3 Introduction
A research methodology is a way of solving a research problem systematically (Kothari, 2011). The choice of methodology is most important for identifying the correct solution to a particular research problem, understanding and formulating guiding principles that govern a particular procedure and developing and testing new theories that contribute to the advancement of practice and professional development. The research methodology discussed here is systematically based on the research ‘onion’ proposed by Saunders et al. (2009). As indicated in Figure 3-1, in this approach the possible research philosophies, strategies, approaches, purposes, techniques and time horizon are determined respectively and discussed, to allow a selection process to be carried out.
Figure 3-1: Research onion
(Based on Saunders et al 2009, p.108)
This layered model in effect offers an ontology, or exhaustive list of research terms with the more ‘higher’ or more abstract levels towards the outside (Saunders et al., 2009). While the
‘onion’ suggests possible choices at each level it does not, however, offer assistance or guidance in the selection of philosophy, methods and techniques. In addition, the alternatives are offered without reference to the research background or context, which can make a choice difficult.
This research in effect follows a philosophy of pragmatism, in that existing underpinning theories are less important than analysing the ‘real’ data arising from a detailed analysis of actual data. This approach is combined with a ‘mixed method’ of positivism and interpretivism, as quantitative as well as qualitative data is gathered in the primary research phase, athough the statistical nature of the analysis and validation phases emphasises the quanitiative/positivist
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mode. A positivist approach is taken when measuring business performance in the supply chain and the overlap of the three domains (see Section 2.1) is studied to increase the effectiveness of virtual enterprises using a detailed statistical analysis (see Section 4.2). The interpretivist view would embrace the ways in which choices are made about supply chain management and human decision-making behaviour in composing virtual enterprises, which may not always be rational or trustworthy. In Saunder’s model (Saunders et al., 2009) the possible ‘research strategies’ include surveys, case studies and experiments, all of which are suitable for assessing such subjective aspects. Research of this nature therefore often places a social and psychology emphasis on the research through the use of a case study to reflect a realistic socio-technical situation. Case study research can be decomposed into exploratory, descriptive and explanatory categories (Yin, 2009) even though the main approach to the research may be quantitative, which implies the use of descriptive or correlational analysis.
The possibility of using mixed methods research (Cresswell and Clarke, 2011) to combine the qualitative and quantitative approaches by combining two different paradigms. This would be opposed to a choice of multi-method research which would not lend itself to this type of research because the methods are used simultaneously and not sequentially. Mixed method research often combines the exploratory, descriptive and explanatory modes of research, as follows:
Exploratory research is typically used during the data gathering stages of secondary and primary research. The secondary research can be used to review the existing sources of literature in each of the domains (i.e. virtual breeding environments, virtual enterprises, and agile supply chains). This allows the researcher to define the research problem more clearly and to formulate more specific research questions or hypotheses (which can be developed from them). It also helps to select the best research design and data collection methods and techniques. The present type of research lends itself to placing greater emphasis on the exploratory mode of research (e.g. for developing a framework of the relationship of virtual enterprises in the supply chain, which can be used to test the validity of the hypotheses developed from the research questions. The potential for the present type of research is in conducting experiments and using quantitative data obtained from questionnaire forms. This creates the potential for using confirmatory research to validate the major research deliverable by experiments using simulation modelling methods;
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Descriptive Research typically uses comparative and correlative methods to establish the existence of relationships between the variables in a structured equation modeling exercise (Kumar 2014);
Explanatory Research: Explanatory research seeks to investigate changes in behaviour rather than to simply identify the causes of behaviour (Maxwell and Mittipalli, 2008), which can be done through a simulation experiment to investigate the behaviour of the model so that the decision-making process and outcomes may be validated.
The timing of the research may also lend itself to the cross-sectional type of study, in which data is collected within a defined period or to a longitudinal type, which studies a phenomenon over time. In terms of experiments (Saunders et al. 2009) a simulation model can be used to validate the research deliverables and to collect both qualitative and quantitative data which can be analysed (e.g. by using a multi-stage structured equation modeling technique (Hoyle, 1995).
This discussion demonstrates that the choice of approach, methods and techniques is subjectively dependant on the researcher’s perception of the research. The epistemology and the ontology of both may be different. Therefore, in general, it is necessary for the researcher to thoroughly describe his or her perceived paradigm in the definition of the research and to justify the choice of research methodology by referring to this definition. Hence, it may be said that theoretical paradigms do not exist in isolation, but only in relation to the essential nature of the research. The process by which the comparison is carried out (i.e. feature analysis) is shown to be a useful and effective way of revealing this fact. In this sense the choice of research methodology cannot be said to be scientific, as the projects both deal with human perception, judgement and behaviour.
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Research philosophy, approach, strategy and methods
It is often not possible to say that a single research philosophy, approach and strategy will suit a whole piece of research better than any other. Thus several research philosophies, approaches, strategies and methods have been adopted to fulfill the research aims. Saunders et al. (2009) sees ‘research philosophy’ as an over-arching term related to the development of knowledge and the nature of that knowledge. Research philosophies differ on the goals of the research and the approach to achieve these goals. To form a practical research strategy or ‘plan of action designed to achieve a research goal’, the research philosophies are narrowed down to approaches, strategies and methods. For a more systematic investigation, research methods should be approached. This research started with a secondary study investigating the key issues, challenges, gaps and motivation in the theoretical and practical literatures related to research topic. Secondary data was collected from existing sources such as journal publications, databases and Internet records and, based on this secondary study, primary research is conducted using systematic quantitative research techniques.
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In the initial stage of the primary research, a positivist philosophy was adopted to develop the conceptual hypothetical model and to test the chosen hypotheses by collecting empirical data using the questionnaire-based survey to investigate possibilities for improving the effectiveness of virtual enterprises and the researcher’s ability to target a group of enterprises that may lead to the development of a theory. The main characteristics of positivism are considered to reveal evidence of formal propositions, quantifiable measures of variables, hypothesis testing, deducing the inferences concerning the phenomena from the representative sample to a stated population (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991). Deductive positivism is often discussed as the predominant research approach (Spens and Kovács, 2006). The deductive approach starts on a strong theoretical footing, its aim being to test theoretical knowledge that has been developed prior to empirical research (Spens and Kovács, 2006). The deductive approach is therefore adopted for this research, coupled with positivism as a top-down method of developing hypotheses, producing a research framework and designing a research strategy to test the hypothesis. At this stage, an observational strategy is taken to test a theory by gathering empirical facts. According to Kothari (2011), structured observation is considered appropriate in descriptive studies, whereas in an exploratory study the observational procedure is most likely to be relatively unstructured. A structured observation is characterised by a careful definition of the units to be observed, the style of recording the observed information, standardised conditions of observation and the selection of pertinent data of observation. But when observation is to take place without these characteristics to be thought of in advance, the same is termed as unstructured observation.
After the framework is developed based on observational research with the purpose of designing and implementing a more effective way for virtual enterprises to achieve agility, an interpretive study is conducted to increase the understanding of the critical organisational issues related to the adaptation of virtual enterprises for supply chain agility through accessing the meaning that participants assign to it. Interpretive philosophy represents the critical thinking about positivist philosophy. Orlikowski and Baroudi (1991) state that interpretive studies are evidence of a nondeterministic perspective where the intent of the research was to increase understanding of the phenomenon within cultural and contextual situations; where the phenomenon of interest was examined in its natural setting and from the perspective of the participants; and where researchers did not impose their outsiders’ a priori understanding of the situation. Interpretivism is adopted with an inductive approach that is conducted as a bottom-up method. In the inductive process the argument moves from a specific empirical case
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or a collection of observations to a general law (i.e. from facts to theory) following the pattern of case – result – rule (Spens and Kovács, 2006). To validate and explain the proposed framework, an experimental strategy is taken to collect data and to simulate a real case to develop a sound theory because of the data analysis. An experiment is the selection of samples of individuals from known populations and measurement on a small number of variables and control of other variables (Saunders et al., 2009). To validate the proposed framework, a simulation is conducted as an experiment to isolate the factors and to change the influences and then to observe the effects and compare the outcomes.
3.1.1 Research purpose and technique
Three types of research techniques are adopted, being respectively; a literature review for exploratory research, a questionnaire-based survey for descriptive (correlational) study and simulation based experiment for explanatory study. An exploratory study is carried out to explore an area where little is known or to investigate the possibilities of undertaking a particular research study. Saunders et al. (2009) define a critical literature review as, ‘Detailed and justified analysis and commentary of the merits and faults of the literature within a chosen area, which demonstrates familiarity with what is already known about in research topic.’ In this study, the literature review attempts to integrate what others have done and said, to criticise previous scholarly work, to build bridges between related topic areas and to identify the central issues in a field, or all these. A topic-related literature review aims to investigate the related theoretical ground and domains widely, to investigate possibilities to solve those issues, to determine causal factors on the issues, to find relationships between factors, to identify the impact of those factors on enterprises, evaluate and improve the effect of factors on performance of enterprises and explain the output in natural situation. A methodology-related literature review examines the literature for relevant and suitable research approaches, methods and techniques which are then chosen to meet the research objectives.
Descriptive research attempts to describe a situation, problem and phenomenon systematically, to provide information on a community or to describe attributes that contribute to an issue. Both comparative and correlational methods are utilised for descriptive studies to discover or to establish the existence of a relationship, association or interdependence between two or more aspects of a situation. An analysis technique is applied as a way of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modelling data with the goal of discovering useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision making. Reliability and validity tests are conducted to measure consistency and accuracy of statistics of analysing variables. This may
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be an extension of, or a forerunner to, a piece of exploratory research or, more often, a piece of explanatory research (Saunders et al., 2009).
Finally, the results of exploratory and descriptive studies are explained. Explanatory research attempts to clarify why and how there is a relationship between aspects of a situation or phenomenon. Modelling and simulation techniques and case study are adopted in the explanatory research phase to do experiments to investigate the behaviour of the model or changes in relation under certain conditions, to explain nature of certain relationship and help to indicate how to moderate the output of model.
3.1.2 Method of analysis
Both qualitative and quantitative research analyses are used in this study. The quantitative research focuses on the quantification of the collection and analysis of data (Bryman and Bell, 2007) and that entails a deductive approach to the relationship between theory and research, in which the accent is placed on the testing of theories; has incorporated the practices and norms of positivism in particular. By contrast, the qualitative research strategy emphasises values rather than quantification in the collection and analysis of data and predominantly emphasises an inductive approach to the relationship between theory and research, in which the emphasis is placed on the generation of theories (Bryman and Bell, 2007). Quantitative data in this research was collected by using a questionnaire and was tested quantitatively and evaluated by using a qualitative strategy. Also, qualitative and quantitative data is collected from a simulation model (in the validation phase) that is analysed qualitatively.
3.1.3 Time horizon
Saunders et al. (2009) envisage research relating to two specific time horizons, namely cross-sectional and longitudinal research. Cross-cross-sectional study involves data collected from population, at one specific point in time. Longitudinal research involves repeated observations of the same variables over longer periods of time. The literature review and explanatory research have been conducted in this research on literature relating to particular periods during the PhD study and the observed changes relating to the same issues or variables. Rather, the survey was conducted as a cross-sectional study that involves data collected at a defined time.
3.1.4 Research design
Based on using the previously-explained research philosophy etc., the researching process was determined as a series of steps or phases. The literature was reviewed throughout the whole research period to include the earlier and more recently published researchers’ contribution and
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findings. Based on the literature review, the primary research was designed with four stages to achieve the research objectives. Empirical data was collected through a questionnaire-based survey to test the hypotheses and to cluster enterprises; the data can be now used by other researchers.
The first stage was to identify the main factors that may influence improvements to the effectiveness of virtual enterprise. A new, hypothetical conceptual model was developed that demonstrates the complex relationships between virtual enterprises and agile supply chains in terms of the relationship drivers, providers, capabilities and effects for joining in a virtual enterprise to provide effectiveness. In the second stage, enterprise characteristics were investigated and the main strategic groups were identified that have an ability to achieve greater agility and business performance when forming the virtual enterprise. Because the effectiveness of the whole integrated system depends on the individual units, the strategies for improving an organisation’s ability to form a virtual enterprise were discussed by the participating groups.
The framework was then developed and its design and implementation are discussed and finally, simulation is conducted to validate how individual enterprises ability cause in improvement of the effectiveness of virtual enterprises in supply chains.
3.1.5 Research outcomes
During the research, a literature review was carried out, a hypothetical model has been proposed, a major survey was conducted in Mongolia, the design of a virtual enterprise framework for achieving agility in the supply chain was produced and a simulation model was developed. In addition, two conference papers and a journal paper have been produced and published and the MPhil to PhD transfer report of 23,000 words and the PhD thesis of 80,000 words were completed within the determined period.
3.1.6 Summary
In this chapter the competing research philosophies, approaches and methods are examined in relation to their application to the present research. Their advantages and disadvantages are discussed and a programme for the research is designed based on the definition of the research in Chapter 1 informed by the literature review in Chapter 2.
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