In response to the data collection procedures, there are two ways of data collection, primary and secondary. Primary data are those which are found during the research, that has been collected via interviews with managers, and business consultants of multinational companies from Kuopio and Helsinki.
Furthermore, supporting information has been collected via secondary sources, which is also known as published sources such as journals, books and references from relevant sources. (Saunders, et al., 2009).
Primary data were collected via interviews, Vuorela (2005) says that the data collection via interviews is one of the easiest ways to collect due to the flexibility and availability to have direct contact with interviewees. The researcher could get to correspond with unplanned questions to know the various situation firsthand. Therefore, Nielsen (1993) highlights that the interviews are the good ways to explore the topics for data in the various dimensions so that it makes
27 interviewers get to understand the advantages and disadvantages. In addition to that qualitative data obtained from the interviews are preferred type of data in this case.
In this thesis, semi-structured interviews are designed. Patton (1990) refers that semi-structured interviews helps interviewer to concentrate on specific point, similarly interviewees also convey proper information during the short time, which is also known as theme interviews. Same author further highlights that the same kind of approach is called “the general interview guide approach”.
Therefore, the focus of interview is like an inquiry of study and interviewees are encouraged to relate their stories (Elliott, 2005) without any exaggeration. So that they could reveal their fact within the periphery of research topic (Janesick, 2000). Previous researchers have suggested that well experienced and knowledgeable informants are the reliable source, it is believed that they disclose important and realistic information (Kumar, et al., 1993).
According to Eriksson and Kovalainen (2016), the advantages of theme interviews are that it proceeds according to the central ideas and makes easy to build up questions in order to get proper information and understanding. In addition to that theme interviews are settled and specific, however interviewer uses non formatted question when compared to the structured interview.
Therefore, theme interview facilitates to make voice of the interviewees and takes into account the fact through interaction. Interview made with a positivist “How”
question in mind are most often semi-structured and open discussion (Eriksson
& Kovalainen, 2016).
The primary data includes five semi structured interviews, each contains approximately 30 minutes long. All interviewees embrace strong working background from various industries, for instance Banking Management, Insurance Sales, Business Consulting, Digital Marketing and Marketing Management. Therefore, five interviews can be considered as an adequate number of interviews in order to represent sales strategy formulation from
28 various fields in the international business and sales management. It is not necessary to take more interviews if the saturation point is already achieved after couple of interviews. As, Eskola and Suoranta (2008) stated that the saturated point means where interviewers do not get any new information. Therefore, the quantity of interviews could be considered as enough for data collection.
During the interviews, it is necessary to set key criteria for data collection in the semi structured interviews (Kantanen, et al., 2017). The reason of choosing individual business professionals from random profession is to represent all business sectors. In addition to that all the participants have at least five – thirty years of work experiences on their specialized field. They retain international work experiences rather than specific location in the Finland. At first, interviewees were contacted via email to schedule for the interview. After their written confirmation, we had small face to face interaction in order to convey the notion of research, which helped author to select suitable interviewee candidate for this thesis.
All five interviews were conducted face to face in the months of March to May of 2019. The interviewees represent strategical levels in the big firms from sales manager to the head of the sales department. In order to understand the views of interviewees on strategy formulation, the author has aimed to keep interviews more specific as possible. It is considered that semi structured interviews could help focusing on research purpose. However, open interviews could take towards various dimensions rather than concentrating on specific one. Therefore, semi-structured and open formatted interview method has applied together in order to encourage interviewees to tell their best experiences and ideas rather than inconsequential explanation.
In the qualitative research method, a semi structured questionnaire given to respondents to produce specific information, which should be tested via one pilot interview at first. The first pilot interview was successfully conducted and proved to be useful. Whereas, interview questions are listed in the Appendix 1. The list
29 of the questions is in sequence to understand the process. However, the list of questions and order are totally different than literature review to understand more on specific point. Therefore, such questions give natural flow on the discussion.
During the interview, participant evidently understood the terms knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration and synergistic knowledge outcomes. The concentration of the interviews was precisely under those three phenomena. All participants were familiar with those terms, which made easy to make them understood and simplify the interview questions. Therefore, we had small conversation based on the research topics and purpose of the research at the initial stage of the data collection and suitable candidate selection for further interviews.
The pre-information proved to be valuable because that made easy to be well prepared for interviews beforehand. In addition to that interviewees precisely understood the question and promptly replied without hesitation. It was natural flow of the interview. All interviewees were familiar with similar scenario in their day to day working life. However, it is necessary to understand that we did not use business terms, but it was defined in various ways to understand and interpreted correctly.
With the exclusive permission from the interviewees, the interviews were recorded via recording device. All interviews were conducted in the silent and closed room without disturbance and distraction in English language. All of them were good in English, though interviewees were Finnish/Swedish/Russian speaking professionals. The interviewer is a non-Finnish speaking person;
therefore, English was used as a language of communication.
After successfully completion of the interviews, that was transcribed within one week. Moreover, the interviewees provided precise information in order to make our interview more effective for data collection. All of the interviewees were familiar with the situation and helped interviewer to create extra question during
30 the interview. Therefore, all answers by interviewees are presented in this report are original and as accurate as it was in the interview.
In the following table interviewees profile summery can be seen.
Job Title Duration of work experience
Department Education Abbreviation used in text Marketing
Manager
Seven Years Sales &
Marketing
31