DATA COLLECTION

In this section, the method for collecting the data and choosing the participating interview respondents accounting for the primary data will be elaborated. In order to answer the presented research question, the case study methodology has been applied. As such, the thesis at hand seeks to acquire a thorough understanding of the SOUNDBOKS brand and the nature of brand authenticity seen from both an internal and external stakeholder perspective. According to Saunders et al.

(2016), the recommended number of respondents is determined by continuing collecting qualitative data until data saturation is reached, hence, until additional data provide little, if any, new information. Moreover, Saunders et al. (2016) present a rule of thumb, arguing for at minimum sampling size for semi-structured/in-depth interviews around 5-25 respondents. Consequently, this thesis consists of seven internal interviews including SOUNDBOKS founders and employees, which serve the purpose of reflecting the internal stakeholder perspective of SOUNDBOKS’ brand authenticity. In addition, six external interviews have been conducted based on a selection of SOUNDBOKS users in order to understand brand authenticity from an external stakeholder perspective. The selection of respondents is, as previously stated, not based on a desire to make generalised assumptions but rather wish to gain an in-depth understanding of these 13 respondents and their perception of SOUNDBOKS’ brand authenticity.

The external respondents have been selected based on the non-probability method, where respondents are preferred based on explicit requirements or geographic availability (MacNealy, 1999). In addition to the non-probability method, two underlying sampling methods are argued to be of particular interest for the present thesis; volunteer and purposeful sampling (Saunders et al., 2016). In terms of volunteer sampling, the selection of external respondents is built upon voluntary inquiries collected from the online SOUNDBOKS community (Harboe, 2011). As such, the researchers of this thesis posted a post on the SOUNDBOKS Facebook community asking the members whether they would like to participate in a qualitative interview (see appendix 1). In this regard, 12 inquiries were received from individuals interested in participating in an interview;

however, the majority was from Copenhagen. This could potentially bias the overall outcome of the study as it would not include perceptions of SOUNDBOKS’ brand authenticity from consumers

outside of the capital city of Denmark. In order to accommodate this potential bias, the respondents were sorted and selected based on the purposeful sampling method. Purposive sampling is defined as the ‘judgemental sampling that involves the conscious selection by the researcher of certain subjects or elements to include in the study’ (Higginbottom & Awoko, 2004, p. 11). This sampling method is often utilised when operating with case studies with small samples sizes (Neuman, 2005).

The heterogeneous purpose sample was thus performed in order to choose participants located in different regions of Denmark, hence provide variation in the data collected and acquire external perceptions from consumers inside as well as outside the capital region. Moreover, for the purpose of gaining an understanding of the external perception of SOUNDBOKS’ brand authenticity the respondents were explicitly required to own a SOUNDBOKS product. This is argued to be a fundamental criterion to understand the customers’ motivation for buying into the SOUNDBOKS brand. Consequently, based on the purposive sampling method, six respondents were selected out of the 12 inquiries based on their ownership of a SOUNDBOKS product as well as their geographical location.

The internal respondents were selected and invited by the CBO, Hjalte, in accommodation with the researchers. The selection of internal interviews was further determined based on the purposeful sampling method as well. In order to, understand the internal perception of SOUNDBOK S’ brand authenticity across organisational hierarchy levels, the respondents were selected based on their designation of occupation. Consequently, the study will be able to separate brand authenticity from a founder perspective as well as an employee perspective, and thus determine whether the perception is aligned internally. As such, two founders, two executives and three employees is accounting for the internal perspective of SOUNDBOKS’ brand authenticity.

The internal interviews were conducted face-to-face in the meeting-rooms in SOUNDBOKS’ office, which ensured a relaxed atmosphere, as the participants were in a comfortable environment which enables them to speak more freely (Saunders et al., 2016). On the other hand, the external interviews were conducted by telephone, which compared to face-to-face, may have influenced the interaction between the researcher and the respondents. However, according to Saunders et al. (2016), the information gathered by telephone interviews is relatively comparable to the face-to-face interviews, as the approach of questioning is quite similar. Additionally, all external interviews were conducted in Danish, as it is their native language, and further in order to make them feel comfortable and enable them to respond without the barrier of a foreign language. The majority of the internal interviews was further conducted in Danish; however, two respondents did not speak Danish, one was an American and the other German, meaning these interviews were conducted in English.

Before the interview process, two interview-guides was produced; one for the internal respondents and one for the external (see appendix 2). The interview guide was produced with the purpose of answering the research question and was further based on the information gathered from the literature review. The main focus was to illuminate the perceptions of SOUNDBOKS in terms of the brand authenticity, and further how the individual stakeholders make sense of authenticity, in order to gain a deeper understanding about the nature of brand authenticity.

The internal interviews were limited to 30 minutes due to the busy schedule of the employees and founders of SOUNDBOKS, whereas, the external interviews lasted around 1 hour each. The shorter amount of time for the internal stakeholders is not perceived to influence the results, as the respondents, given their expertise was able to answer the questions more quickly and to the point, compared to the external stakeholders who needed more time to understand the questions thoroughly.

All 13 interviews were fully transcribed, thus providing the thematic analysis with more manageable data, which made it easier to code (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In addition, Braun & Clark (2006) argue that transcriptions do not need to be highly detailed when operating with a thematic analysis as the analysis is focussing on what is said rather than how it is expressed. The transcriptions were further done in the language the interview was conducted in, in order to ensure that no data was lost in translation. The full transcriptions can be found in appendix 3 and 4.

The data for the netnographic analysis were collected from the online SOUNDBOKS community established on Facebook and furthermore their social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. The research question and available resources have guided the choices of which data to include and pursue. As a result, the conversations between the internal and external respondents has been argued to be of interest in order to establish the relationship between these in terms of creating brand authenticity (Kozinets, 2002). The researchers have thus scattered the online community and social media platforms for posts and comments within the 12 months. The selection of data used in this analysis is thus chosen based on the researchers’ subjective evaluation of the content, which potentially risks of influencing the results of this analysis.

In table 1.1 and table 1.2 the selected respondents constituting the primary data of this thesis is visualised.

INTERNAL RESPONDENTS:

Table 1.1: Internal respondents EXTERNAL RESPONDENTS:

Table 1.2: External respondents