In relation to data collection, all case companies and informants were assured that the information provided by them would be treated with the utmost confidentiality, and that none of the informants or their respective companies would be recognised in any publication from the research. In the case of each of the two case companies a non-
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disclosure agreement was signed and submitted to each company. Hence, all names in this study are fictitious. Data collection continued until theoretical saturation was reached, namely when insights provided by interviews were judged to be insignificant. The five data collection methods utilised in this study will now be discussed in turn, namely, interviews, direct observations, documentation, and literature review.
4.3.6.1 Interviews
Interviews were carried out between July 2011 and April 2015. In total 13 interviews were conducted, and table 10 provides an overview of these. All in all, 8 were personal in-depth interviews and 5 were telephone interviews. The personal interviews ranged from one to four hours in length and were not taped.
Case 1 Case 2
Interviewing Approach
Preliminary
Interview July 2011 October 2012
Collection
Period Sept 2011 – April 2012 Jan 2013 - 2014
Personal Interviews 4 4
Telephone Interviews 2 3
Interviewee Details
Interviewee Title Case Reference Interviewee Title Case Reference
Product Manager Audiology Product Engineering Manager Product Marketing Manager Lead Mechanical Engineer Audiology Engineer PAC1 PEC1 PMC1 LMC1 AEC1
Principle Mechanical Engineer Fellow R&D Engineer Process Development Director
PMC2 RDC2 PDC2
Info Gathering Retrospective Retrospective
Table 10 Overview of Interviews Used for Empirical Data
Due to the confidential nature of a company’s product development process, it was requested that no recording of discussion took place. Note taking was used instead with notes reviewed at a later stage. The telephone interviews lasted on average between 10 to 30 minutes, with the shortest telephone interview merely being aimed at validating the data collected during interviews and at alleviating confusion. Telephone interviews were used subsequent to conducting personal interviews. The interview selection process was relatively simple. Once agreement to participate in the research was obtained from each company, a preliminary interview was conducted. During this meeting, the researcher identified the research objectives and the discussion that followed revealed how the data would be collected within the context of each company and who the informants, in each case, would be. The personal interviews were conducted on a one-to-one basis. However, on occasion, the nature of the data being collected would result in overlaps between informants and small and short handover group meetings occasionally resulted.
By incorporating flexibility into interviews, the researcher was provided with very reliable and valid data, as one informant was confirming what was addressed and set the scene for how the other would continue forward in exploring management of the external- internal affordance relationship during product improvement development. Thus a more comprehensive, richer picture was obtained by the researcher.
For each case, various documents were used to prepare participants for the interviews. In accordance with Perry et al. (1999) and prior to each interview, an interview guide (Appendix B) was presented to each participant setting out the focus of the interview. The number of interviews conducted was dictated by the time taken to collect the data required. This document was used to contain the difficulties associated with selective retrospective bias. Adhering to best practice, as detailed by Doz (1996), the interview guide “challenges interviewees’ memories and cross-checks their ex post data and perceptions”. Nevertheless, the interviews were informal with very little structure or direction placed on the discussion (Carson et al., 2001), except where they were interrupted by the researcher to follow up on some issue. Essentially, the interviewer was a guide, interpreting when it was felt that the interviewee had exhausted the topic of discussion, triggering the move to the next topic listed for discussion in the interview guide. The data collected through semi-structured interviews with the informants outlined in table 10 were supported by discussion on and observations of the product's subsystem parts, manufacturing processes, assembly processes and test procedures. Such observations involved walking the shop floor with the informant and resulted in the informant engaging in short conversations with the shop floor workers involved in some of these tasks.
4.3.6.2 Direct Observation
Direct observation of the production process also contributed to the researchers understanding of affordance relationship considerations and the rationale behind improvement projects. In turn, this provided a greater contextual introduction to the product itself and potential internal and external artefact to user and artefact to artefact considerations requiring management during the product development process. An overview of observational hours carried out per case study was set out in table 11.
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Total Number of Observational Hours: 2 hours Case 1 Case 2
Production Process
Manufacturing & Assembly 40 minutes 1 hour
Testing 20 minutes -
Table 11 Overview of Direct Observation Used for Empirical Data
Approximately one hour of observations were carried out for each case study. This direct observation was conducted after the preliminary interview but before detailed data collection interviews were conducted. These observations provided clarity to the researcher on many issues that could have posed issues during the subsequent data collection interview process. For example, observations involved walking the shop floor with the informant and resulted in the informant engaging in short conversation with the shop floor workers involved in some of these tasks.
Whilst the informants were discussing the product re-design and development process they also referred to the later production process. Until the researcher had observed the product progressing through manufacturing, assembly and testing activities, it was unclear as to what specific “affordance management” considerations the interviewee was talking about. The direct observations provided the researcher with a greater understanding of the complexity in re-designing a product to complement a use environment. Such observations supported an understanding of how decisions within the improvement process were future anticipatory, revealing the action possibilities requiring improvement and defining the subsystem focus of enabling improved complementarity to be realised. These on-site observations allowed the researcher to gain an insight into knowledge that was hard to communicate without experience and in turn, enriched the researcher’s understanding of the subsystem improvement process aspect that each participant was talking about. Additionally, conversations with informants revealed documents (internal and external) that supported the observations.
4.3.6.3 Documentation
Various different types of documents, printed as well as electronic were obtained for the case studies as presented in table 12. In total 18 documents were used between the two case studies.
Number of Documents Case 1 Case 2
Website Articles 3 2 1
Specialist Company Documents 9 4 5
Articles in Press & Journals 2 - 2
Improvement Project Plans & Performance
Reviews 4 3 1
Improvement Project Stage Deliverables 8 3 5
Table12 Overview of Documents Reviewed for Empirical Data
Whilst the number of document reviewed may sounds relatively small, these documents included detailed reflections of each organisations development process, documentation on the type of products being examined and external regulatory guidelines that constrained how development tasks were to be implemented. Essentially, these documents were referred to during the discussions shaping the interviews and were a reference supporting validation of interpretations of the data as collected for case write up, and analysed for discussion and conclusions drawn between cases. These documents allowed the researcher to obtain sufficient knowledge on the company, the product and the re-design context which was important for understanding and interpreting the case study. Internal documents reviewed included the formal product development process models, product specification drawings before and after improvements, defective parts per million (DPM) data, potential product failure mode reports, reports on customer reported issues, improvement project plans, some of the deliverable documents submitted by team members involved in improvement projects and released company press statements on the improved product offering. Due to the confidential nature of some of these internal documents (deliverable documents) they were not always permitted to be taken off site. However, the case narrative includes discussion informed by such insights. External documents referred to by key informants included independent reviews of the new and improved versions of the product and technical papers on the working principles of related products that often constrained how improvements could be implemented.
4.3.6.4 Archival Records
Various different types of archival documentation were provided to the researcher, as presented in table 13. In total 27 archived records were provided between the two case studies.
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Number of Documents Case 1 Case 2
Improvement Project Documents 12 6 6
Component Drawings and Specifications 2 1 1
Formal Correspondence 13 6 7
Table 13 Overview of Archival Records Used for Empirical Data
For instance, each case company provided the researcher with visuals of their development process. Case company A made reference to archive documents detailing three defining moments in the company’s operational past. These defining moments gave rich insights into the innovative nature of past improvements, defining the company’s ethos to this day. Case company B provided access to archived files that documented project planning and the coordinated activities comprising past product improvement development projects. Both companies conducted formal correspondence through emails. These documents were studied in conjunction with other documentation to provide the researcher with a greater understanding of the design challenges behind the product improvement projects explored within this thesis and that were used as preparation for conducting interviews.
An NVivo screen shot visualising the data sources from the two case organisations used for data analysis is presented in Appendix C. These data sources represented the chain of evidence that supported case write up and enabled data analysis to be conducted to determine an understanding of how the external-internal affordance relationship was managed.
4.3.6.5 Literature Review
As detailed in chapter two, critical reflection on product affordance design literature, an extensive literature review was compiled from a wide range of sources that provided the researcher with valuable insights into the external-internal affordance relationship phenomenon under research.