Data analysis

44 Interview 4

The fourth interview used in the analysis is a previously conducted group interview with representatives from a large international logistics service provider and a smaller transport company in Copenhagen (Appendix 2d). The interview was conducted by two researchers from CBS, and have not previously been used. The interview was part of collecting data for another project on urban transport and city logistics, and as such, the questions are not the same as the ones posed in the interviews conducted by the author. However, as it is the same area of interest, the participants largely touched upon the topics related to the research objectives and the research question.

Interview 5

Similar to the fourth interview, the fifth interview used in the analysis is a previously conducted interview with a small transport company in Copenhagen (Appendix 2e). It was conducted by a researcher at CBS for a different project on urban transport and city logistics and has not previously been used. The questions are once again not the same as those posed in the interviews by the author, but the participant discussed the issues related to the research objectives and the research question to a large extent.

4.4.1.2 Document secondary data

The second source of data in the project is from documentary information. Documents come in many varieties, including letters, agendas and meeting minutes, other administrative documents, and newspaper articles, to mention some (Yin, 2003). With the aim to provide additional insights on the institutional environment in Copenhagen, the documents used in the study are introductory information about the freight network and the issues and wishes of the transport companies that take part in it, as well as meeting minutes from the two meetings that have been organized since the network was established in December 2015. The documents can be found in Appendix 3.

45 4.4.2.1 Semi-structured interviews

The data is analyzed based on the theoretical framework depicted in section 3. This approach to analysis leans towards deduction in the sense that existing theory is used to shape the process of doing research and analyzing the data (Saunders et al., 2016). However, the abductive approach of the project supports an ongoing process of adapting the framework according to what emerges from the data rather than rigidly sticking to the framework. As such, the analysis leans towards both a deductive and an inductive approach.

All the interviews have been analyzed through the thematic analysis technique for qualitative data. The purpose of this approach to analyzing qualitative data is to search for themes that occur across a data set.

The data is coded in order to identify themes or patterns that are related to the research question and that can be analyzed further. The approach is seen as a generic and systematic way to analyze qualitative data, which offers flexibility in terms of philosophical position and use (Saunders et al., 2016). Due to the interactive and interrelated nature of qualitative data collection and analysis, the data has been analyzed and interpreted on an ongoing basis while concurrently undertaking more interviews. This interactive process allows for the discovery of themes, patterns, and relationships in new data as well as examining and re-coding existing data as the research advances (Saunders et al., 2016). In addition to writing interview memos after each interview, the interviews were transcribed in order to prepare the data for analysis. While this is a time-consuming activity, it both enables the coding process of the analysis and may lead to the appearance of unforeseen knowledge when going through the data several times. The summaries of interviews are used in the section on data collection. All transcripts can be found in Appendix 2.

The process for thematic analysis can be divided into four steps: (1) becoming familiar with the data, (2) coding the data, (3) searching for themes and recognizing relationships, and (4) refining themes and testing propositions (Saunders et al., 2016). Interview memos and transcripts enable the author to become familiarized with the data, and preparing for the coding process. A code is “most often a word or short phrase that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence-capturing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language-based or visual data” (Saldaña, 2013, p. 3), and coding is seen as the critical link in connecting the data to meaning (Charmaz, 2001, in Saldaña, 2013). The purpose of coding is to be able to create themes based on the codes and the patterns and relationships between them. Thus, a theme is “a broad category incorporating several codes that appear to be related to one another” (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 584).

Some themes are main themes while others are secondary-level or tertiary-level themes. Refining the themes allows for the development of a structured and coherent analytical framework to complete the analysis of

46 the data. This step also involves testing the propositions or relationships between the themes with the data in order to increase validity. Focusing on common themes that emerged in the literature on urban freight transport enabled the author to stick to the research question and objectives of the study. The analysis started out with six holistic codes (Saldaña, 2013), absorbing issues in the data as a whole rather than doing a line-by-line approach. The holistic codes are institutional pressures, stakeholders, issues and challenges, approaches, objectives, and proposed solutions. They were chosen based on the research question and research objectives, as well as previous research. The thematic analysis can be found in Appendix 4, and the findings will be presented in the Analysis section.

4.4.2.2 Document secondary data

The documents have been used to strengthen the project with facts and background information about both the freight network established by Copenhagen municipality and the urban freight issues that logistics service companies face when delivering in urban Copenhagen. The documents are not analyzed according to any analytical technique, due to the semi-structured interviews and the insights obtained therein are the main focus of the study.

Methodological concept Choice in project Implications

Ontology Subjectivist/Objectivist Reality partially exists externally to interviewees but is also constructed through their interpretations and perceptions

Epistemology Pragmatism The research project guides the

methodological choices of the project in order for the study’s findings to be applicable in practice

Axiology Values matter The author’s values matter for

choice of research topic, methods, and work on the project, which needs to be accounted for

Logistics research approaches Systems approach and actors approach

Urban logistics service providers are part of a larger system of stakeholders, and their strategies will impact these. This reality is understood through interviewees’

experiences.

Research purpose Exploratory Gaining insights about a topic

through better understanding a phenomenon

Approach to theory development Abduction Examining a phenomenon from new perspectives, aiming at developing or elaborating theory

47

Research strategy Case study Seeks to understand a particular

phenomenon in a specific context Data collection Semi-structured interviews and

documents

Qualitative data which will enable understanding of perceptions and interpretations

Data analysis Thematic analysis Seeks to find the most important

themes in an interviewees discourse to shed light on a specific topic

Table 7. Methodological considerations. Source: Author

Chapter IV