The Quantitative Method

Data is collected cross sectionally using a survey strategy, more specifically an online questionnaire, which is typically a quantitative research strategy (Saunders et al., 2009). The questionnaire provides insight into people’s knowledge and consumption of the product, Naturli’ Hakket and the reasons behind the purchase. Furthermore, the questionnaire allows the researchers to get an insight into people’s demographics. As the mixed method approach is used, the research design has been applied so that some of the listed questions have an open-ended choice “other”. The open-open-ended question allows the respondent to write one’s own answer, which can be seen in Appendix 9. Using a questionnaire to gather data was favoured because it is possible to generate a lot of data in a limited timeframe. Cross-sectional data collection was chosen to get a lot of data and to get a better understanding of whether the partnership with Naturli’ had generated the value for which Plastic Change hoped (Saunders et al., 2009). For example, Plastic Change hoped that the partnership with Naturli’ would create brand awareness about Plastic Change. The questionnaire allows the researchers to investigate whether or not the partnership has had this effect. Also, the questionnaire provides the opportunity to investigate the segment which purchased and had knowledge about Naturli’

Hakket to see if this corresponds with the segment which typically supports Plastic Change.

Of course, there is also a margin of error that should be considered when gathering data through a questionnaire. The chance of a low number of respondents can question if the data collected can be considered valid to use in the investigation. The number of respondents for the questionnaire in use was 427 persons, which the researchers perceive as a high number of respondents making the research valid and reliable. The number of respondents and their responses will be further analysed to establish validity and reliability.

As it has already been stressed that the research is done with a view in interpretivism, perceptions and meanings about Naturli’ Hakket and Plastic Change are considered socially constructed and subjective. Therefore, is it difficult to apply the traditional quality criteria of reliability and validity as there is no such thing as one truth (Saunders et al., 2009). However,

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using a questionnaire increases the chances that the results can be replicated by other studies (ibid.). To ensure the reliability of the data, a pilot test on 11 respondents was conducted. The respondents provided feedback on the questionnaire to ensure that the questions were clearly expressed and understood in the same way by the researchers and respondents. To ensure validity, questions about gender, age, education and region of living were asked in order to compare the respondents, to establish if the questionnaire represented a broad segment or not.

Also, when the questionnaire was shared on Facebook and LinkedIn, the researchers purposefully chose not to stress that the topic of the thesis was about the partnership of Plastic Change and Naturli’, in order not to bias the respondent’s answers.

It was clearly written that the topic in the questionnaire was about Naturli’ Hakket in order to reach the people who either had knowledge about the product or had purchased it. Even though this was done, the respondents were still asked questions e.g. “Do you know the product: Naturli’

Hakket” and “Have you purchased the product Naturli’ Hakket?” (Appendix 9). This was done as the researchers used their social networks to share the questionnaire, meaning other people who knew the researchers were able to post and share the questionnaire online in order to reach more respondents. When other people shared the questionnaire, there was no guarantee that the introduction on Facebook/LinkedIn would be the original one written by the researchers. Therefore, the introduction was the first thing the respondents would see, when opening the questionnaire, to ensure all respondents had the same information about the questionnaire before answering it (Mathers, Fox, & Hunn, 2006; Saunders et al., 2009).

The Questionnaire: Data collection

The questionnaire was answered by 427 respondents from all over Denmark (and very few respondents from abroad), both men and women between the ages of 20 and 70 years old (See Appendix 9). Since Naturli’ focuses on the Danish market the researchers were only interested in responses from the Danish population, which is why the questionnaire was written in Danish.

Responses from abroad can, however, not be omitted and therefore 1.7 percent of the respondents did not live in Denmark.

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To ensure privacy and to obtain the most reliable data by avoiding or trying to reduce the number of respondents biased to provide certain responses, all respondents where anonymous. According to Saunders et al. (2009), this is typically not a major concern with questionnaires but due to the fact the respondents were reached from the researchers Facebook and LinkedIn networks, it seemed valid to emphasise the above to ensure the reliability of the data. It should also be noted that the respondents could be biased in several ways. First of all, the respondents might have heard about the topic of the thesis, which could lead them to give answers that they thought would benefit the research the most. Another factor is that the respondents do not necessarily constitute a representative sample of the population in terms of various demographics such as geographic location, age and income.

The questions in the questionnaire are “listed questions” (Mathers et al., 2006). Listed questions allow the respondents to choose one or more of the possible answers. The last option in the listed questions, “Other”, often appears to allow respondents to write their own answer if they did not find the any of the listed questions appropriate. If the respondents found none of the answers in the listed questions appropriate and the “Other” category was not available;

another option was to press the button “Do not know”. The researchers chose not to have any open-ended questions in the questionnaire. An open-ended question is a question where the respondents must answer the question subjectively and are not given any response options whatsoever. The aim of the questionnaire was to get a scope of the segment who had heard about Naturli’ Hakket or who had purchased the product and if the respondent had knowledge about the partnership between Plastic Change and Naturli’. The aim was not to get the subjective opinions of the respondents, even though they, to some extent, were still able to express their opinions under the “Other” option.

The structure of the questionnaire was set up to introduce the respondents to the subject. The first questions were to clarify if they had knowledge about the product and then about Plastic Change. The questions moved on to clarify the reasons behind the purchase, as Saunders et al.

(2009) recommend placing the more complex questions related to opinions in the middle of the questionnaire. In the last part of the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to enter information about gender, age, region of living and education (Appendix 9; Mathers et al., 2006). Some scholars argue that a questionnaire cannot be anonymous if you ask the

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respondents to provide information about their gender (Mathers et al., 2006). Even though the researchers ask for the respondents gender they still perceive the respondents as anonymous since their names are not queried. We argue that in this investigation the particular question is needed in order to investigate whether or not the segment which purchased Naturli’ Hakket corresponds with the segment which typically is members of Plastic Change.

In order to ensure a high response rate, the questionnaire was constructed so that only relevant questions were asked. Doing this meant that not all respondents would be asked the same questions. Depending on whether they replied “Yes” or “No” to a question they would be redirected to the next appropriate question. For example, if the respondent answered “No” to the question: “Do you know the product Naturli’ Hakket?” then the respondent was not being asked, “Did you buy the product Naturli’ Hakket?”. Instead, the respondent was redirected to the next appropriate question, which in that case would be “Do you know the Organisation Plastic Change?”

Another measure taken to ensure a high number of respondents, and for all respondents to complete the questionnaire, was that the introduction stated that it would take approximately 2-3 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Furthermore, it was clearly stated after the final question, that all that was left to do was to provide information about the respondents themselves. This was an amendment as the pilot study respondents recommended it and it was also the researchers own preference when completing a questionnaire.

The Questionnaire: Analysis

The questionnaire was developed using both design and analysis software from SurveyMonkey (SurveyMonkey.com, 2018). Using this software enables the researchers to filter the categorical data and numerical data collected from the questionnaire (Saunders et al., 2009), in any way necessary and present it as graphs and tables.

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