Qualitative results

As mentioned previously, in addition to quantitative data the data collection included also qualitative data. Qualitative data is mainly based on semi-structured interviews. The interviews involved organization members with different backgrounds, and each interview took approximately 45 to 60min. The pre data collection in case 1 included 11 interviews and the post data collection included 7 interviews; 4 were not reached during the latter interview period. Survey responses in the second case were supported with 5 interviews in the both phases of data collection. The interviewed persons remained the same in both phases. Also in case 3, the same 5 interviewed person were interviewed twice, in both pre-and post-data collection phase. As a summary for the qualitative data, these three cases contained 21 interviews from pre-data collection and 17 interviews in the post-data collection phase.

The demographics of all 21 interviewed persons are presented in Appendix 6. Other streams of qualitative data are from notes from interviews, informal discussions, and meetings with representatives of organizations in case. These other streams of qualitative data are used to have the data triangulation with transcribed version of interviews. Transcribed versions of interviews are coded with ATLAS.ti software, and the main findings are summarized in the Table 4.1.

Table 4.1. Summary of the qualitative data.

Topic/theme N/pcs Example quote from

interviews*

Old way of working 214 “ [Information sharing] …is

based on old friendships”

New way of working 171 “[NWOW] …is not necessarily

better, but I am used to it, and I think it is pretty good”

Positive towards OCT 134 “…with [OCT] it is easier to

share information”

Negative towards OCT 5 “…I keep receiving updates that

I consider as spam, about activity of one community. And I don’t want to have that.”

Communication (including within team, and cross- functional; 66 max) Increase Decrease No clear effect 34 2 30

“I do have feeling that [cross- functional] communication is better now”

“…it’s [posting new ideas] more difficult than six months ago.” “…I think it’s, really early to see [OCT] results.”

*some quotes translated to English

The current way of working was discussed in both interview rounds and, in the current research, the initial way of working is addressed as “Old way of working” (Table 4.1) and the way of working during the latter interview round as “New way of working.” The citations for either of the way of workings have no qualitative aspect and therefore the number of citations cannot be used to evaluate which one was better. “Old way of working” generated slightly more citations during the interviews, but the actual time used in discussing the “new way of working” was somewhat longer. At the initial data collection, one of the main research concerns was to achieve as good an understanding as possible about the case organization and how its members were working at that time. This generated several inquiries about the current way of working. In the latter data collection phase, the main research concern was to seek out the differences and discussions concentrated in the change. However, discussion about the change included also some references to “old way of working.”

The general observation is that organizational members have positive expectations towards OCT and also towards new working practices. Organization members seemed to have found increased transparency to help them to reach their goals faster, and they are confident that they have had or will have benefits based on OCT and on new working practices at a higher level. The number of positive perceptions clearly

overwhelmed the negative ones, but those negative ones are interesting. The negative perceptions seemed to be rooted in certain functionalities and default configurations of the OCTs utilized in case organizations, but it was beyond of the current research to reach to the deep practical level in order to offer the right configurations for OCTs for different users. The current research, however, discusses possible fundamentals on a higher level to find out general implications why OCT, in some cases, might not be perceived as a part of the solution but as a part of the problem. In addition to the technological and user interface challenges, there is always reluctance in the organization towards change. From the perspective of new technology adoption, the reason might be, for example, individual characteristics, difficulties in seeing any individual benefits, or lack of trust (Denyer et al., 2011).

OCT was perceived to increase communication, yet the impact was not clear because almost as many did not perceive any positive effect. The amount of communication reported in the Table 4.1 was based on the slightly more structured part of the discussion and, from a maximum of 66 citation, communication (with-in a team and cross-functional communication ) was cited 34 times to have been increased in terms of amount or quality. Only in two cases was communication perceived to be decreased due to the implementation of OCT. But for 30 citations, the communication was not (yet) perceived to have any impact due to OCT, so there remain some question marks about what is the impact in the long run. According to the results, the impact will anyhow be at least slightly positive. That finding is supported by data based on the referential adequate approach.

Looking closer to the material based on interviews during pre-data collection, there can be founded a few streams of interests; perceived challenges (PC), communication (C), and description of the way of working (WOW). Selection of quotes based on pre data collection is presented in Appendix 8. According to the perceived challenges, there is pointed out that characteristics of the organizational members will play a role in implementation and usage of any new technology (PC16). Examples of quotes about the communication are coded as C1…C7. In addition to the general comments about the communication (C1) there are pointed out some examples, such as tool used (C2), information sharing (C3…5) or cross-functional communication (C6 and C7). It seems that working life in case organizations is facing typical issues addressed widely by scholars (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1995a; Song et al., 1996; Utterback, 1971). The way of working from knowledge sharing perspective in case organizations is rooted to challenges and communication discussed. There is lack of transparency (WOW1…4), perception of the NPD isolation (WOW5), and vague understanding about new communication tools (WOW6).