This dissertation project started around the same time as our two-year academic research project focusing on developing reference-driven business concepts in process technology companies. From the four case companies used in the study, two (companies C and D) were participants in that academic project. This gave us a relatively good access to these two companies, which may otherwise be a problem (Gummesson, 1991). The academic project also provided a solid preconception of the two case companies, as well as to real-life practicing management of process technology industry (cf. Gephart, 2004), which helped us researchers to understand the business environment in such a context.
The primary method for gathering the empirical data was open-ended interviews (Silverman, 2006).
This allowed us to interact with the interviewees and grasp interesting topics ad hoc in closer detail, while following the interview frames decided beforehand (for the interview frames, see Appendices 1–3). Also, we acknowledged that each of the interviewees had special knowledge on certain aspects of the interview frames and thus we were able to adjust time usage effectively. To select
appropriate interviewees (Halinen and Törnroos, 2005), we used the snowballing technique (Biernacki and Waldorf, 1981). This “snowball sampling” increases the efficiency, identification, and inclusion of hidden populations by having the already interviewed persons of the target company to recruit other appropriate members (Erickson, 1979; Biernacki and Waldorf, 1981). A negative concern of snowballing is that it lacks validity in representation for the same reason, the sample will be independent from the researcher’s idea. However, we decided to use the method and also acknowledged that the quality of the data is more important than the quantity (Ronkainen, Pehkonen, Lindblom-Ylänne, and Paavilainen, 2011). Hence, we asked to name candidates with extensive experience on the service and business development interface within the company. All the interviewees are listed in Appendix 4, while Table 8 summarizes the data and analysis method in each of the publications.
Table 8. Summary of the data
Publication Objective Data Company Method
1 To increase understanding on the
challenges traditional capital good suppliers face when transforming their business towards solutions.
2 To outline the transition process and its
management, and increase
understanding on the faced challenges.
Empirical, 12
3 To formulate an industrial solution
offering framework and understand its management issues.
4 To gain better understanding of fitting a
type of Public-Private Partnership BOOT model to an industrial context as a form of solution business.
Empirical, 7
To benefit from data triangulation in case studies (Yin, 2009), it is recommended to combine interview data with other sources. While the empirical insights were mainly derived from the interviews, the secondary data enabled us to fill the blank areas and understand the business environment better. We used personal notes written by the academic project researchers during two focus group interviews, two company-specific workshops, and two seminars, as well as archive material and company documents (e.g., newsletters, market research reports, annual reports, CEO presentations, a company history book, circulars, brochures, web pages, and trade media articles).
Also, during the research process, we used our research project access to companies to throw ideas at the managers and gain their valuable feedback on the study topics. As such, we were able to employ multiple sources of data, which are typical for the case study approach (Eisenhardt, 1989).
Before the interviews, we read company brochures and annual reports to become familiar with the case companies. Also the workshops organized during the academic research project provided highly valuable background information on the companies. In the primary data collection phase, altogether 29 interviews were conducted.
Publication 1 is a single case study as well as a pilot study for the topic of transition process. A single case can be a powerful example of a phenomenon (Siggelkow, 2007), and on this occasion the single case was used to obtain preunderstanding (Gummesson, 1991) of the challenges within the transition process from a product supplier to a solution provider. The interview frame was formulated on the basis of existing literature on strategic change and product-to-solutions transition.
Appendix 1 contains the interview frame used in the interviews for publications 1 and 2. Although we interviewed only four persons in Company A, the interviewees were all highly ranked within the organization, including a Chief strategy officer, and were able to give us detailed insights into the transition process itself, as well as the challenges faced during the process.
Publication 2 is a multiple case study with two case companies (1 & 2). Here, the interview data from Company 1 was supplemented with eight interviews in Company 2, using the same interview frame, as the pilot case gave us no reason to change it. The data was first analyzed separately within-case, and then a cross-case analysis was made.
Publication 3 is also a multiple case study with two case companies (3 & 4). In this publication, we were able to utilize the benefits provided by our academic research project fully, as both companies participated in the project as well. Here, the interview frame was formulated on the basis of existing literature on solution business and market offerings. The final frame is presented in Appendix 2.
With this publication, we made small changes to the formulation of the questions but maintained the main guidelines and topics of the questions; 1) the case company’s role as a solution provider; 2) the development and creation of the case company’s offering over time; 3) the role of services in offering creation; and 4) cooperation with customers in the offering creation phase. Appendix 2 contains both versions. The modification was done to help the interviewees orient themselves as they received the frames in advance (this applied to every case company). As with publication 2, the data was first analyzed separately within-case, and then a cross-case analysis was made.
Publication 4 is a single case study and an in-depth analysis of a specific form of solution business offering and its suitability in the industrial context. Company 4 is an extreme example (Yin, 2009) of such a business model. The interviews were conducted separately from publication 3, and the interview frame is presented in Appendix 3. The interview frame was formulated on the basis of existing literature on public-private partnership models as well as solution business. Two of the interviews were conducted by a telephone, as those two interviewees were stationed in Australia and South-Africa.
Each interview, altogether nearly 33 hours, was tape-recorded and transcribed very carefully. Also field notes were written during the interviews to protect against possible equipment failure but also to be able to address the arisen key points again with other interviewees. All the publications contain excerpts from the interviews to demonstrate the reasoning through which the findings were derived. The data were analyzed in all publication by employing qualitative content analysis (Silverman, 2006). The first ideas based on the data were formulated during and briefly after the interviews based on the discussion and field notes. After this, the transcribed interviews were carefully read with all interesting sections marked by hand. These sections were then combined together and written as raw data to the article drafts. The final results were then developed with further analysis between the theory and available data.