Research design

In this section, the overview of the surveyed market is first demonstrated, in-cluding the statistical data, the description of the focal players in the market, and the main features of the industry in Finland. Also, key theoretical perspec-tives employed in this research are presented in order to show from which an-gles the observation and analysis of entrepreneurial behaviours are conducted.

After that, the research question is reviewed by relating the main points to the theoretical frameworks.

One point that should be highlighted about this study is that the research theme can be seen as a quite unique one, even though similar research focusing on the restaurant business in Finland was conducted before. Also, it could be mentioned that this research has a niche topic since most studies related to businesses owned by immigrants or ethnic minority have been made in the United States and the United Kingdom, that have several huge cosmopolitan cities with a long history of immigration (McEvoy et al., 2010). In that sense, Finnish restaurant industry focusing on Japanese owners can be a novel re-search domain, and thus the relationship between the theoretical perspectives and the research questioned needs to be described clearly based on the funda-mental comprehension of the market features related to the research theme.

3.1.1 Restaurant industry in Finland

When it comes to designing the research method, it would be significant to un-derstand the market situation and the notable features of the industry. The lat-est statistics about rlat-estaurants in Finland published by the Finnish hospitality association, MaRa, shows saturability of the restaurant businesses as well as the intensity of the market. The data exhibits the continuous increase in the number of restaurant businesses during a period of ten years from 2006 to 2016. Also, in terms of openings and closures of restaurants, the number of openings had ex-ceeded the closures in most of the years during the time period. It could be ar-gued that entrepreneurs in the Finnish restaurant industry have to deal with

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ever-increasing competitors in the intense environment and thus, it would be expected that common patterns of entrepreneurial behavior can be found and linked to effectuation or causation.

Through a study of Chinese and Turkish restaurant businesses in Fin-land, Katila & Wahlbeck (2012) reveals that running a business in Finland can be tough especially for immigrants due to the several factors including intense competition and fewer resources, and it shows the difficulty of succeeding in the restaurant industry in Finland. In general, entrepreneurs are usually forced to seek support from their contacts to acquire all the resources such as infor-mation, capital, skills, and labour because having those resources from the be-ginning is not easy at all (Katila & Wahlbeck, 2012). In addition, the scholars al-so mention that the demanding process of entrepreneurial activity of ethnic mi-nority entrepreneurs might be based on disadvantages such as racial discrimi-nation, blocked mobility, limited access to finance or limited human capital.

Therefore, handling those adversities would be especially essential for immi-grants and ethnic minority businesses (Light and Gold, 2000; Sanders and Nee, 1996) and we can see that an operation of a restaurant business in Finland could be an intense journey especially for foreign entrepreneurs.

Figure 3: The number of restaurant businesses in Finland during 2006 – 2016.

Retrieved July 3, 2018, from https://mara.fi/ravintoloiden-maaran-kehittyminen

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Figure 4: The number of openings and closures of restaurant businesses in Fin-land during 2006 – 2016. Retrieved July 3, 2018, from

https://mara.fi/ravintoloiden-maaran-kehittyminen

3.1.2 Theoretical perspectives

In this paper, the theoretical perspectives employed to analyze the data gained through the qualitative research are causation logic and effectuation theory.

These two decision-making logics can be commonly applied in entrepreneurial settings and have been developed by many different scholars by distinguishing between the two opposite approaches (Sarasvathy, 2001). Due to the fact that the definition and the characteristic of each logic are described explicitly in the previous literature, connecting these perspectives with the acquired data seems to be a promising way to lead to conclusions and answers to the research ques-tions. More specifically, these theoretical perspectives include the explanations by Sarasvathy (2008), using the contrasting metaphors of a jigsaw puzzle (cau-sation) and a patchwork quilt (effectuation) to grasp the differences between the two logics.

3.1.3 Research questions

Based on the theoretical perspectives mentioned above, data collection and analysis are conducted along the lines with the contents of the two primary re-search questions.

1. What kind of entrepreneurial behaviors and entrepreneurial decision-making processes can be found in Japanese restaurants in Finland?

2. How those are related to effectuation theory or causation logic?

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Therefore, this study intends to find patterns of effectuation, or possibly causation as well over the whole period of the business history of Japanese res-taurants' owners. Besides, a question whether there are barriers or favorable conditions for adopting either effectuation or causation is also examined. Espe-cially, it is not easy to recognize the decision-making process expressed by en-trepreneurs, on top of the complexity of forecasting and the difficulty of under-standing (Miao, 2010). For that reason, the research method including interview questions needed to be carefully designed in order to explore the research ques-tions.