Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti

Research methodology and data
theory. The chosen approach, abductive multiple case study, is described by
Dubois and Gadde (2002) as “systematic combining” or “theory matching”,
in which the theory interacts with the methods and with the empirical
observations. The research process is iterative in nature: the research
questions and the research framework are elaborated during the study in
line with the fieldwork and the recognition of possibly relevant theoretical
discussions. In abductive research the theoretical framework, empirical
fieldwork and case analysis evolve simultaneously, and the evolving
framework provides a cornerstone for the abductive study (Dubois &
Gadde, 2002).
The abductive case study methodology is relatively novel and has not been
fully established in organizational and management studies. Still, in recent
years the abductive research methodology has become increasingly
common (e.g. Haddadj, 2003; Lukkari & Parvinen, 2008; Skaates &
Seppänen, 2005). Abductive methods have also been increasingly applied
in the field of project management (e.g. Nobelius, 2001; Ruuska, 2005;
Ruuska & Teigland, 2009), particularly in project marketing research (e.g.
Jalkala, Cova, Salle, & Salminen, 2010; Skaates, Tikkanen, & Alajoutsijärvi,
2003). Additionally, research reviews have shown how there is a number of
studies that utilize abductive reasoning, although they are not explicitly
reported as abductive (Kovácks & Spens, 2005; Spens & Kovácks, 2006).
Providing support for this observation, the case study approach as such is
described as open to the use of existing theory or conceptual categories to
guide the analysis (e.g. Meyer, 2001), indicating that case studies often rely
on iterative abductive tactics.
A multiple case study approach is chosen for this study, as the aim is to
generalize beyond the specifics of a single case and to enable some
comparison and contrasting of findings from different environments
(Meyer, 2001; Yin, 1994). Multiple case studies are viewed to provide a
stronger base for theory building than single case studies, as the proposed
theory is grounded in varied empirical evidence (Eisenhardt & Graebner,
2007; Yin, 1994). On the other hand, a desire for an in-depth
understanding of each case and the limited resources of the researcher
imply that the number of cases must be fairly small (Meyer, 2001). In this
dissertation the number of cases is limited to three. The empirical research
is based on qualitative data from three change programs, each from a
different organization. As the focus is on the interplay between the program
and its parent organization, the term “case” refers to the firm or public
sector organization that is implementing a change program, whereas the
program in question is referred to as the “case program”.
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