Sampling design

This study chooses the chief marketing executive/owner-managers of CEs and JVs as the prime target respondents. Thus, the small and medium-sized Chinese indigenous firms and Sino-Westem small and medium-sized joint ventures will be the sampled organisations and the selected firms’ senior marketing exeeutive/owner-managers will be the sampling group of the people to interview.

Figure 5. 2 The implementation process of Study 1

•Thematizing: formulate the objectives of the investigation and prepare the propositions before the interviews start, (in section 5.5.1 and Section 4.4) ' Sampling design: identify the target population, sampling frame, sample size,

sampling methed.

•Data collection: design semi-structured questions, conduct the interviews based on semi-structured questions.

•Data analysis: transcribe the interview materials from audio-record to written text, select analysis methods, analyse data. Ascertain the validity and reliability of the interview findings._________________________________________________ •Reporting the research findings and formulating hypotheses for Study 2 (in

Chapter 6)

Given the lack of unified definition of an SME in China so far (discussed in Section 3.3.1), this study considers the factors of firm size and industry when selecting the samples. Viewing the previous research, most of the researchers used employee numbers as the main indicator for defining small and medium-sized enterprises (i.e. Brooksbank et ah, 1992a; Siu and Kirby, 1999b), therefore, the present study also uses the number of employees to identify the sampled SMEs. Based on the previous studies and considering the Chinese situation, as well as being in line with international classification standards, firms with 20-500 employees were selected (more detail of SME Classifications in China is addressed in Chapter 3). Considering the previous research findings showed that there is no significant relationship between marketing approaches and industrial sectors (for example,

G. Ma 2013 Chapter 5 Methodology

Sin et a l, 2003), moreover, considering that in China most SMEs are in manufacturing and services industries (Lin, 2003), the samples of the study were selected from SMEs in two such industries.

5.S.4.2 Sampling frame

CEs and JVs in manufacturing and service sectors were selected from the Name List of indigenous Chinese SMEs and Chinese-Foreign Enterprises that are mainly provided by The Small and Medium Enterprise Administrative Bureau of Chongqing Municipality, and the Foreign Trade Bureau of Chongqing, China. The firms in the Chongqing area were chosen for several important reasons:

• Firstly, the author is located in Chongqing, and is familiar with and has relevant relationships with different aspects of Chongqing that can help access the necessary information and data, given that when conducting such academic research in China, one cannot expect to receive general support and welcome from both the SMEs and government departments without “Guanxi” (personal relationships).

• Considering the previous research findings showed that there is no significant relationship between marketing approaches and industrial sectors (for example. Sin et

a l, 2003), meanwhile, considering that in China most SMEs are in manufacturing and

services industries (Lin, 2003), the samples of the study were selected from SMEs in two such industries.

• Thirdly, Chongqing is a huge fast developing city (area) in inland China with typical “Chinese characteristies” of so-called “dual industrial structure”. For example, it has a lot of traditional manufacturing industries, and at the same time, it has had fast growing high-tech product and service industries in recent years. Thus, different types of enterprises can be found in the Chongqing area.

• Finally, Chongqing has been one of four municipalities of China since 1997, the other three cities being Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. This means Chongqing enjoys “favourable policies” to both domestic and foreign investors, the same as those in earlier time opened cities, such as the eastern coastal cities and the other three municipalities.

G. Ma 2013 Chapter 5 Methodology

Thus, it is believed that there is no significant meaning in undertaking samples from different provinces of China and that might make this study more unnecessarily complex and costly. Based on above reasons, it is believed that the sample firms from Chongqing are reasonably representative.

5.5.4.3 Sample size

As for the decision on sample size, Malhotra (1999: p.238) suggests that exploratory research generally uses a smaller sample size. Considering that for SME study, a focus group normally has at least four members but rarely more than 10 (Curran and Blackburn, 2001: p.68); Naire and Riege (cited in Rao and Perry, 2007) found that stability can occur after only six interviews, and Woodward (cited in Rao and Perry, 2007) found that convergence occurred after only five interviews. This current research has borrowed these ideas of respondent numbers for an in-depth interview, with a total of 12 CEOs/ chief managers responsible for marketing or sales in CEs and JVs (6 for each type of firm), which were chosen from the Name Lists provided by the SME Administrative Bureau of Chongqing and the Foreign Trade Bureau of Chongqing City.

5.5.4.4 Sampling method

Saunders et ah (2012: p.237) suggest that ‘purposive or judgemental sampling enables you to use your judgement to select cases that will best enable you to answer your research question(s) and to meet your objectives.’ Malhotra (1999: p.240) also suggests that purposive or judgemental sampling can often be used in exploratory study for developing the concepts, ideas and hypotheses for preliminary and pilot tests, though in such instances the choice of samples does not represent the total sample population. Thus, purposive or judgemental sampling was used for exploratory study purposes considering the firm’s size, location, and country of the joint-venture partner. As a result, a total of 12 executives/marketing managers, from CEs and JVs in Chongqing, China, were selected, six for each type of SME. The profile of the sampling firms for qualitative interview is shown in Appendix 4.

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5.5.5 Data collection

5.5.5.1 Semi-structured question design

It is suggested that the questions for the semi-structured in-depth interview should be in a systematic form. To create effective research questions for interviews, the questions should be brief and simple (Kavle, 1996), and as natural as possible (Turner, 2012). To achieve the objectives of Study 1 described in Section 5.5.1, a semi-structured interview question list was developed. The question list has two parts: general marketing practices and cultural value influences on MCs. The marketing practice part was developed by the researcher mainly based on the marketing activity model by Brooksbank et al. (1991), Hooley et al. (1990) and Dunn et al. (1986). The questions relating to cultural value/business belief were developed by the researcher based on several previous major cultural value research studies (i.e. Fan, 2000; Hofstede, 2001; Fang et a l, 2004). The six dimensions of cultural value linked MCs of SMBs were developed based on six propositions proposed by the researcher (see Section 4.4 of Chapter 4). The questions in the list include an introduction part, warm-up questions, principal questions, follow-up questions, and alternative questions.

The warm-up questions are for hearing the story without a prior structure, and give the respondents a chance to provide “closest” information and a description of their real feelings about marketing. The principal questions were asked in order to understand how the respondents viewed and evaluated the marketing characteristies of their companies. The follow-up questions invited the respondents to elaborate and demonstrate what their statement meant in a practical situation. The alternative questions were used when the respondents could not provide clear responses to the principle questions or found it difficult to give example or further explanation. The question list was made in Chinese first then translated into English by the author. The English version of the question list was reviewed by an executive of a company who has higher an education background in the English language and considerable work experience both in China and overseas. The question list for the in-depth interview is in Appendix 5.

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S.5.5.2 Interviewing

Face-to-face interviews with semi-struetured questions were undertaken with the marketing executives/sales department directors from the selected six indigenous Chinese SMEs and six Sino-Foreign SMJVs in Chongqing area, China. The author personally conducted all the interviews, and some interviews were with an assistant together. The interviews started in September and went on through November of 2007. Due to unforeseen circumstance, the schedule was then interrupted. Then it carried on from August to September 2009. Therefore, for some respondents, the researcher visited them twice. In addition, the researcher conducted another interview with four of the respondents selected from the 12 people (two for each group) from March to June, 2013. However, considering the time and extent of the research, the data analysis details and results of the third interview will not be a part of this current research (it will be used for future study). According to Curran and Blackburn (2001: p.86), interview-based interaction in qualitative research can often be recorded and transcribed. For most of the cases of this research, the audio-recording method was used to collect primary data. However, there were two marketing directors from the sampled JVs who did not agree to their voices being taped. So these cases were managed by note-taking during the interview.