Data collection

The researcher chose qualitative theme interview for primary data collection method, since the information needed for the research could not be found in pub-lished form (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). Interviews are very adjustable method for various kind of research, where the interviewer is in direct contact with the informants and is able to steer the information gathering. Also given the topic of the research it was presumable that the answers are multifaceted and pointing to various directions. In the phase of the interview it is easy to ask more precise questions accordingly and justifications for opinions (Hirsjärvi & Hurme, 2008), which was beneficial for this study. This type of theme interview or semi structured interview (including both what and how questions) gives informants a chance to express their opinions and feelings about the topics which are thought through by the interviewer (Creswell, 2013; Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008).

There are of course potential downfalls and disadvantages when conduct-ing interviews. Firstly, interviews can be quite costly, given the travellconduct-ing ex-penses, and conducting interviews is also relatively time-consuming. Likewise,

skills and experience are required from the interviewer, which in this case can only be obtained through mistakes and learning. The analyzing, interpretation and reporting of the data can be problematic since no formal guidelines or mod-els exist and the best methods derive according to the data. (Hirsjärvi & Hurme, 2008)

As a secondary data source the case company’s enterprise resource plan-ning software and invoicing program was used, as they contained all existing information about the interviewed retailers, half of the informants. Before each interview the founders were questioned about this particular person, partner or company and thus, an insight was formed in order to be better equipped for the actual interview situation. However, given the fact of the backyard research, the informants; the organizations, customers and partners where previously known to the researcher, some naturally to more extent than others. There were only 2 out of 12 informants that the researcher has not previously been in direct contact with. These two represented the auditor (Partner 1) and one big supplier (Partner 4).

The informants were chosen based on the importance from the case com-pany point of view. Different selection criteria for different type of stakeholders were used. Most important retailers or customers were picked based on their an-nual purchases in 2016. The level of influence was also considered vital in deter-mining the importance of the stakeholders. The other group of informants, most influential business partners, were chosen based on the frequency of interaction with the co-founders of the business. All of the chosen informants worked in managing roles in their companies, majority of them employed as entrepreneurs, or CEOs, or being the owners of the business. Given the topic of succession, es-pecially the owners of family businesses were seen as important source of infor-mation. Some important partners, such as the auditor and the bank were chosen because of their high involvement in the financial and juridical side of the suc-cession. Also the importance of these particular partnerships in the process of the succession was acknowledged.

The interview invitation was sent through email to 22 potential informants from whom 13 expressed their initial interest for the research. Eventually 12 face-to-face interviews were agreed, conducted, recorded and transcribed for the anal-ysis. In the data collection phase of this study the researcher drove to conduct all the interviews face-to-face. All the informants were male. The duration of the in-terviews varied from 34 minutes to one hour 22 minutes and the total duration of all the interviews was almost 11 hours. The transcription yielded in approxi-mately 79 pages of transcribed data. The conducted interviews and other relevant information are shown and listed below in Table 2.

Table 2. Conducted interviews

As seen from the table the informants were divided into two groups: customers, to whom the case company works as a supplier, and partnerships comprising of mentors, suppliers and others. Both groups had similar set of questions devel-oped but with a focus on their status from the case company point of view. The interview questions where develop simultaneously when processing the litera-ture review. The questions were mostly open ended, in order to encourage more speech (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008), but also yes or no questions were used.

The focus was on personal perspectives, conceptions, experiences, and interac-tions of the informants with regards of the case company. The answers naturally reflected also other experiences from the field of successions and that was con-sidered furthermore as valuable information for the future direction and plan-ning for the case company’s succession.

From the total 12 informants 8 worked in family owned businesses (FOBs).

One company was a first generation FOB, 6 were second generation and one part-ner was in the phase of a third gepart-neration. The experiences of their own succes-sion process were greatly contributing to their answers and insights about knowledge and lessons learned were gained. The 4 informants without FOB background nevertheless have had previous experiences working with FOBs and succession cases and thus gave another type of perspective to the studied phe-nomena. Some of the questions were also future oriented, thus intuition and spec-ulative answers also added insights into the manner.

There was a great variation in the ages of the informants, from 26 all the way up to 74 years old. The average age was 53. Given the area of succession it can be argued that older people would have more knowledge and perceptions in the aspect, but the viewpoints of the younger successors and their experiences once again enriched the data. Older and younger generation were looking at the succession from different viewpoints, another as predecessor and the other as successor. The predecessors had long history regarding the business, industry, and the case company in question, whereas successors tended to have fresh mindset and new viewpoints towards the industry and case company.