The research approach for this study

The case study method was selected for this research project for the following reasons: • It aligns with the researcher’s ontological and epistemological assumptions as

defined by Easterby-Smith et al (2012).

• It is particularly relevant to the research topic as it enables the capture of data based upon work experiences related to the particular phenomenon (business analysis) that have occurred over an extended period of time.

• It provides a structure and guidance for exploring the business analysis domain and the work practices conducted by business analysts. The quintain/mini-case structure (Stake, 1995; Stake, 2006) applied is described below.

The next sub-sections discuss the case study design for this research and the data collection techniques used.

The case study design

This study is concerned with the underlying service proposition for business analysis (why is it required?) and how business analysts undertake their work (what do business analysts do?). Case studies focus on ‘understanding the dynamics present within single settings’ (Eisenhardt, 1989, p.534), which is highly relevant given the subjective judgements required by business analysts in the conduct of their work and the corresponding potential for

variability of business analysis situation, tasks and deliverables.

Yin (2013) suggests that there are different types of case study, each of which may require particular data collection methods, and the type of case study may be determined by considering the research question. On this basis, Yin identifies three types of case study:

• Exploratory: answers ‘what’ questions about a case, for example, to find out what we can uncover about the case.

• Descriptive: answers ‘who’ or ‘where’ questions about a case in order to describe ‘the incidence or prevalence of a phenomenon’ (Yin, 2013, p.9).

• Explanatory: answers ‘how’ or ‘why’ questions that tend to look at events over a period of time.

Stake (1995) offers a different classification, suggesting the following types of case study: • Intrinsic: where there is an obligation to investigate a case.

• Instrumental: where there is a concern or interest in something and a research study has the potential to offer insights. In this situation, it may be decided to research several cases in order to generate the insights; Stake refers to this as a ‘collective case study’ (Stake, 1995, p.4).

An explanatory case study was relevant to this research because of the focus on how and why business analysis is performed within organisations; this relates to a ‘contemporary set of events over which the investigator has little or no control’ (Yin, 2013, p.13). Walsham (1995) comments that such questions are acceptable in an interpretive context and Klein and Myers (1999) state that interpretive research is very relevant to information systems. The definition of an instrumental case study offered by Stake (1995) also supports the selection of the case study method as a means of gaining understanding and insights into business analysis.

The options of longitudinal and cross-sectional research approaches were considered with regard to the case study design. A longitudinal study would have involved an in-depth investigation into the case study over an extended period of time whereas cross-sectional analysis would allow for investigation into current business analysis work (Remenyi et al., 1998). Given that individual business analysts were selected as the primary data sources on business analysis work practices, a cross-sectional approach was deemed to be most relevant to address the research question. The elicitation of the views of individual business analysts, at a point in time, and the comparison and consolidation of those views, was considered to be most fruitful means of conducting research into business analysis work. A case study needs to have a context and boundary (Stake, 1995), and, in order to understand this, the unit of analysis needs to be clear. There may be one, holistic single case which forms the unit of analysis, or there may be multiple embedded cases, each of which is itself a unit of analysis (Yin, 2013). Yin suggests that there are five major reasons for selecting a single case. The case should be:

• Critical with regard to a particular theory. • Unique or critical within a particular discipline. • Representative or typical for a particular situation.

• Revelatory regarding a phenomenon that is previously inaccessible.

There may also be multiple distinct cases that are studied and each of these may

researched holistically or through embedded cases (Stake, 2006; Yin, 2013). These possible case study structures are represented in Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Case study designs (adapted from Yin, 2013)

Stake (2006) suggests that the concept of a ‘quintain’ is adopted within case study research; the quintain represents a category that groups cases who are all concerned with the

phenomenon being researched. Further, each case may be analysed through lower level units referred to as ‘mini-cases’ (Stake, 2006). Multiple case research may involve the investigation of several distinct cases each within a different context, or several mini-cases that relate to the same context (Yin, 2013). The essence of multiple case research is to study the individual cases in order to identify patterns both within and across the cases, and as a result, develop assertions and findings (Stake, 2006). Given the nature of case study research, it is important to select the cases to be investigated carefully (Eisenhardt, 1989).

Although Stake recommends the use of the quintain when undertaking multiple case study analysis, the approach adopted was slightly adapted and it was decided to research a single case study with embedded mini-cases (Stake, 2006). A single case study tends to be

advocated when a constructionist epistemology is adopted (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012). The case study method was particularly relevant to this study because it offers a

hierarchical structure consisting of several levels (Stake, 2006), which was helpful when investigating the business analysis phenomenon. Therefore, the structure for this study encompassed the following levels:

• The use of the ‘quintain’ concept as a means of representing the community of practitioners involved in business analysis.

• The investigation of a case that was representative of organisations employing business analysts and offered a defined boundary and area of concern; this was the unit of analysis at which the data was aggregated (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012).

• The study of multiple mini-cases who were able to provide detailed insights into their experiences as business analysts across several years, projects and organisations.

This structure enabled the adoption of a holistic view whereby the detailed data collected from the mini-cases could be analysed at an individual level, at an aggregate professional body level, and at a business analysis community level. This structure also permitted the development of theory based upon cross-case comparison and synthesis (Yin, 2013) and provided a means of ensuring that the research findings were ‘consistently replicated by several cases’ (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007, p.27).

Business analysis is the phenomenon of interest for this study and therefore, the community of practitioners working within the business analysis domain was identified as the ‘quintain’ in line with Stake’s definition. This domain provided a broad context for this study and

enabled the inclusion of data from organisations and individuals that reside outside the case. The case that is the focus of this study is the Business Analysis Manager Forum (BAMF), a networking organisation for experienced business analysts working at a senior level within their organisations. The BAMF case is described in chapter five. This case was selected as it could provide a view of business analysis with a specific focus (information sharing and networking amongst senior or managerial business analysts). Therefore, it presented an opportunity to investigate an integrated system with a clear boundary (Stake, 1995). Within this boundary, IS project experiences, areas of concern and personal assertions from experienced business analysts representing a range of organisations, were available for collection and analysis.

The BAMF offered access to individual business analysts who were able to provide insights and viewpoints that are relevant to the broader business analysis community. These

viewpoints encompass both organisational and individual perspectives. The study of the BAMF case enabled the investigation and cross-case comparison of observations from these senior business analysts. These observations were based upon their IS project experiences when conducting business analysis work.

Within interpretive research, much of the data collected is gathered through the stories and experiences of those involved in the case (Stake, 1995). The use of stories to gather case study data was relevant in this study as it offered a means for the individual business analysts to describe their experiences. These experiences generated rich data regarding why business analysis is necessary within IS projects and which work practices are applied when conducting business analysis work.

Figure 4.2 provides a visualisation of the relationship between the three levels of concern for this business analysis research. These are:

• The mini-cases: individuals with certified knowledge and skills, and extensive experience who were able to relate their ‘stories’ regarding their business analysis work.

• The BAMF: a professional body for senior business analysts, each of whom represents a member organisation.

• The business analysis community: the worldwide community of practitioners who are responsible for conducting business analysis work and professional

organisations that offer standards relevant to business analysis. Figure 4.2: Three levels of case study focus for this research

The aim of this study is to develop theory relating to business analysis in the form of a service framework for business analysis. This framework should have the potential to be applied to different business analysis contexts. Theory generalisation from case studies to other case settings is a matter of much discussion within the literature. Stake (1995) states

Quintain: BA community Case: BA Manager Forum

that generalisations are likely to be modifications of existing understanding rather than offering something new, although Saldana (2011, p.9) suggests that generalisability may depend partly upon the researcher’s ‘interpretive persuasiveness’. However, as discussed in section 4.5, Lee and Baskerville (2003) clarify the difference between generalising to

develop theory and generalising the developed theory to other settings, commenting that the generalisability of a theory to a setting where it has not been tested lacks validity.

Strong links between the theory generated and the existing literature have been suggested as a means of enhancing the generalisability of the findings (Eisenhardt, 1989). The case study design applied in this research includes the use of relevant academic and practitioner literature to support the development of a service framework for business analysis. For example, when analysing the business analysis techniques used to offer a particular service and when formulating the value proposition for a service. Therefore, it is anticipated that the service framework will have applicability across organisations and their business analysis functions. However, the limitations regarding the generalisability of interpretive case study research are recognised and are discussed further in chapter nine.

The data collection techniques used in this research

A researcher needs to consider how the research data will be collected and analysed, and the application of the data in developing theory, in order to determine if a qualitative study is relevant. Qualitative research has gained in acceptance within the IS context since the mid- 1990s (Sarker et al., 2013) and is now described as a legitimate approach. Some

researchers use the terms qualitative and interpretivist interchangeably, however, this has been said to be a ‘crude dichotomy’ that does not reflect the difference between the nature of the data collected and the research method (Mingers, 2003, p.236). Mingers clarified that qualitative data is gathered through processes concerned with meanings.

Data collection techniques used in qualitative studies are numerous and diverse and, as such, there is a large variety available to the qualitative researcher (Cassell and Symon, 2004) . These techniques can be used to obtain data from primary or secondary sources (Sekaran and Bougie, 2009). Primary data is provided by individuals or groups through interviews and discussions; secondary data already exists, for example, in corporate documents.

Three of the key data collection techniques used in qualitative research are interviews, observation and document review (Stake, 1995). Interviews offer a number of advantages when researching phenomenon, for example, providing an opportunity for the development of rapport between the interviewer and interviewee (Yin, 2013). Interviews may be highly

structured, semi-structured or unstructured and may be conducted on a one-to-one basis or with a group (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012). King (2004a) suggests that the interview is the research method that is most often used when collecting qualitative data and interviews are said to be an ‘essential source’ of case study data (Yin, 2013). Interviews are the primary source for data in interpretive case studies (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007; Walsham, 1995) as they enable the researcher to access interviewees’ interpretations of their

experiences. They provide a means of collecting rich empirical data which offers a basis for rigorous analysis and theory development (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). Accordingly, interviews were selected as an appropriate means of collecting data from business analysts within the BAMF.

Documentation can help the researcher to uncover insights into the case under investigation, offering opportunities to collect helpful secondary data (Sekaran and Bougie, 2009).

Relevant documents are an important source of data in case study research although their primary use is to verify evidence collected through other means (Remenyi et al., 1998). Documents can provide information about the values and views of their creators (Saldana, 2011) so are useful during qualitative research. Critical discourse analysis is concerned with the analysis of textual evidence and is particularly relevant to a constructionist epistemology (Dick, 2004). The critical discourse analysis technique focuses on understanding how language is used within a piece of text and the rationale underpinning the creation of the text; this includes how the text achieves the original aims and the context for its production. Relevant documentation has been selected to triangulate the data collected from the business analysts.

Techniques to study groups can cover a range of contexts and are relevant to constructionist research (Steyaert and Bouwen, 2004). There are several types of group data collection methods, including group interviews and focus groups. Focus groups provide a means of collecting data from experts (Remenyi et al., 1998). The data collected typically includes the opinions and interpretations of the members of the group with regard to the proposed area (Sekaran and Bougie, 2009). The data gained may be used in several ways, including the validation of the findings from the research (Remenyi et al., 1998). In this study, data collected from focus and workshop groups has been used to triangulate and validate the findings.

Table 4.5 summarises the range of data collection techniques used during this study and shows the sources of the data and the stage and rationale for their use.

Table 4.5: Data collection techniques and data sources

Data collection technique

Data source Stage(s) used

Interviews Individual business analysts Business analysis author & consultant

Technical director

Data collection & Validation Validation Validation Documentation analysis of organisational standards BAMF organisations

Industry standard from alternative professional body

Triangulation Triangulation

Workshop group Business analysis community of practice within a BAMF

organisation

Triangulation

Focus group Two project managers, a business systems analyst, a business analyst all working for the same organisation

Validation

The levels of concern for this study and the application of the various data sources listed in table 4.5, are represented in Figure 4.3.

Figure 4.3: Levels of case study focus for this research and the application of the data sources