3. METHODOLOGY
3.5 Netnography
Kozinets (2012) defines netnography as “a specialized form of ethnographic research that has been adapted to the unique contingencies of various types of computer-mediated social interaction” (p. 39), making it convenient to understand the digitalization’s’ impact on consumers’ expectations and the propensity of sharing their experiences online.
The purpose of netnography as a instrument is explained by Kozinets (2002) as to "understand the discourse and interactions of people engaging in computer-mediated communication about market-oriented topics” (p. 64), which allows to understand the case of Relæ in an online environment. De Valck et al. (2009) similarly perceived a benefit of netnography as providing opportunities for members to gain “rich, encompassing, and influential” insights into the “word-of-mouth processes in virtual communities” (p. 200), why netnography is chosen as the primary data collection method, due to the fact that an understanding of the online phenomena and consumers behavior is crucial in order to answer the research objectives. In relation to the intrinsic case study approach, this was used to explore the structures emphasized in the social constructivist perspective, as this method is based on the research method, which was formed by research objectives.
Kozinets et al., (2012) argue that along with web 2.0 and the digitalization, is the consumer behavior primarily pronounced on digital channels or platforms, making the online communication very informative in relation to the research topic chosen for this thesis. Additionally, Kozinets (2002) refers to netnography as “a new qualitative research methodology that adapts ethnographic research techniques to the study of cultures and communities emerging through electronic networks” (p. 62), why it is contributing to the research as a beneficial tool of information to discover practices related to the service consumers’ online behavior and the digitalization’s’ contribution to this.
One of the methodological advantages of netnography (Kozinets, 2002) is moreover its "unobtrusive nature", allowing the researcher to monitor the communication and interaction of community members, to gain practical insights into their consumers’ behavior. It is important to understand the consumers' stance, to examine the perception of the service quality and hence the digitalization’s’
impact hereon. Therefore, it is valuable to understand the consumer’s expectations, perception of
38
service performance and how the different interactions take place online. They are key in order to understand the motivations for appraising the service encounter in public online communication, with appraisal or complaints, which makes netnography an ideal tool in order to answer the research objectives of this thesis. This type of identification and content division is corresponding to the proposed netnographic behavior suggested by Kozinets (2012) and underlines a accurate content analysis and the interaction in order to show results of this integration of information types, social signs and symbolic meaning.This structure of data is used in the thesis in order to make a distinction between the communication channel that is used, by who and thus who is in control. The structure of data is further described in types of information; Company-generated information is reported CI "Company Information"
(which is typically the company that tries to create awareness through social media, such as Facebook or Instagram and where the company is in control of the information). Public generated information is reported PI "Public Information" (which is media such as newspapers and blogs, who writes about the company in connection with interviews or public statements, where the company has only partial control, due to the nature of the bloggers' or journalists' bias) and eventually the
"user-generated information" reported UI (which is the user generated information in the form of reviews).
The analysis in chapter 4, references to the of the data collected are used. Here are the following abbreviations, which refer to the section and where they are found in Appendix. Interviews uses the abbreviation I_ #, where the number after the letter, indicates which interview it concerns (Appendix 9.4). The interviews that have been necessary to translate are also found in this appendix, where the original quote as well as the translated is available.
Reviews uses the abbreviation R_ #, where the number after the letter indicates which review that is in question (Appendix 9.5, 9.6, 9.7). Likewise, Instagram posts refer to the abbreviation IG_ # (Appendix 9.8) and Facebook posts F_ #. (9.9). When using reviews translated into English, this is enrolled in Appendix 9.11.
39
Figure 3.1 - Service attributes, authors own creation
This model was made, based on the data collection of the 50 observed reviews and compared to the theory, in order to use in the analysis of the service encounter stage. This was to examine which service attributes that are important to the customer in a restaurant visit (Appendix 9.5, 9.6, 9.7).
3.5.1 Pilot Test and Case Selection
A pilot test was made based on real world observations as it is considered that digitalization’s’
impact on the restaurant industry. The motivation behind this pilot test was to understand three cases of restaurants’ general communication and their consumers’ interactions available online and thereby to select the most appropriate case to study.
Three possible cases, here three restaurants were compared, which as before mentioned, according to Frederiksen (2015) are similarly position in the gastronomic field of Copenhagen - Relæ, Kadeau and Noma. These restaurants are also chosen from the fact that the investigator has not visited any of the restaurants, which eliminates the chance of bias. This test gave an insight into consumers’
satisfaction with the restaurant and their propensity to recommend it to their personal network. NPS was a good indicator of the level of satisfaction and loyalty, which otherwise takes longer time to measure (figure 1.3). This ultimately resulted in Relæ being chosen as case study based on the calculated NPS score, as this case study had the greatest potential for understanding the power dynamics of consumers throughout. The NPS is calculated by dividing the scores in the three groups; promoters (5*), passives (4*) and detractors (3*, 2*, 1*). By adding and finding the percentage of the detractors as well as the promoters, and minus these percentages, the NPS score is found (Appendix 9.2).
This pilot test therefore made it possible to collect and build the theory when formulating a theoretical framework to deepen the understanding of these online phenomena by first applying the
40
inductive approach. De Valck et al. (2009) states that "the perception of observational netnography directly contrasts to more traditional qualitative research methods used to understand behavior such as focus groups, personal interviews, and ethnographies. Simply monitoring online communities via observational netnographic techniques could be considered a more rapid and cost-effective research method" (p. 197), why observational netnography is used for the pilot test, with the purpose of explaining the online interactions.Based on the notion that the level of the piloted data was limited to three cases, enabled an investigating and understanding how the impact of digitalization and the easily accessible conversations that takes place online. This made it possible to make the theoretical framework based on the research objectives that were made in order to understand this development's impact on perceived service quality. This provided a sufficient amount of data in order to make a final decision on a case and the theory choices that were representative for this type of information. This was done to understand the types of interactions in reviews on Tripadvisor and Facebook. The generated information from here was then used to understand and thus limit the data pool, to a selection and a variety of interactions that were sufficient examples of the type of reviews that Relæ receives.
3.5.2 Analysis of Netnographic Results
Figure 3.2 - Service attributes - author’s own creation
To get an overview of the data collected and to use it in the analysis, the 50 collected reviews were coded in relation to the service attributes that were observed as important to the customers in connection with a restaurant experience in the pilot test. The outcomes that had a total base of less than 10 codes have not been included, due to the small comparison base.