Methodology

There are a number of data collection methods that can be used in qualitative research such as observations, textual or visual assessment and interviews. The aforementioned category can, in essence be of three types: structured, semi-structured and unstructured (Gill et al., 2008). For the purpose of this paper, expert interviews of structured nature have been used as the data collection procedure, characterized by directly addressing predetermined questions to a sample of

respondents with minimum or no variation in the formulation (Gill et al., 2008). The expert attribute of this interview refers to the selected sample of interviewees, all experts with the domain of place marketing and branding.

Content analysis literature dates back more than half a century ago when Holsti (1969) described it as being a technique for making educated deductions by objectively identifying characteristics of messages. Inferences have a very stand-out role in this context due to the fact that moving from a text to a meaningful content has to be done using analytical constructs or rules of inference (Whyte and Marsh 2006). More recently, Stemler (2000, p. 5) presented this research method as “a systematic, replicable technique for compressing many words of text into fewer content categories based of explicit rules of coding”. In essence, content analysis is a malleable research method, with a variety of positive uses, applicable to a multitude of information analysis cases, either individually or in combination with other methods (Whyte and Marsh, 2006).

Researchers tend to opt for content analysis due to a multitude of reasons such as result pattern mapping, understanding the purpose of the answers, signalling propaganda conflicts and biases, observing communication variations in particular contexts or inspecting the flow of information within the responses (Luo, 2019). This method can be applied in qualitative research framework using a variety of techniques for analysis in order to unveil findings (Whyte and Marsh, 2006).

The data that is gathered prior to performing this analysis needs to attain to several criterions of validity, first one being that it should of course present functional evidence that can be used as raw material for the researcher to enable answering the various research questions. The importance of validity has been pointed out in the works of Kripenndorff (2004, p. 44) where the author stated that

“because the raison d'etre of content analysis is the absence of direct observational evidence, validation may be difficult or infeasible, if not impossible, in practice.”

In conformity with the above-mentioned validity expectations, the data was gathered prior to the research and the validity concerns have been minimized by default due to the sample of selected interviewees. A total number of twenty-two individuals from all over the world have been inquired about the subject, all of them having the status of experts in the field of place marketing and branding and are active participants in The Place Brand Observer (TPBO) community. The Place Brand Observer is an online platform launched in 2014 that supports access to research insights and expert knowledge, with the help of its collaborators and contributors managing to become the top research library and collector of place branding articles and data, frequently using expert interviews within the community to reflect on industry trends, new findings and opportunities. Further validity evaluation has been performed within the content analysis process and certain biases or out-of-scope information has been pointed out and not weighed in the overall outcome.

Commented [SZ2]: This is a DIRECT quote and need a page number. These mistakes will lower your grade by one at least (worst case this can end up with CBS legal to check plagiarism.) So be very careful and rigours here.

Commented [SZ3]: Direct quote!

Commented [SZ4]: This sentence is way too long. Make 2 or 3 sentences out of it.

Commented [SZ5]: Why different font size? Direct quote, page number needed. With these 3 mistakes your final grade would have gone down a full level now. So be careful! ;)

Commented [SZ6]: Do you describe somewhere your participants? At least the info you have (X number of experts from the blab la -> explaining what the PlaceBrandObserver is…); time of data collection… etc.

The first step that needs to be considered when attempting to perform qualitative content analysis is the elaboration of research questions; meaning open questions that have the role of steering the research in the wanted direction. The answered content itself provides the information for the researcher to examine in order to elaborate patterns and postulations, but at any time new patterns that can provide different insights might surface that can justifiably shift the interests and research questions into new directions (Whyte and Marsh, 2006).

Following the first step, a sample text is chosen, which for qualitative content analysis the researcher needs to be constantly attentive to a variety of meanings that can be interpreted upon close evaluation, since the objective is not necessarily to generalize the results but more to be able to transfer them to different context or settings. Consequently, it is beyond the scope of sampling that all analysed elements have an equal probability of inclusion in the sample (Whyte and Marsh, 2006).

Coding follows the two previous steps, which in this context refers to an operationalisation of the initial shapeless concepts, which means allocating them in categories that enable the evaluation of ability to answer the raised research questions. Mandatory to point out, these questions are meant to guide the beginning of the data analysis process; but this is an inductive process, shaping a generalized conclusion from specific answers (Kripenndorff, 2004; Whyte and Marsh, 2006).The end goal of quality content analysis is to depict an image of a phenomenon in a particular context and not necessarily to present a rigid reality (Whyte and Marsh, 2006).

The use of computer software to aid in the analysis of data (even qualitative) has made work easier for researchers since the 1950s (Sebok and Zeps, 1958). The reason for this is that it minimizes and automizes tedious work such as word counting, indexing clustering and relationship building around data Kripenndorff (2004).

Due to technological advancements, it has become a common practice to use computer software as tool to facilitate qualitative or quantitative content analysis. The reasons for this are that it makes the entire process much more visual through the software interface, simplifies the manipulation and maintaining of data while at the same time enabling replication. Minimizing human error and allowing the exporting of data and statistics in various formats while also being more time efficient.

The software that will be used in order to efficiently analyse the data is NVivo: a qualitative data analysis program designed to organize, evaluate and provide insights from qualitative data (NVivo, About Us)

Due to the vast, complex and somewhat scattered collected answers from our panel of experts, a separate tool has been used in order to simplify the visualisation of the data through creation of a

‘Weighed Mind Map’, a cluster relationship illustration that uses the single numerical metric that can be drawn from the performed research: number of references. This metric will aid in observing how many of the interview respondents agree on certain aspects as well as showing areas that are predominated by uncertainty.