Validity and reliability of the study

The word “reliability” in research refers to repeatability or consistency related to chosen data collection and analysis techniques (Saunders et al., 2007, pp. 149-150). In other words, it means for instance that could other observer reach same results by using same measures. Since this study has multiple exploratory elements and sampling technique was purposive, these results of the survey are not presenting the whole population of open banking experts working in Finnish banking industry. In addition, the risk and chal-lenge of purposive sampling of experts in the field and opinion-based questions is that other researcher could end up finding totally different experts with totally different opin-ions.

Additionally, since the study is cross-sectional, it has multiple exploratory elements and qualitative research methods used can be observed as non-standardized, the findings of the study are not inherently assumed to be repeatable because they represent reality at the time they were collected, in an ever-changing situation (Saunders et al., 2007, pp.

319-320). Especially, because open banking is rather new phenomenon, the experts’ an-swers to survey could have been completely different year ago and may be completely different next year. The premise behind using this kind of research method is that the situations to be investigated are complex and dynamic, and the importance of these methods comes from the flexibility of them which makes it easier to handle the com-plexity. As a result, it would be unrealistic to try to ensure that qualitative, non-stand-ardised study could be repeated with same results by other researcher but there are also situations where these methods can be beneficial.

Also, as it was stated earlier, reliability in research refers also to consistency besides re-peatability. The questionnaire that is being used has to have certain robustness in order to produce consistent results at different times and with different conditions, such as with different samples. In addition, questions of the survey must be clear enough to be understood easily and to be understood right way in order to avoid the issues that re-spondent is either unable to answer the question at all or might understand the question

wrong or differently and also answer wrong or with the information that is not necessary.

Because of this, the questionnaire used in this study was prepared and considered care-fully.

In addition, eventually only seven responses from experts were collected from total of 40 sent proposals. This amount is rather low, although questions were mainly open-end questions and the analysis technique was purely qualitative, meaning that there were not same kind of requirements for minimum number of responses that would have been needed if the analysis would have been consisted of quantitative methods. However, this research strategy and technique were chosen due to these exploratory elements of the study and because the goal was to gain better understanding and new insights from cer-tain phenomenon rather that looking for the infinite truth. The one option for gaining more responses could be loosen the selection criteria of experts in order to find more candidates to send proposals for. However, the chosen criteria have been used in order to find true experts in the field who can offer informative responses.

So, even though the data sample ended up being rather small and research could have been more extensive with larger number of responses, still valuable insights have been gained, and the results succeed to answer the research question and reach research ob-jectives. Also, the original idea of conducting semi-structured interviews with experts rather than having survey, could have offered more extensive results. That is because then there would have been opportunity to ask additional questions for gaining some more examples for different statements for instance. Also, the one issue of having survey rather than interview is that experts may not have time or interest to give such a long and a comprehensive written answer than they could give on interview.

With the concept of validity in the research is usually meant the quality of the different parts of the chosen research methods. As it has been stated already, choosing these par-ticular methods was considered precisely and chosen research strategy is valid. Also, as part of the internal validity related to use of surveys, is to measure whether the survey

questionnaire has ability to really measure what has been intended to be measured.

Meaning that one is worried about whether the results of the survey will accurately re-flect the reality of what one is measuring. However, Saunders et al. (2007) state that this presents a problem, because if one actually already knows the reality of what should be measured, there would be no point in developing such survey. However, this problem can be circled by utilizing other evidence to support the answers found in survey such as literature and earlier publications as it has been done in this work also.