Research process

According to the literature on abductive reasoning, conducting research should not be viewed as a predetermined process (Dubois & Gadde, 2002). However, having some structure to begin with can be considered helpful for beginning researchers (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Therefore, there has been a predetermined, but loosely defined research process, which begun by conducting a thorough literature review on business models and business model innovations. During this period, journal articles, blogs, management literature and cases were studied to get an overview on the discussions on the topic in both the academic and managerial fields. Next, after conducting the literature review, a conceptual framework was created, upon which the empirical research was built. A conceptual framework explains the main things to be studied, - the key factors, constructs or variables that will be studied (Miles &

Huberman), and it served as the platform for conducting the interviews in the stage of gathering empirical data. Before conducting the interviews, some research on the individuals and the companies they represent, as well as research on the industry characteristics and history was conducted.

Around 20 interviews was planned to be conducted with managers and experts from the two industries, 10 from each. Interviews seek to describe the meanings of central themes, and in a qualitative research they seek to cover both factual and meaning levels (Kvale, 1996). Interviews are useful especially for getting the individual experiences of the interviewees and more information about an interesting topic can easily be sought out by asking more questions. (McNamara, 1999). An abductive approach has been proposed by Dubois and Gadde (2002) and has been chosen for this study as it allows for flexible theory development as a dialogue between the existing literature, the created theoretical framework and the empirical data. An abductive approach differs from that of the inductive or deductive in that the role of the framework is different: the original framework is modified according to the findings (even if they are unanticipated) and the theoretical insights gained during the process of gathering the empirical data.

(Dubois & Gadde, 2002).

8.1 Empirical data gathering and analysis

A set of 10 interviews from each industry will be conducted. The interviewees have been chosen based on position and insight in the area of business model innovations and the strategies of the corporations in the industry. Some limits to who were interviewed was posed by access problems. The interviews were semi-structured with thematic questions regarding business model innovations, and the barriers related to them. The interview duration was around 60 minutes.

40 Each interview was conducted in person by the researcher and recorded on tape. One exception was an interview that was done over Skype. In each interview, the interviewee was asked to recommend a few people to interview next. Also, researchers that were familiar with the industries were asked for some contacts in companies. This “snowballing” method was used to ensure that the informants were as familiar with the topic as possible, and to access informants through personal recommendations. The amount of interviewees was then finalized at 9 representatives of the paper industry, and 8 of the telecom industry. At the point when the last interviews were done, the data gathered had already saturated and very little if any new data was collected at each new interview. The interviews were semi-structured (see list of interview questions in the appendices), and the topics discussed were at times also topics that weren’t planned to be included in the discussion, but as they brought forth new interesting ideas and topics they were used in the dialogue with the coming interviewees. The interviewees mainly on a senior management level in the researched industry, or had extensive experience. Also people who aren’t working directly within the industry were interviewed, two in the paper industry and one in the telecom industry. Two of these people had work experience from the researched industries, and they all represented experts who were able to comment on the development of the industry from the outside.

The recordings were listened to multiple times and the essence of the content was transcribed. Because of the risk of losing richness of the data the content of the interviews was not analyzed with any

quantitative text analysis program. (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The interview data was the primary data of the study, but also secondary data (such as industry statistics) was gathered, and used to verify the statements of the interviewees. The findings were organized into a spreadsheet according to interviewee and question, after which the data for each question was exported to a document. The data was

analyzed by finding themes and coding. After finding the often occurring themes, the next step was to identify the connections between these themes and apply that to the framework used as a basis for the research, creating a theoretical model (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Dubois & Gadde, 2002). The negative exceptions either disconfirm parts of the model or suggest changes that need to be made for the model (Ryan & Bernard, 2002). The concepts and models developed based on the data gathered is be

presented by presenting quotes from the interviewees, as well as tables and graphical models depicting the result of the analysis. There was an overemphasis on men in the research data, as only one of the informants was female. An anonymous list of the interviewees and their current positions can be seen in table 7.

According to Eisenhardt (1989), creating constructs is the first step of creating a hypothesis. When a construct has been created, a constant comparison between data and constructs should take place so that the new evidence is used to sharpen the construct in an iterative process. Eisenhardt also suggests that the time to stop iterating and consider the research done is when the incremental improvement is minimal. After that point, trying to find more points of parity between the data and the case proposition / theory is no longer efficient, and it is time to stop, even though the results are disappointing.

When analysing the data, according to the literature on abductive reasoning, verification is of less importance and the gathered data should be used for directing and redirecting the focus of the study.

When conducting interviews, the interview questions are built upon the previous results of the

interviews from the same case industry, enabling a theoretical framework to evolve and develop during the interviews, and getting direct feedback on the proposed theory directly during the interviews.

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Table 6: Informants of the research

Name Position Company Background

Axel Managing Director, Myllykoski Paper company C Forest industry

Burt Executive Vice President (Technology) Paper company B Forest industry

Charles Managing Director, Packaging Paper company A Forest industry

David Production Manager Paper company D Background in product

development and research in forest industry

Erik Senior VP, Corporate R&D Paper company A Background in Paper

Company A mainly within R&D

Frank Senior VP, Technology Paper Company B Background in industrial

corporations

George Professor h.c. Paper Company D Forest industry

Helena Member of managing board Forest Research

Company

Background in industrial corporations

Isac Research director Forest Research

Company

Background in R&D at Paper company D

Joe Executive Vice President, Consumer Business unit

Telecom operator B

Telecom sector and various

Kurt Communications counselor Ministry of

communications

Telecom sector Logan Head of Solution Concepts in TS

Business Services

Telecom operator A

Telecom sector

Mark Development Manager Telecom operator

C

Telecom sector, banking

Noah Vice President Telecom operator

B

Telecom sector and various

Oscar Retired from being VP Telecom operator

A

Telecom sector Paul Director of strategic R&D relationships Telecom operator

A

Telecom sector

Roland Researcher, project manager University A Telecom sector

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