Perspectives metodològiques de la recerca

As discussed in Chapter four (4.7) of this thesis, this study used theoretical sampling for the selection of participants at this stage of the investigation. The definitions of retail business, small business and family business as given in Sections 2.15, 2.10 and 2.8, respectively, were relied on to identify the SFBs that served the purpose of this research. Selecting cases were based on their convenience, case fit based on the definition of SFBs and the willingness of the participating businesses.

Identifying retail businesses across the country was relatively easy, but the need for the eventual participants to have less than fifty employees was ensured as a condition to meet the definition of a small business used in this research (ONS, 2016). The difficult part of the selection process was identifying small retail businesses that are family owned. It should be noted that the businesses had to meet any of the criteria for FBs set by Chua et al. (2003) and the definition of FBs by PWC (2015). However, as observations could not determine whether businesses were family owned or not, some businesses were approached to ascertain this fact and to seek their consent for participation. As discussed in Section 4.7.1.2, the earlier statement establishes the element of convenience in the selection of participants despite the theoretical considerations (Marshal, 1996). Of the 20 small retail businesses contacted in

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person during networking events and through telephone calls, five businesses were both willing to participate and met the theoretical conditions of being family owned and managed. While there were a few more companies willing to participate, they were either sole traders, a partnership or were charity owned businesses. While some other businesses confirmed that they were family owned and managed, they were unwilling to allow their business to participate in the research process. This was not unusual as BIS (2013) had already pointed out that SFBs are largely closed systems and may not welcome external interference.

As the aim of this research was not to generalise findings and the willing participants cut across the first, second and third generations of ownership, the evidence from the data collected from the five cases were reasoned to be accurate and reliable in establishing ERP adoption patterns within UK retail SFBs. The reasoning behind the evidence probably being adequate was also informed by studies which suggest that between two and ten case studies are sufficient for multiple case study research (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2011). As explained above, aside from the theoretical sampling style, the cases were selected based on convenience regarding accessibility, the cost of obtaining information, the available timeframe and the willingness of participants (Carney, 2005; Yin, 2011). Note that there was no snowballing through participant companies because none of the businesses were willing to connect the researcher to competitors. The participants might have considered the study as strategically beneficial, and so it was difficult to investigate more than one business within the same market. This further buttresses the competitive nature of the retail industry and the extent the businesses were willing to go to stay ahead (Elkady et al., 2014; Jimisiah et al., 2016). Also, all the participant companies requested a report on how adopting the ERP system could contribute to their business as they thought the knowledge might be useful for their business. For some, it was the condition for participation, and for others, the report request was made at the end of the investigation period. On the one hand, it buttresses what retail businesses are willing to do to gain competitive advantage (Rhodes, 2015; Jimisiah et al., 2016) and, on the other hand, the observation points to the fact that UK retail SFBs may be open to adopting the ERP system if it is perceived as beneficial to their business goals as suggested by Carrasco- Hernandez and Jimenez-Jimenez (2013) and De Massis et al. (2016).

The researcher was also met with some hostility when he was initially perceived as a representative of a technology provider. However, most businesses became more welcoming once convinced that the purpose of the study was not to sell an ERP system but was purely for independent research. This observation supports the finding from the ERP experts in

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Chapter five that UK retail SFBs are not open to ERP experts deemed as not having business interests but only ERP sales interest. On the other hand, it points to the fact that these businesses may be open to an independent knowledge of the ERP system for their business and not the potential bias of experts toward the companies they represent. The welcoming nature of these businesses gave the researcher a better environment for investigation purposes and he was able to go into the business either as a customer or a researcher at any time. The openness of the SFBs being investigated once convinced about the researcher’s purpose contradicts the closed and hostile system described by experts in Section 5.5.2. The implication of this finding in relation to the research aim is that independent bodies may have more power to propagate ERP adoption to retail SFBs than ERP experts with company affiliations. The reason for this is that SFBs tend to associate with people perceived to have business interests rather than other interests (Kellerman et al, 2014).