Master vendor arrangement model

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Methodology and Method

In this section we will discuss our chosen research philosophy, research purpose and research approach combined with our reasoning behind the choices. We will also elaborate on our sampling method and data collections as well as our ethical standpoints.

Research Philosophy

In this thesis we aim at extending the understanding of how a strategic decision to implement a master vendor arrangement influence a company in the Swedish market. We will also further extend our understanding by recognizing, which factors that contributed to the decision of implementing as well as not implementing a master vendor arrangement. This thesis undertakes an interpretive research philosophy by understanding the world as constructed and interpreted by people and therefore is altering from the world of nature (Williamson, 2002). The interpretivistic perspective allows us during our empirical research “to enter the social world of our research subjects and understand their world from their point of view” (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2009, p. 116) which is our goal to truly understand the research topic. Saunders et al (2009) argue that this philosophy is suitable to use when exploring topics related to human actors behaviour and decision-making. This is suitable considering our purpose with this research.
We are encouraged by an interpretivism epistemology, meaning that we strive to understand the diversity among individuals rather then objects (Saunders et al, 2009). Interpretivists recognize themselves as dealing with several realities, which are established both on an individual and a social level (Williamson, 2002). The terminology “social actors” is significant in an interpretivism view and the world is seen as a stage on which humans interact (Saunders et al, 2009). Thereby in our research we are interested in interpreting the various insights and perceptions of the client companies on how a master vendor arrangement have influenced their company.

Research Purpose

Our purpose with this research labels as an exploratory study since we strive to understand, gather observations and insights about the nature of the problem or topic (Saunder, Lewis and Thornhill, 2012). An exploratory research structure can be compared to the actions of a traveller or an explorer (Adams & Schvaneveldt, 1991). According to Yin (2003), an exploratory study is useful when the phenomenon investigated has no well-defined set of conclusions. This research strives to explore how the strategic decision of using a master vendor arrangement influences the end client, by identifying key factors and consequences. Our goal is to outline the influential factors that result from an implementation of a master vendor arrangement through interviews held with individuals responsible for this kind of arrangement. Due to our choice of research purpose, we will receive valuable insights to a yet rather unexplored phenomenon, which will further address the gap in the literature by complementing with new findings and new knowledge.

Research Approach

The inductive research strategy is known as theory building whilst deductive is considered theory testing (Saunders et al., 2012). Bryman and Bell (2007) describes the inductive approach as an approach that gives an understanding on the complex nature by using an iterative approach, which means altering between data and theory. This provides the researcher with a deep understanding that results in theory building. According to Saunders et al. (2012), an inductive approach delivers value to the research in the way that it creates an understanding of the complex and social world that the individual is surrounded by. The research is pursued forward from its prior stages with a foundation built on the interpretations of the authors. Since the phenomena that we are investigating is very specific, there is a limited amount of theories and structural frameworks, which results in theory development.
For the purpose of this thesis, we acknowledge that an inductive approach is more suitable since it allows us to have interpretations and to structure the research upon it. A deductive approach is not suitable considering the low level of previous research in this specific area, which entailed difficulties in establishing a hypothesis. With an inductive approach, we can gain a deeper understanding of the complex nature of the influential factors from a master vendor arrangement and contribute to the current theories regarding this topic. Since we aim at exploring and creating an understanding about a specific problem rather then striving for generalizable answers this chosen approach is more suitable for this thesis.

Selection of firms

The companies chosen for this research were based on a chain sampling. We chose to include companies that currently have this solution implemented as well as companies that have chosen not to implement this solution. To receive a contrasting perspective, our research is also considering consultant brokerage firms offering master vendor arrangements. Chain sampling is a suitable technique to find information-rich informants to interview (Patton, 2002). By using this technique we were able to gain information about appropriate and useful companies to interview that right now or previously have used a master vendor arrangement as well as companies that have chosen not to implement this solution. This method involves asking those that have been interviewed to identify further alternatives that could be of interest for our sample (Saunders et al, 2009). However, this technique can entail actors being biased and only recommending alternatives that are of similar character. Since establishing a first contact with these chosen respondents was hard without a recommendation, we are aware of the biased factor that could arise. Although, this chosen sampling method is disposed to biased behaviour which is not in our control, and as the chosen respondents may have been selected in a convenient way, we still believe that this sampling method to be the most suitable option for this inquiry. This is primarily because of the sensitivity of the topic itself, which makes it complex to get in contact with companies.
Due to our chosen sampling method we complied a list of 23 suitable clients. However, out of these, five end clients accepted a participation in our study, as well as four clients that have chosen to not implement this solution. Among these nine companies, a general interest for our research was expressed as well as a general desire to take part of the results of our completed study. Additionally, due to our chain sampling, recommendations were gained resulting in contact with Sweden’s three largest consultant brokers offering this service.
For our criteria’s regarding our sampling, we chose to focus upon large firms in the public and private sector in the Swedish market. We choose to only focus on large firms since they have a considerable amount of contingent skilled workers present in their company.
The companies that were chosen are operating in diverse industries since we strive to explore the experienced influences indifferent from which industry the company is currently working in. As stated by Patton (2002), using a sampling that is divergent make the similar findings among them stronger. The findings collected for this study has facilitated us to report unique patterns occurring among the sample, which has lead us to key themes.

Selection of respondents

The aim for this thesis was to interview people responsible for the master vendor arrangement, since they would be those with most knowledge in this field. According to McIvor (2005), the person responsible for managing the master vendor arrangement is often the person that has been managing the process internally before the outsourcing and has the most valuable information to share. The selection of respondents was also based on a chain sampling (Saunders et al, 2009). At the end of our interview every responsible manager recommended other individuals that would be of interest for the purpose of the thesis. Managers responsible for the purchasing department for contingent skilled workers of companies not having this solution were also interviewed. This was chosen since we wanted to identify possible implications that an implementation of this kind could create. By gaining valuable insights from both sides of the phenomena a deeper understanding was reached.
Additionally, one regional director, one founder and one purchasing manager from the consultant brokerage firms were interviewed. Including this perspective helped us to better understand the phenomena from their position, which contributed to the ability to validate their answers with those actually using the master vendor arrangement. When including consultant brokerage firms in our research we were able to bring additional value to our research.
At first we approached all the chosen respondents by phone to recognize if there was a general interest to participate in our research. If an interest was shown, a longer phone call followed in which we explained more thoroughly the purpose of the research. Lastly, emails were exchanged to decide upon the details regarding the date and time for a face-to-face interview. Following is a table (See table 3) in which our responding companies are outlined, their size, their industry size, the position of the respondent, date of interview, implementation year and interview duration as well. The table consists of three sections in which the first section consists of end clients with an implemented master vendor arrangement. The second section consists of end clients who have declined a master vendor arrangement. The third section consists of master vendors offering a master vendor arrangement.

Data Collection

Considering the design of this research, the main objective for the collection of our data was to explore how a master vendor arrangement influence companies in the Swedish market, and to create an understanding of what factors that made those companies choose to implement this solution in the first place. To further strengthen our data we chose to also investigate companies that have decided to choose a different path and decline an implementation of a master vendor arrangement. Additionally, to validate the answers from the companies we chose to include consultant brokerage firms offering this implementation as well. The main approach for our data collection is semi-structured interviews and therefore we identify this study as an interview study.

Semi-Structured interviews

According to Morse and Field (1995, p. 76), semi-structured interviews are used “when the researcher knows most of the questions to ask but cannot predict the answers”. We chose this method because it enables the respondent to speak freely and share own experiences and stories in a descripted manner, which generated in a more causal conversation.
This possibility, to take part of the respondent’s stories strengthens the qualitative research by receiving deeper insights (Morse & Field, 1995). This encouraged the conversation to develop into different directions, however, our interview guidelines (See appendix) helped us gain control and follow the outlined structure of the interview. Since we are adopting an interpretivist epistemology, where understanding the position of our respondents is crucial, an semi-structured interview will allow our participants to elaborate and explain their answers making us grasp their viewpoint (Saunders et al, 2009). At the same time, the semi-structured interviews helped us to explore themes and questions on crucial topics for our research.
Our interview guide consisted of two parts. The first part was structured to warm up the respondents by asking informative questions about them and their role in their company. The second part of the interview guide was addressed more towards their strategical decision of implementing or not implementing this kind of solution. The second part also consisted of elaborative questions regarding the implementation and the outcome. Our pilot study enabled us to evaluate our questions and develop them further in order to attain all relevant information through the interviews.
To ensure that all information needed was detained, all interviews have been recorded. An acceptance was first assured before initiating a recording video from the interviewees. All interviews have been transcribed in order to understand the interviewee’s perspective better. After transcribing the interviews, we took a further contact with some of the interviewees in order for them to elaborate more one some statements in order for us to get a deeper understanding.
Our preferred method for the data collection was face-to-face interviews. In all the meetings with companies involved with this kind of solution, as well as with companies choosing not to accept this solution a face-to-face interview was reached. However, Skype interviews became the working method for our consultant brokerage firms offering a master vendor arrangement. Despite this choice of method, we could still collect highly qualified information. Being two researchers present at all scheduled interviews enabled us to minimize interviewer bias and improve our own interview approach. However, in some interviews, we recognized a biased behaviour from the end client, since a usage of such an arrangement may give an appearance of having a very well functioning master vendor. On the other side, the end clients that had chosen to not implement such an arrangement were more sceptical towards the phenomena and pointed out and elaborated more deeply on the development areas with such arrangement rather then just the benefits.

Additional sources for data

Corporate documents were used in our research, which helped us to receive further insights about the companies. These corporate documents included, their internal facts regarding their master vendor implementation. Also, internal PowerPoint presentations were received to understand how such an arrangement could be presented for the management team. The type of data gathered with these characteristics were not applied to a large extent to the analysis of this research but were merely used to aid us in building the foundation of knowledge in this topic and bring further insights in the received interpretations.

Pilot study

To ensure the quality and relevance of the questions and themes discussed during the interviews, a pilot study was conducted (Saunders & Lewis, 2012). A pilot study assists the researchers in clarifying their data collection concerning both the content of the data as well as the procedure itself (Yin, 1994). The author further states that a pilot study is “assisting an investigator to develop relevant lines of questions – possibly even providing some conceptual clarification for the research design as well” (p.74).
Four interviews were conducted in our pilot study. Each of these four interviewees was connected to the master vendor arrangement, either as an end client or as a master vendor. These interviews are not part of our empirical findings but were merely used in a way for us to develop and improve our interview questions.
By conducting a pilot study, we were able to both modify the questions that were not resulting in informative answers for the interviewee, as well as rephrase the questions that were not understood correctly. We were also able to sharpen our questions and our wordings to be able collect richer answers from our respondents later. An initial finding from our pilot study was that overall, the questions were relevant to the subject and the interviewees could elaborate and deliver informative answers. Although, after conducting our pilot study, we could conclude that some questions were too similar, which resulted in comparable answers to several questions.
Furthermore, a few questions led to confusion for the interviewee, which resulted to vague responses since they struggled with understanding the question. After the pilot study was conducted, the questions were discussed with the interviewees. Hence, some questions were then arranged differently in order to minimize the confusion as well as make the interview dialogue more flowing. Furthermore, some questions were then divided into several parts in order to reach a more detailed response from the interviewee.

Analysis of empirical findings

Since our research has an inductive approach, we have chosen an equivalent data analysis technique that is appropriate to use for analysing qualitative data. We have chosen to apply Sunders et al. (2009) analysis technique for qualitative data. According to the authors there are several courses of actions one could take when analysing qualitative data. Three of these are summarizing of meanings, categorization of meanings as well as structuring of meanings using narrative. In this study we have chosen to use summarization as well as categorization in order to conduct a rewarding analysis.
In the beginning of the analysis we transcribed all of our interviews from the audio recordings, and summarized them together with the corporate documents. According to Saunders et al. (2009), a summarized data collection will make it easier to detect emerging themes. By doing so we were able to discover key points and themes that had emerged and further create an understanding regarding the relationships between them.
The next step consisted of categorizing the summarized data. According to Saunders et al. (2009), there are two activities connected to the categorisation step; developing the categories as well as connecting the categories to the data collected.
We used our collected data as the basis when developing our categories, this helped us gain structure that aided us when analysing our collected data further. The key themes that emerged during our analysis regarding the consequences of implementing a master vendor arrangement were: change management, supplier, cost, administration, control and recruitment process.
To proceed with our analysis and continue the analysis from the general findings mentioned above (Saunders et al, 2009) we used a template analysis to analyze our data collection. According to King (2012) a template is defined as a summary of the emerging categories that illustrates the themes from the data collection. Further, Saunders et al. (2009) states that a template analysis blends both an inductive and a deductive approach when analyzing collected qualitative data. This is due to the fact that codes can be established before the data collection and then further on modified as the data collected and analysis proceeds. Throughout our study we have pended between the theoretical framework and the data collected. Our theoretical framework, purpose and research questions are influencing the structure of our interview guide. Furthermore, our empirical findings as well as our analysis will follow the same structure and follow a coherent set of codes. The themes found in our analysis are based upon the codes that emerged before our data collection, which are then modified in the process of the analysis.

Research Quality and Ethics

When conducting a research it is of value for the researchers to reflect upon ones ethical standpoints. When performing a qualitative study, it is essential to be able to assess the trustworthiness of the data. According to Given and Saumure (2008), there are four aspects that researchers should consider, those are: credibility, transferability, dependability and conformability.

Credibility

Credibility is considering the consistency that is held through the research. According to Cope (2014), the credibility of a research is considered enhanced by sharing the empirical findings with the participants. In this research, we have strived to make coherent choices throughout the process. This study can secure credibility since both of the researchers of this thesis has been present at the interviews and in the transcriptions. In addition to this, the respondents reviewed the transcribed interviews in order to ensure truthfully quotations and interpretations. We have held an objective viewpoint throughout the whole research and our goal is to illustrate our data collected as truthfully as possible.

Transferability

Transferability is achieved when the findings from the study have a “meaning to the individuals not involved in the study and readers can associate the results with their own experience” (Cope, 2014). Since a qualitative research rarely have the possibility to investigate a large amount of cases, it is crucial for researchers to include a sample that reflects the population as truthfully as possible. By considering a large range of companies figuring in different industries and investigating their viewpoints towards a master vendor arrangement, our analysis can be applicable to other cases connected to master vendor arrangements in the Swedish consultancy industry.

Dependability

Dependability concerns the capacity in which the researcher can adapt to the dynamic context in which qualitative studies are performed. According to Cope (2014), dependability refers to the perseverance of the findings in a homogenous context. In order to ensure dependability in our research we have considered altering factors in our process of conducting this research. In our research we experienced a situation requiring consideration from our side when collecting data. Since we felt that the number of our sample was to small we increased the number of companies interviewed in order to collect a more comprehensive amount of data.
Furthermore, when conducting our research we recognized that we could gain additional value by including the perspective of master vendors. We choose to include master vendors in our study for two reasons; gaining valuable information regarding master vendor arrangements, as well as gaining data regarding the assumed consequences from a master vendor arrangement for the end client. We were aware of the biased position this may put us in. The information gathered from master vendors regarding master vendor arrangements can be perceived as biased. However, by receiving corporate documents and other information from the master vendor helped us establish an authentic description in which several actors contributed.

Conformability

Conformability concerns the ability to confirm the findings from the collected data. According to Cope (2014), conformability can be achieved through clearly outlining how conclusions were formed and further provide citations from the collected data. In our research we assured conformability through considering different biased behaviours that could affect our study. The findings from our data about the influences from a master vendor arrangement are carefully thought through in order to build a secure foundation of data, which is not influenced by personal assumptions.

Ethics

When conducting our research we have been guided by ethical principles. Saunders et al. (2009, p. 183) points out “that ethics refers to the appropriateness of your behaviour in relation to the rights of those who become the subject of your work, or are affected by it”. All our interviewees were selected based on their approval, and were anonymous throughout the study and neither respondent’s names nor company names were disclosed. Due to the complexity and sensitivity of the topic, the respondents were given pseudonyms in order to ensure their anonymity and grant the respondents the possibility to freely express their thoughts. We let our respondents proofread our transcripts before analysing the data. This was done since we wanted to make sure that we had interpreted the responses correctly and that all our quotations were stated truthfully. This was important for our research and enabled us to have a transparent process.
Furthermore, we felt a large gratitude towards the respondents for taking part in our research and wanted to give them compensation in some sort. By sharing our findings and our results with the respondents, we felt that all parties could gain from our research.

Table of Contents
1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem discussion
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Delimitations
1.5 Structure of the thesis
2 Theoretical framework
2.1 Master vendor arrangement model
2.2 Theories explaining the decision to outsource
2.3 Opportunities with outsourcing
2.4 Risks with outsourcing
2.5 Research questions
3 Methodology and Method
3.1 Research Philosophy
3.2 Research Purpose
3.3 Research Approach
3.4 Selection of firms
3.5 Selection of respondents
3.6 Data Collection
3.7 Analysis of empirical findings
3.8 Research Quality and Ethics
4 Empirical Findings
4.1 Section I
4.2 Section II
4.3 Section III
4.4 Empirical Summary
5 Analysis
5.1 Strategic decision of using a master vendor arrangement
5.2 Strategic decision of not implementing a master vendor arrangement
5.3 The influences on end clients from a master vendor arrangement
5.4 Predicted outcome VS. Real outcome
5.5 Proposed framework
6 Conclusion
6.1 Discussion
6.2 Practical and theoretical implications
6.3 Limitations
6.4 Suggestions for future research
7 References
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