table 3.2: Characteristics of the Example Telecommunications Firms in China and the UK7

Country Firms Reason for Selecting as Potential Research Target

China

China Telecom

China Telecom is an integrated information full-services operator and the world's largest wireline telecommunications, CDMA mobile network and broadband Internet services provider, providing basic telecommunications services such as wireline telecommunications services and mobile telecommunications services, and value-added telecommunications services such as Internet access services and information services in China.

China Mobile

China Mobile is the world’s largest mobile network and the world’s largest mobile customer base. In 2012, the company was once again selected as one of the "FT Global 500" by the Financial Times and "The World's 2,000 Biggest Public Companies" by Forbes magazine.

China Unicom

China Unicom is engaged in GSM and WCDMA cellular business, the provision of fixed line voice, broadband and other Internet-related services, information and communications technology services, business and data communications services, and other related telecommunication value-added businesses in China. At the end of October 2014, total subscribers to the company’s mobile, local telephone and broadband businesses reached 450 million.

UK

British Telecom

(BT)

BT is one of the world’s leading communications services companies, serving the needs of customers in the UK and more than 170 countries worldwide. BT’s main activities are the provision of fixed-line services, broadband, mobile and TV products and services as well as networked IT services.

Vodafone

Vodafone is a UK-based mobile operator serving more than 400 million customers around the world. Vodafone now operates in more than 30 countries and partners with networks in over 50 more.

In Table 3.2, the potential research targets in China and the UK and their business status are clearly presented. However, since large firms in both the UK and China have strict restrictions, not all of them could be accessed easily. With assistance from supervisors and family members, three of these five firms allowed access:

7

Source: The Official Website of China Telecom: http://www.chinatelecom- h.com/eng/company/company_overview.htm

The Official Website of China Mobile:

http://www.chinamobileltd.com/en/about/overview.php

The Official Website of China Unicom:

http://www.chinaunicom.com.hk/en/aboutus/about_profile.html

The Official Website of BT: http://www.btplc.com/thegroup/ourcompany/index.htm

China Telecom and China Mobile in China, and BT in the UK. All of these three firms became the research objects for this study, and the details of these three case sites are listed as Table 3.3 below.

Table 3.3: Details of the Three Selected Case Sites8

Case

Site Region Main Business Areas Employees

Annual Profit (£bn) Number of Subscribers (million) R&D Expense (£m) China Mobile China

 Mobile voice service  Data service  IP telephone service  Multimedia service 197,030 67.5 767 Data not available China Telecom China  Land-line voice service

 Mobile voice service  Internet accessing service  Information service 306,545 33.6 442 65.8 British Telecom UK  Land-line voice service  Broadband service  Mobile voice service  TV service

 Networked IT

service

87,900 18.3 Data not

available 544

After determining the three research targets, the regime for the comparison cases selection was constructed. Based on the six contextual factors on categorising radical product innovations, as indicated in the previous chapter, the cases selected in this research needed to be distinguished by all of these factors. According to Eisenhardt (1989), choosing cases in comparisons can force researchers to look for subtle similarities and differences between cases, and comparing different cases can lead to more sophisticated understanding. In the current research, selecting cases in this way is helpful to understanding the impact of these six contextual factors on the R&D department’s capabilities in each radical innovation development activity. Therefore, based on the above regime,

8

Source: The Annual Report of China Mobile 2013 (China Mobile 2014) The Annual Report of China Telecom 2013 (China Telecom 2014) The Annual Report of British Telecom 2013 (BT group plc 2013)

and with the goal of choosing cases which are likely to replicate or extend the emergent theory (Eisenhardt 1989), four cases were selected for this research, as shown in Table 3.4:

Table 3.4: The Four Cases Selected from the Chinese and British Telecommunications Industries Case (Abbreviation) Telematics (T) Xi-He (X) 21CN (N) BT Fusion (F)

Case Site China

Mobile China Telecom British Telecom British Telecom Contextual Factors on Categorising Radical Innovations Project Narrative Radical to the Firm Radical to the Global Industry Radical to the Global Industry Radical to the Global Industry Source of Innovation Watching Others Regulations Push Internal Need Pull External Need Pull Project

Complexity Medium Medium Large Medium Cultural Context Chinese Market Chinese Market British Market British Market Technology

Content Low High High High

Market

Concentration New Existing Existing Existing As shown in Table 3.4, four cases were selected from the target three case sites in this PhD research. All of these four cases are recent projects in the Chinese and British telecommunications industry, and some of them are even going through development processes, which can make it easier to collect fresh data on cases.

Due to the rigorous restrictions on accessing the STOs, and the limited time for the current PhD research, it was difficult to focus on all of the four cases from comprehensive perspectives. Therefore, in this research, the case study on telematics that was conducted first among the four cases was selected as the main case for this study, and more data collection time was spent on it. For the other three cases, with guidelines from the main case study, only perspectives seeming to be different were concentrated on, which can be helpful in reducing data

collection time and overcoming the challenge of limited access to the STOs, to a certain extent.