Search results

The method applied to carry out the study of the transformation of strategic alliances in emerging markets is discussed in this chapter. Specifically, this chapter discusses how the whole study is conducted, i.e. the identification and development of the research issues, the research aim and problem, the development of the conceptual framework, the development of the research method, how the empirical study is analyzed and conclusions are drawn. The specific research strategy applied to conduct the current study is a longitudinal research approach. A short discussion on how the ECE countries are classified into various groups is conducted in the current chapter and a detailed discussion on the classification of ECE countries into different groups is also conducted in chapter eight. Moreover, the logic for adopting a longitudinal research strategy to conduct the current study of the transformation of strategic alliances is also justified. The identification and choice of the case companies, the logic followed in the development of the questionnaire and how much and to what extent the questionnaire is modified are also discussed in detail. The identification of the interviewees, the execution of the interviews and the transcription of the interview materials and the structuring of the cases are also discussed in detail.

This article reviews the extensive history of dynamic performance research, with the goal of providing a clear picture of where the field has been, where it is now, and where it needs to go. Past research has established that job performance does indeed change, but the implications of this dynamism and the predictability of performance trends remain unresolved. Theories are available to help explain dynamic performance, and although far from providing an unambiguous understanding of the phenomenon, they offer direction for future theoretical development. Dynamic performance research does suffer from a number of methodological difficulties, but new techniques have emerged that present even more opportunities to advance knowledge in this area. From this review, I propose research questions to bridge the theoretical and methodological gaps of this area. Answering these questions can advance both research involving job performance prediction and our understanding of the effects of human resource interventions.

The purpose of this paper is to report the experiences of researchers seeking to undertake mixed methods longitudinal research in the entrepreneurship discipline. In this research, the methodology was thoroughly planned and measures were taken to ensure longitudinal feasibility of the project. This is not what ultimately happened though. The paper reports the experience and reflects on the methodological challenges of longitudinal and qualitative studies, with a view to informing future attempts at these.

The initial study involved a sample of 600+ participants in a survey that investigated entrepreneurial intent and related antecedents and formed the baseline from which longitudinal comparisons would be made. A catastrophic attrition rate rendered neither follow-up statistical comparisons nor qualitative comparative analysis possible. An alternative, entirely qualitative, follow-up was therefore developed. While unintended, this in fact proved advantageous to the research.

Findings comprise reflection on the failure of the intended methodology. Longitudinal studies are notoriously difficult but within the broader social sciences, particularly those that inspect human experiences, there is a rich body of methodology expertise in terms of mitigating the challenges of engaging research subjects, and keeping them engaged over time.

The paper recommends, post reflection and post analysis, that greater engagement with the wider social sciences is needed in business research. As entrepreneurship research moves on to investigate the experiences of the agents of business, methods to investigate these might be better informed.

Research that follows people over a period of time (longitudinal or panel studies) is increasingly recognised as of great importance in helping us to understand the ageing process and changes over time in the lives of older people. If people drop out of studies ‐ which older people are more likely to do ‐ the value of the study diminishes. This research draws on evidence from ongoing and previous longitudinal studies of people aged 55 and over to examine what factors encourage the retention of participants and what causes them to drop out. The research is synthesising existing evidence, drawing together the experiences of researchers involved in longitudinal studies, and collecting some new evidence about the views of survey participants. This article reports on the first part of the research by drawing together evidence from other studies. These show that there are some factors that are related to attrition whereas for others the evidence is mixed. Methods employed by these studies to reduce attrition and retain participants are examined. It must be noted that apart from the consistent finding that attrition is associated with age, education, socio‐economic status and cognitive impairment, not all studies examined the same variables; some only being explored by one study. This makes it difficult to draw any further conclusions and indicates that attrition needs to be addressed in a uniform manner by more studies. This article identifies some implications for policy‐makers and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities and pitfalls of longitudinal studies in the field of operations management (OM).

A longitudinal study conducted in Finland was analyzed from the methodological point of view. In the theoretical part, a framework for analyses was created by studying the literature of longitudinal studies within and without the OM field.

Longitudinal studies are important in revealing root‐cause effects. They are particularly important in generating new ideas and theories and in questioning old ones. However, longitudinal studies are somewhat difficult to conduct and some unexpected challenges may arise, such as the effect of technology development on data retrieval.

The analyses in this study are based on the data obtained in a longitudinal study conducted in the years 1993, 2004 and 2010. The sample in the longitudinal study is quite small for real quantitative statistical analysis, and therefore the conclusions made here are only indicative. However, the purpose of this study is to give some hints and guidance, and thus the lessons learned are valuable.

There are only a few studies describing methodological issues in longitudinal studies in the field of OM, and most of these studies are purely theoretical and do not refer to real experiences. This appears to be one of the first studies describing real experiences from a longitudinal study.

Consumer experiences of healthcare services are challenging for researchers to study because of the complex, intangible and temporal nature of service provision. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel longitudinal three-phase research protocol, which combines iterative interviewing with visual techniques. This approach is utilised to study consumer service experiences, dimensions of consumer value and consumer value co-creation in a transformational service setting: complementary and alternative medicine healthcare.

This research employed a three-phase qualitative longitudinal research protocol, which incorporated: an initial in-depth interview, implementation of the visual elicitation technique Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique and a final interview to gain participant feedback on the analysis of data collected in the first two phases.

Four key benefits derived from using the three-phase protocol are reported: confirmation and elaboration of consumer value themes, emergence of underreported themes, evidence of transformation and refinement of themes, ensuring dependability of data and subsequent theory development.

The study provides evidence that a longitudinal multi-method approach using in-depth interviews and visual methods is a powerful tool that service researchers should consider, particularly for transformative service research settings with sensitive contexts, such as healthcare, and when studying difficult to articulate concepts, such as consumer value and value co-creation.

Longitudinal regression analysis is conducted to clarify causal relations and control for unwanted influences from actor heterogeneity and state dependence on theoretically important coefficient estimates. Because strategic management contains theory on how firms differ and how firm actions are influenced by their current strategic position and recent experiences, consistency of theory and methodology often requires use of longitudinal methods. We describe the theoretical motivation for longitudinal methods and outline some common methods. Based on a survey of recent articles in strategic management, we argue that longitudinal methods are now used more frequently than before, but the use is still inconsistent and insufficiently justified by theoretical or empirical considerations. In particular, strategic management researchers should use dynamic models more often, and should test for the presence of actor effects, autocorrelation, and heteroscedasticity before applying corrections.

The purpose of this paper is to review the recent literature on housing with care in England where a longitudinal approach has been adopted and to identify possible new research projects that focus on gaps in the existing literature.

The review of the relevant research literature draws in part on an earlier overview of the broader literature on housing with care, part of an NIHR School for Social Care Research project, Adult Social Services Environments and Settings (ASSET).

The literature review suggests that the findings from longitudinal studies on housing with care in England have usually been based on administrative sources (such as assessments) rather than the primary focus being on the voice of residents and frontline staff. It is therefore suggested that further studies are required to reflect the views of everyday life in housing with care settings.

This literature review and the longitudinal qualitative framework for undertaking further inquiry forms the basis for a major bid for funds from the NIHR School for Social Care Research. This is a collaborative endeavour between the University of Bristol’s School for Policy Studies, the Association for Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester, the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the University of Kent and the Housing and Learning Improvement Network. The limitations of this paper reflect the paucity of past investigations on the contribution of social care to the quality of life of elderly residents in extra care housing.

As noted above, the reviews of this draft paper have helped to determine the form of the bid for research funds. Informal discussions with commissioners and providers of extra care housing for older people indicate that access for fieldwork along the lines proposed should not prove to be a major barrier. One of the important implications is to add to the weight of evidence about the working conditions of care staff in extra care housing. The research is likely to highlight both good and poor practices, not least with consequences for the quality of life of elderly residents.

As indicated above, the paper draws attention to the need for a longitudinal qualitative study on the contribution of social care to the quality of life of older residents in extra care housing. Such a study would focus both on the details of everyday lives experienced by residents and the interaction in this setting between frontline staff and residents. In the context of major demographic change in the UK and planned further substantial cuts in public expenditure, this research is of high relevance for both policy and practice in this field of social care.

The review indicated a reliance on administratively derived information about residents rather than focusing on the voice of residents and frontline staff. Future longitudinal research should pay attention to the latter.

Longitudinal investigations are often suggested but rarely used in operations and supply chain management (OSCM), mainly due to the difficulty of obtaining data. There is a silver lining in the form of existing large-scale and planned repeated cross-sectional (RCS) data sets, an approach commonly used in sociology and political sciences. This study aims to review all relevant RCS surveys with a focus on OSCM, as well as data and methods to motivate longitudinal research and to study trends at the plant, industry and geographic levels.

A comparison of RCS, panel and hybrid surveys is presented. Existing RCS data sets in the OSCM discipline and their features are discussed. In total, 30 years of Global Manufacturing Research Group data are used to explore the applicability of analytical methods at the plant and aggregate level and in the form of multilevel modeling.

RCS analysis is a viable alternative to overcome the confines associated with panel data. The structure of the existing data sets restricts quantitative analysis due to survey and sampling issues. Opportunities surrounding RCS analysis are illustrated, and survey design recommendations are provided.

The longitudinal aspect of RCS surveys can answer new and untested research questions through repeated random sampling in focused topic areas. Planned RCS surveys can benefit from the provided recommendations.

RCS research designs are generally overlooked in OSCM. This study provides an analysis of RCS data sets and future survey recommendations.

The purpose of this research is to provide a theoretical explanation of the strategic and structural changes occurring in US omnichannel retail supply chains. Using longitudinal data, the research documents transitions in retailers' supply chain strategies, specifically related to the order fulfillment process. It further offers explanation for how and why these transitions occurred.

This research uses a process theory lens to explain the business model transformation of the omnichannel order fulfillment process. Using a case study approach, a longitudinal multicase study was conducted with six large US retailers over a span of 10 years. Within-case and cross-case analysis identifies the sequence and rationale of different strategic and structural shifts in retailers' omnichannel order fulfillment strategy.

The within- and cross-case analyses offer insight into how the transitions occur, at what rate they occur across several different retailers, and why the rate can differ across the stages of omnichannel transition among retailers. The research documents that retailers took varied approaches to strategically develop and structurally change their order fulfillment processes in their transition to omnichannel retail. The findings reveal that these approaches are dependent on retailers' store-based logistics capabilities and specific supply chain arrangements within their retail segment.

The longitudinal and theoretically driven approach provides researchers a better understanding of the business model transformation in US retail omnichannel operations. This approach builds theoretical context around why and how strategic and structural changes in omnichannel fulfillment occurred over time. It also explains the underlying omnichannel phenomenon more accurately than research focused on discrete changes at a single point in time.

The findings and managerial insights can assist practitioners in understanding how environmental changes have led to strategic and structural shifts across different stages of omnichannel fulfillment evolution. These insights also provide guidance to retailers that are currently in early stages of developing their omnichannel fulfillment strategy.

Logistics and fulfillment operations of retailers have changed dramatically over the last 10–15 years. The authors apply a process theory lens to explain how and why retailers have integrated their channels to achieve omnichannel success at the store level.