This study is a qualitative, mainly descriptive case study in its nature, where the empirical evidence has been collected in a Finnish ICT company. Palmberg &
Martikainen (2003, 1) contend the following when arguing for using the ICT sector as a case industry: ”The limitation of the ICT sector is motivated by the strong international position that Finland has had in this sector since the mid 1990s. The ICT sector is also especially interesting from the viewpoint of strategic R&D alliances due to the systematic nature of the innovation.” Moreover, “digitalization of networks and the emergence of the Internet are blurring technology and industry boundaries, deconstructing value chains and reshaping business models” (Paija, Rönkkö &
Steinbock 2001). These views provide arguments for why to conduct the study in the Finnish ICT sector.
Selection of the Case Company
The research context was determined to be the ICT sector from the very beginning of the research project, started in 2001, and the Case Company (or one of their Business Areas) was involved from that time on. The decision concerning the selection of only one focal company within this thesis was based on the results of the exploratory study in 2002 as was pointed out in Section 1.4.
Along the study this Case Company will also be called the focal company for the following reasons: 1) the focal company is the only firm with direct ties to every other firm in the network, and 2) as the nodal firm, the focal company not only has
direct ties with each supplier, but also has some economic interdependence with each supplier. The next chapter explains more thoroughly the criteria for selecting the Sub-Cases from the Case Company.
Selection of the Sub-Cases
In the empirical part three R&D programs, known also as Sub-Cases, represent the units of analysis. Each R&D program was selected together with the business unit collaboration manager or the relationship manager. The R&D programs of this study have been selected so that each Sub-Case represents one business unit within the selected Business Area of the focal company. Sub-Case 2 is an exception, because the organization in question is actually a business line within the real Business Unit 2.
However, in practice and due to the history, the business line could be called a business unit like the other two business units.
In addition to being part of different business units, the selected programs vary in the nature of the product. In fact, the formation of the business units is based on producing different types of products. All the R&D programs selected for the study and the products being developed within these are complex and highly innovative technologically. The reason for this kind of scope was to show that R&D collaboration includes extensive information sharing. The product is being developed in the R&D organization as a distinction to the sourcing unit’s R&D4. Another feature of the product is that they could be either hardware Case 3) or software (Sub-Cases 1 and 2).
Another selection criterion of the Sub-Cases was the time of the R&D program: each R&D program was finished less than a year before the beginning of the interviews except the one program that was not yet finished at the time of the interviews5. This
4 These products are usually called black box products
5 However, the work-in-progress of this program did not have an influence on the analyzed factors, since the R&D supplier’s involvement ended in June 2005, and in this sense it was possible to follow the program till the end.
way it was possible to avoid memory retrieval problems, and the persons involved in the programs were easier to catch for the interviews. Moreover, a further selection criterion of the Sub-Case was that the R&D program should be typical, meaning that each Sub-Case provided a prototype of a certain class of R&D programs. The intention was also to avoid rare cases.
Finally, the last criterion in the Sub-Case selection related to the capability of the R&D supplier involved in the program: in one program the R&D supplier had the capability to develop the product already before the program began; in the other program both the program and the R&D supplier had this capability (the capability had been increased step by step), and in the third program the product was new to both parties in the beginning of the program. The selection of the R&D suppliers was actually an easy one, since there were typically only few R&D suppliers in each program.
To summarize, the following figure illustrates the Case Company, the three Sub-Cases, and different parties involved in the study.
Figure 3. Empirical research context
The figure above illustrates the linkages between the focal company and their supplier network, the Sub-Cases selected for the study, as well as the R&D suppliers involved in the study. Other R&D suppliers and other suppliers may be common or divergent: for example, the documentation suppliers are common to all business units. On the other hand, in Sub-Case 3 the supplier base differs from the other Business Units mainly due to the distinctive feature of the product (a hardware product instead of a software product).
The network perspective is regarded as a starting point in the study, although the interviews regard collaboration only between two parties (thus, on the relationship level). The network perspective is important, because the actions of the other parties in the network also have an influence on the specific relationships, and vice versa:
actions in one collaborative relationship influence the other parties of the network.
Case Company
Supply network=internal and external network together with other players (competitors, customers, other suppliers)
Sub-Case 2 Sub-Case 3
However, there are some challenges relating to this kind of research approach. First, the supply networks may consist of hundreds of companies, which make it impractical to involve most network players in the research. Second, the identification of objective network boundaries is theoretically problematic, making it difficult to distinguish who is in and out of the network. As contended by Harland et al. (2004, 2), “the analyst, depending on the focus of investigation, can determine the boundaries of a supply network”. In other words, we could examine a supply network for a firm that could be represented by the set of upstream or downstream organizations it deals with. According to Harland et al. (2004, 2), “this would provide a map of all relationships within that firm’s supply network.” Furthermore, as Harland (1996) explains, the activities in the dyads are displayed in networks, and thus, the dyadic relationships also provide a basis to study networks. In this thesis, the focus is thus limited to a small number of key actors (business units 1–3 and R&D suppliers 1–3 in three R&D programs), creating three sub-networks as a proxy for the total R&D network.
After defining the case as well as the Sub-Cases, there is a need to explain more thoroughly the linkage between the context and the case, and what they mean within this particular study. As explained by Eriksson and Koistinen (2005, 7), context consists of those actors and actions, where the selected case is closely related. That is, the case is a smaller part of the whole context. According to Pettigrew (1997, 340),
“social processes are deeply embedded in the contexts that produce and are produced by them.” Within this study this means the recognition of the contextual factors that have an influence on information sharing.