Innovation in the UK Retail Sector - Nesta

Appendix 1
Research Methodology
35000
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
Innovation
Technological Innovation
Service Innovation
Retail Innovation
Innovation in the UK Retail Sector
Apart from being difficult to measure only with traditional input and output measures or may be
because of that innovation in retailing is also vastly under-researched in academic terms. For
example, whilst the title keyword ‘innovation’ generated some 32,861 peer reviewed academic
publications within a leading journal aggregator, and ‘technological innovation’ 13,916, only 155
featured ‘service innovation’ and a mere 12 explored ‘retail innovation’ 32
Figure 1. Under-researched nature of innovation in retailing
The report draws on extensive
secondary and primary research in order
to establish a more coherent, sectorspecific
characterization of innovation.
It analyses for the first time the retailspecific
responses to the most recent
Community Innovation Survey. It brings
together a wide range of secondary
material dealing with innovation
(examining its relevance through a retail
lens) and with Government activity and
policy potentially appropriate to the
stimulation and support of retail
innovation.
Innovation
0
2005
27601
2006
31339
2007
32861
The primary research draws upon
selected insights from a series of indepth
interviews and discussions
Technological Innovation 11858 12920 13916
conducted by one of the authors as part
Service Innovation 127 136 155
of his doctoral research. with over 50
Retail Innovation 13 12 13
senior retail executives and other
industry experts from over 30 retail
businesses, consulting firms and industry associations within the UK and elsewhere on how they
define, encourage and manage innovation 33 .
The mixed purposive sample was selected in a way ensure adequate representation of both large-
and medium-sized firms from 12 different retail sub-sectors, thus the sample included retailers
with a turnover of between £15bn and £15m from 12 different retail sectors 34 .
Qualitative interviews and the case study approach are established methodologies in management
science for exploring novel or complex social phenomena such as innovation and for
understanding behaviours, values and believes and their context (Calori, Johnson et al., 1992;
Boiral, 2003; Adams, 2004; Bryman, 2004; Hristov and Reynolds, 2005). The degree of
generalisability which is a consideration in qualitative research, because of its tendency to employ
case studies or smaller samples has been minimised to some extent through the use of a larger
mixed purposive sample of interviews and the triangulation of primary with secondary data.
32 EBSCO’s Business Source Premier (01.08. 2007)
33 Hristov (2007)
34 Hristov (2007)
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