Research methodology, design and methods

In this section the choice of the research methodology (research strategy) and design of the empirical research are proved, methods of the study are described. Issues that have been taken into account when choosing a research methodology and developing a research design are availability and diversity of research methods, different types of data collection, data structuring and further research analysis as it has been suggested by number of academics (Eisenhardt, 1989; Piekkari et al., 2009; Yin, 2003).

Research design

A central issue of the research design is about to structure a research so that it satisfies the requirements of reliability (research must be reliable), replicability (a research should be precise in providing information, concepts, so that it opens a chance to other researchers to replicate it), and validity (Bryman & Bell, 2003). Research design can be qualitative or quan-titative. The difference between the qualitative and quantitative approaches has shown on the Table 5 on the next page.

The difference between these research designs is that the nature of researches are differe nt.

A quantitative research is aimed to study a phenomenon from the perspective of numbers, statistical analysis, mathematics, calculations and computational techniques (Bryman &

Bell, 2003). It answers to questions “How many…?” or “How does X impact Y?” whereas a qualitative research answers to questions “Why? How? What?” (Yin, 2003, p.5). The aim of the qualitative research is to provide insights based on an inductive approach, while quan-titative study is usually based on a deductive approach (Bryman & Bell, 2003). A good re-search design is key to give answers to rere-search questions of a sufficient, necessary quality (Baxter & Jack, 2008; Yin, 2003).

Table 5 Difference between quantitative and qualitative designs (Bryman & Bell, 2003) The quantitative research design The qualitative research design

Thus, a research design is accepted as a skeleton of the study (Leonard-Barton, 1990). In addition to the research design an empirical research methodology and research methods need to be chosen.

Research methodology

There are many methodologies of conducting a business research, and they are widely de-scribed in the academic business professional literature (Yin, 2003; Bryman & Bell, 2003;

Ng& Coakes, 2013; Zikmund et al., 2013). Among them Yin (2003) has classified empirica l research strategies which have been identified in works of COSMOS Corporation, they are experiments, surveys, archival analysis, historical studies and case studies (as from Yin, 2003, p.5). The single case study research has been chosen in accordance with Yin’s (2003) propositions: the choice of the research strategy is defined by the form of research questions, necessity to control the behavior of investigated phenomenon and the topicality of the re-search. Thus, surveys and archival analysis answer to questions “how many” and “how much” but archival analysis should not necessary be focused on contemporary events. Case

studies, history and experiments answer to questions “how” and “why”. Case studies and experiments are focused on a contemporary phenomenon (Yin, 2003). As the research ques-tion has been formulated as follows “how does the RFID technology influence the velocity of the order picking process?” it has been decided to choose the case study methodology in order to conduct an empirical study. The methodology of the experiments can be also used to answer that kind of questions, but according to Yin (2003) case studies do not require strict control of behavioral events as the experiments do. Moreover, a typical case study

“investigates a contemporary phenomenon in its real-life context” (Yin, 2003). It can contain a “qualitative and quantitative evidence on a certain case” (Yin, 2003). According to Baxter

& Jack (2008), a case study provides a view on an investigated phenomenon from differe nt angles and perspectives, from which a phenomenon might be understood.

A case study methodology can be designed in a quantitative way, not just in a qualitat ive way of the research (Ng & Coakes, 2014). Ng & Coakes (2014) argue that case studies’

designs are seldom only qualitative or quantitative. In many of resent researches using of mixed research methods belonging to qualitative and quantitative designs is becoming en-couraged by academics as it provides stronger data analysis and results as extended findings (Ng & Coakes, 2014). A case study is usually an explanatory research by nature. It can be divided to a descriptive type which is aimed to describe how things works and an exploratory type which is aimed to provide new insights (Yin, 2003; Bryman & Bell, 2011). Due to the fact that the connection between the RFID using in the warehouse order picking operations and the velocity of the order picking process has never been investigated, the research is described by the exploratory nature.

Ways of building case studies

Ways of conducting a case study are also widely described in the literature of business re-search methods (Baxter & Jack, 2008; Eisenhard, 1999; Leonard-Barton, 1990; .Piekkari et al., 2008; Ragin, 1992; Yin, 2003). Case studies can be divided to their context: multiple and single case studies, holistic and embedded (Yin (2003) has provided facts of the rational choice of a single case study. A single case study gives an ability to provide “a critical test of a significant theory” (Yin, 2003, p.45) that’s why it is preferred over a multiple case study.

Yin (2003) additionally gives conditions of a justifiable case: 1) when it represents a rare or unique circumstance, 2) when it represents a typical case, 3) when the case has relevatory or

4) longitudinal purpose. In the context of this study the empirical part is based on the longi-tudinal purpose. A single case study as a critical test is able to determine whether the theory and its statements are correct or whether there are more relevant alternative set of explana-tions (Yin, 2003). Therefore, the chosen methodology of a single case study has follow ing advantages: 1) a deep analysis of a given company which provides understanding of opera-tions in a certain way and gives perspectives under a new angle; 2) a lesson learned by the given company from its experience and operations which can be used as an example in future studies.

Table 6 on the next page). As for the units of analysis, it has been decided that this thesis case will be built as a holistic single case study. Yin (2003) has provided facts of the rational choice of a single case study. A single case study gives an ability to provide “a critical test of a significant theory” (Yin, 2003, p.45) that’s why it is preferred over a multiple case study.

Yin (2003) additionally gives conditions of a justifiable case: 1) when it represents a rare or unique circumstance, 2) when it represents a typical case, 3) when the case has relevatory or 4) longitudinal purpose. In the context of this study the empirical part is based on the longi-tudinal purpose. A single case study as a critical test is able to determine whether the theory and its statements are correct or whether there are more relevant alternative set of explana-tions (Yin, 2003). Therefore, the chosen methodology of a single case study has follow ing advantages: 1) a deep analysis of a given company which provides understanding of opera-tions in a certain way and gives perspectives under a new angle; 2) a lesson learned by the given company from its experience and operations which can be used as an example in future studies.

Table 6 Basic types of designs for case studies (Yin, 2003, p.40) single case designs multiple case designs

holistic (single unit of analysis)

embedded (multiple unit of analysis)

Besides the research designs there are several research methods which are described further.

Research methods

The case study as a research methodology includes an all-inclusive research method – start-ing with the design’s logic that combines particular approaches, and endstart-ing with the data collection and data analysis (Bryman & Bell, 2003). In order to make a sufficient and justi-fiable case study, an all-inclusive research method, i.e. triangulation principle should be ap-plied. It means that several methods of data collection need to be used (Yin, 2003). Thus, in accordance with the triangulation principle, Yin (2003) has defined six sources of evidence for case studies. They are “documents, archival records, interviews, direct observations, par-ticipant observation, and physical artifacts” and a study can be considered as reliable when it is supported by multiple sources of evidence (Yin, 2003; Bryman & Bell, 2003).

For this study the methodology of a single case study has been accepted with a quantitat ive and qualitative design and holistic approach. Since typically qualitative case study can con-tain a quantitative data analysis, there might be different parts combined with each other (Yin, 2003). The present study has a longitudinal nature in which data collection has been done based on the triangulation principle which means that a case study has different sources of evidence. The present study, thus, involves such methods of data collection as qualitat ive interviews, participant observations, working with documentary and quantitative data anal-ysis that is tightly related to the research question.

At this point it is necessary to provide justifications of the research object’s choice and then logistics industry, cross-border international operations and large size of the company, geo-graphical location, ability to access the data necessary for the thesis, and current stage of developing and adapting ICTs innovation within its supply chain network. The company is operated in the international markets and headquartered in Helsinki, Finland. Therefore, the empirical part of the thesis has been done in a warehouse which is located in Finland and in cooperation with Finnish company’s representatives and business directors. The plan of the empirical study is shown on the Figure 9 on the next page. There are many different ware-houses owned by organizations such as manufacturers, retailers, logistics providers, distrib-utors (Richards, 2014). The choice of this thesis is proved further. manu-facturing, distribution and retail industries is supported by the evidences which stem from global business trends that show a widespread adoption of logistics outsourcing decisions and logistics industry consolidation nowadays (Guo & Wei, 2014; Zhang & Qiu, 2014).