Comprobación de Hipótesis

Sampling strategy and sample

The goal of the sampling strategy used in this research project was to include as large a number of firms as possible while at the same time keeping the number small enough so that a detailed analysis of their technological learning experiences remained feasible under the given time and resource constraints. Since the project is concerned with the accumulation of technological capabilities in Thailand, the sampling process focused on firms with a local presence, i.e. firms which have a team that is permanently located in Thailand. This means that foreign-based importers of turnkey biogas systems were excluded from the sampling frame. Another aim was to obtain a sample that includes a variety of firms, including small and large, old and young, domestic and foreign-owned, and private and public-sector firms. Finally, I aimed to include the firms which have historically held the largest market shares in the Thai biogas sector. As no detailed information on market shares appears to be available, the selection of firms contacted for

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interviews was primarily based on the dataset that was developed for the study on Thai biogas CDM projects presented in Chapter 5. This is discussed in more detail below.

I am aware of a total of 31 biogas technology-supplying firms operating in Thailand. Although there might of course be more firms, this number is based on the detailed knowledge of the Thai biogas sector that I have developed over the course of the research conducted for this Ph.D. project. In order to check for information about additional firms, I reviewed reports about the Thai biogas industry (Mehner et al., 2017; Siteur, 2012; Suwansari et al., 2015). Furthermore, almost all of the individuals interviewed for this study mentioned the names of some of their competitors. This was used as further confirmation that all relevant firms had been identified.

At the beginning of this research project, I managed to get in touch with a number of professionals in the Thai biogas industry through my academic network. This allowed me to get access to an initial group of Thai biogas firms. Once the first set of interviews was conducted, some of the interviewees assisted me in getting in touch with further companies. In two cases, a local research colleague established contact with firms directly. Hence, the sampling strategy is based on snowball sampling with elements of purposive sampling to ensure heterogeneity in the characteristics of the sampled firms (Saunders et al., 2007).

In total, I conducted interviews with 13 biogas technology-supplying firms in Thailand. Appendix 6.6.1 provides some background information about the interviews. Three of these firms were deemed unsuitable for inclusion in the comparative analysis presented in this chapter. One of these firms was only founded in the beginning of 2017 and had not been involved in the development of any biogas projects by the time the interviews were conducted. The remaining two firms offer services that differ from those of the other 11 firms. One primarily offers systems for biogas extraction from landfills, which is based on technology with substantially different characteristics from those used for biogas generation from agro-industrial wastes and energy crops. The other focuses on the sale of biogas systems and engineering activities related to biogas utilisation systems. Hence, the final sample used for analysis consists of 10 firms. Key characteristics of these firms have been anonymised due to confidentiality concerns.

I did not conduct interviews with 18 out of the 31 biogas technology-supplying firms operating in Thailand.15 While some of these declined requests for interviews,

15 _{This includes the following: seven relatively small, locally owned, private sector firms (one of which had}

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others could not be contacted because no up-to-date contact information was available. Assuming that all relevant firms have been identified, the final sample of 10 firms makes up approximately 32% of the total of firms that have been involved in the industry. This represents a relatively large share for a detailed comparative case study.

Table 13 contains some background information about the 10 firms that ultimately became included in this study. The second column of the table illustrates that they vary in size. However, the reader should note that this data provides a somewhat distorted picture since some of the firms also operate biogas projects and employ staff for this purpose. Representatives of some of the firms (Epsilon and Zeta) mentioned that project operation staff made up large shares of their employees. Table 13 also shows that the ages of the firms included in the sample vary. While the oldest firm was founded in the late 1980s (Alpha), the youngest was founded in the 2010s (Kappa). One firm is a subsidiary of a foreign-based multinational (Epsilon). Note that for this firm, the entry under the “Year of foundation” column refers to the starting year of its involvement in the Thai biogas sector. All other firms are local. Two of the local firms are university-based organisations (Alpha and Beta).

Firm Number of

employees

Year of foundation

Ownership Type Percentage of Thai biogas CDM

projects for which the firm supplied biogas systems

Alpha 11-50 1985-1990 Domestic University-based 2.5

Beta 51-100 1990-1994 Domestic University-based 21.2

Gamma 51-100 1990-1994 Domestic Private sector 17.8

Delta 101-200 1995-1999 Domestic Private sector 4.2

Epsilon 101-200 2000-2004 Foreign Private sector 4.2

Zeta 101-200 2000-2004 Domestic Private sector 1.7

Eta 11-50 2000-2004 Domestic Private sector 4.2

Theta 1-10 2000-2004 Domestic Private sector 8.5

Iota 11-50 2005-2009 Domestic Private sector 0.0

Kappa 1-10 2010-2014 Domestic Private sector 0.9

Sum - - - - 62.7

Table 13: Summary statistics of firms included in the final sample. Sources: interview data and data on Thai biogas CDM projects collected for analysis presented in Chapter 6.

that primarily provides a key system component but also provides design and engineering services; two subsidiaries of foreign multinationals, one of which had terminated its biogas business before the fieldwork for this research was conducted; three local producers of agro-industrial products whose engineering units had begun to develop their own biogas systems; one university-based organisation; a government-supported foundation providing support services for the Thai biogas sector; four foreign-based multinationals that do not have local subsidiaries in the Thai market, one of which was acquired by another before the fieldwork for this research was conducted.

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In the absence of detailed information about market shares, data on Thai biogas CDM projects was used to get a sense for these firms’ importance in the Thai biogas market. This information is taken from the dataset developed for the analysis presented in Chapter 5. The right-most column of Table 13 shows the percentage of Thai biogas CDM projects for which the firms supplied biogas systems (total: 118). The data shows that the sample includes firms with high shares - in particular Beta and Gamma - and firms with smaller shares. Iota has not been involved in any CDM biogas projects. 13 other firms that have not been interviewed as part of this study have supplied biogas technology to CDM projects in Thailand. However, none of these was involved in more than 2.6% of the total number of Thai biogas CDM projects. This suggests that the sample of this study likely includes the most relevant firms that have been involved in the Thai biogas sector, at least during the time that the CDM has been active.

Hence, the comparative case study presented below is based on a relatively large sample of 10 firms. The variety in their size, age, ownership, type, and market shares provides reassurance that they encapsulate some of the heterogeneity that exists in the Thai biogas industry.

Data collection and potential risks

The field research for this project was conducted in Thailand from May to August 2017. This involved interviewing leading personnel of the sampled firms’ management and technical units. Each interview lasted between one and two hours. The interviews followed a semi-structured design. This offered the benefit of being guided by a set of questions while at the same time being flexible to discuss issues that had not originally been included in the interview guide (Saunders et al., 2007). Each interview began with a number of questions about the historical background and business profile of the firm. The interviewees were then asked to identify the most relevant technological milestones and breakthroughs that their firms had achieved throughout their lifetimes. In the final and longest stage of the interviews, these milestones were discussed one after another. This included questions about what they imply in terms of the technological capabilities that the firms had accumulated and the different learning mechanisms that they had used to achieve these milestones. Appendix 6.6.2 contains the complete interview guide.

This method of data collection bears a number of risks. Section 3.3 has already discussed the issue of language barriers that applies equally to the analysis presented here

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and in Chapter 5. Given that the analysis presented here is based on interviews, a number of further issues need to be discussed.

For instance, there are some issues that relate specifically to interviews conducted with experts. All of the interviews included in the analysis below have been conducted with leading personnel of Thai biogas engineering firms. As such, they can be considered expert interviews.16 Interviewing experts has a number of benefits. For example, it allows the researcher to gain access to specific and detailed knowledge that would be difficult to obtain otherwise (Van Audenhove, 2007). This is clearly important in the context of the present study as it involves collecting detailed information about the technological learning experiences of firms. Another benefit of interviewing experts is that the researcher might be able to tap into the experts’ personal networks to identify potential candidates for further interviews (ibid.). As explained above, I made use of the snowballing method, which was greatly facilitated by the fact that many professionals in the Thai biogas sector appear to be well connected with each other.

However, expert interviews also present certain challenges, particularly relating to the characteristics of the researcher. As such, it is critical to reflect on the impact that I have had on the research process and outputs. Interviewing experts puts researchers - particularly junior researchers - into inferior positions in which they ask experts to share their time and knowledge without having much concrete benefits to offer in return. Also, the researcher’s status and knowledge of the issues discussed influence the information that the interviewee is willing to provide (Van Audenhove, 2007). Therefore, the success of the interviews in the case of the present study depended decisively on the my technical knowledge of biogas systems. I acquired such knowledge by extensively reviewing the technical literature and by completing the research project based on publicly available information (presented in Chapter 5) prior to conducting the interviews. Before embarking on the research trip to Thailand, I also conducted a pilot interview with a large British biogas engineering company to test the interview guide and to see whether my knowledge of key processes at biogas plants was adequate to hold a detailed discussion about the technical aspects involved in the development and supply of biogas projects.

Another potential problem with the data collection method used here is that interviewees might give inaccurate accounts of their firms’ histories. Some might

16 _{Meuser and Nagel (1991, p.433) define an expert as somebody who is in charge of planning, executing,}

and controlling solutions or strategies and who has special access to information about processes, groups, or behaviours.

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overstate achievements due to social desirability bias. Other interviews might suffer from recall bias as subjects might find it challenging to remember details of events that occurred far in the past. As Eisenhardt and Graebner (2007, p.28) put it, interviews of this type bear the risk of “retrospective sensemaking by image-conscious informants.” Ideally, this problem would be addressed by interviewing multiple individuals working in the same organisation to obtain information from a variety of perspectives. However, this was considered infeasible given the time and resource constraints of the research project and the relatively small sizes of some of the firms included in the study. Instead, I collected data from alternative sources to triangulate the information obtained through the interviews. This included company brochures and webpages, the database of Thai biogas CDM projects that I developed for the analysis presented in Chapter 5, project documentation by other organisations, the technical and academic literature, patents, news articles, and industry periodicals. In a few instances, interviewees were contacted via email after the interviews had been conducted to request clarification or additional information. Finally, I also collected quantitative data from the monitoring reports of CDM projects (See Appendix 6.6.3 for more information).17