The Qualitative Part of the Case Study

The qualitative case study indicates a semi-structured data collection strategy in order to provide better documentation of the evidence (Yin, 2014b). However, in order to enhance data credibility and gain a more complete and objective picture of the representative phenomenon (Yin, 2014b), secondary data through documentary sources were collected from Equinor. This approach is well suited to obtain an overview of the new situation that Equinor faced when it comes to developing new, clean alternative solutions. Figure 9 describes the research method used in the qualitative study.

Phase 2: Quantitative Phase 1: Qualitative

Data Collection and Analysis

Data Collection and Analysis

Overall Interpretation

Figure 9. Flowchart illustrating the qualitative research process

Creswell (2007); Saunders (2012) suggest that a number of semi structured/in-depth interviews could be between 5 to 25 participants. At the same time, researchers should focus on understanding ‘how questions – rather than how many’ and for understanding a phenomena (Pratt, 2009). In addition, several important factors that should be taken into consideration, such as quality of data and the amount of useful information obtained from each participant (Morse, 2000). Therefore, this qualitative paper relies not only on primary data but, also, on secondary data.

According to the primary data, a contact person was contacted by email and a meeting was arranged in Equinor’s main office in Oslo in order to discuss the whole purpose of the study, the kind of data needed, how many interviews and the desired structure of the interviews (duration, questions to be asked, etc.). The contact person helped select 15 key persons to interview and arranged, in total, 12 interviews (nine in-depth individual interviews and three in-depth mini focus groups with two participants each). The key persons are consultants, project managers, economists, head of projects, advisers and engineers. Appendix A presents an overview of the 15 selected key persons, their positions and date of the interviews. However, secondary data were collected through documentary sources such as annual reports, sustainability reports, RE reports, energy perspectives reports, conferences, presentations and other resources such as news articles and interviews on local TV. The secondary data were coded and analysed in order to provide a comparison for the primary data.

Interviews with Equinor employees were collected over a three-year period and followed a narrative approach with minimum interruption by the interviewer in order to provide better documentation of the evidence (Yin, 2014b). Most interviews took place in Equinor’s office in Oslo, with some interviews being conducted by video call (skype). In addition, the interview guide and a short description of the study were sent to the interviewees in advance. At the end of the interviews, the interviewees were asked if they had any questions or concerns, they would like to add.

Stage 2 Stage 1

Qualitative data collection

Qualitative data analysis

Primary Data Three in-depth mini

focus groups (two participants in each)

Primary Data Nine individual in-depth interviews

Secondary Data Annual reports,

sustainability report, conferences,

news, etc.

Interview questions developed and

refined

1. Transcribe the data 2. Organize ideas and concepts

3. Generate a large pool of items

4. Coding process started with a deductive approach and following an inductive approach

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The aim of the interviews was to obtain an insight into Equinor’s transition towards sustainability. This is important in order to understand who is responsible for reshaping the company’s strategy and how the sustainable transition is understood and accepted in the company. The interview questions were based on Suchman’s types of legitimacy (moral, pragmatic and cognitive) and the nature of Equinor’s sustainable transition. For instance, to probe Suchman’s (1995, p. 579) moral legitimacy that asks about the ‘right thing to do’, questions such as ‘How could RE count as a business case for engaging in environmental solution?’ and ‘What kind of benefits do Equinor and society gain from engaging in RE cases?

(Tips: reduced costs, improve resources efficiency, reduce risk, legal liability etc)’ were raised.

Equinor as a large established company considers ‘a right thing to do’ as a business case that will reduce its costs as well as bring profit to the company. Thus, for moral legitimacy, the authors looked for statements indicating an acceptance of Equinor’s responsibility to ‘do the right thing’. For pragmatic legitimacy that ‘rests on the self-interested calculations of an organization’s most immediate audiences’ (Suchman, 1995, p. 578), questions such as ‘What kind of competence (employee background, managerial competence/charisma) do you have to support sustainable transition?’ and ‘Do you think engaging in RE practices is a right decision to make now? Why?’ were raised. Thus, for pragmatic legitimacy, the authors looked for statements indicating an understanding of the sustainable shift and for a self-interest in translating a sustainability agenda into action. Meanwhile, for cognitive legitimacy that counts a company legitimate when it is understandable, rather than desirable (Suchman, 1995).

Questions such as ‘How did you find working in RE projects and making decisions compared with OG?’ and ‘How could RE cases be a potential source of competitive advantage?’ were raised. Thus, for cognitive legitimacy, the authors looked for statements indicating the knowledge needed for a sustainable shift in order to understand whether Equinor’s employees accept the purpose of Equinor’s new sustainable strategy. More details about the questions asked during the interviews are given in Appendix B.

As part of the data analysis, all interviews were recorded and transcribed. In addition, Nvivo (a qualitative management tool) was used to build the main themes and code the data. However, in order to increase the overall quality of the coding process, the data were coded twice, and the co-author (my supervisor Professor Elin M. Oftedal) read and approved the suggested codes.

According to the coding process, the direct content analysis approach was used to code both primary and secondary data (secondary data was used to support the result from primary data) (Zhang & Wildemuth, 2009), by summarising the raw data into categories or themes (Patton, 2002). Thus, the initial broad coding step started with a deductive analysis based on internal legitimacy theory. As mentioned before, for moral legitimacy, the authors looked for statements indicating an acceptance of the company´s responsibility to ‘do the right thing’. For pragmatic legitimacy, the authors looked for an understanding of the sustainable transition based on the self-interest of the organisation. Finally, for cognitive legitimacy, the authors looked for an endorsement of the knowledge needed for the sustainable transition.

For the second step of data analysis, following Zhang & Wildemuth (2009) and Hsieh and Shannon (2005), an inductive approach was used and involved identifying coding categories derived directly from the raw data in a ‘line by line approach’, where the authors looked at each sentence separately and allowed themes to emerge. Finally, a pattern-matching technique was used to compare the patterns obtained from this qualitative study with patterns from past studies, knowledge and theory (Gibbs, 2002; Yin, 1994). This is essential in order to examine the correctness of the developed propositions and to build explanations on whether and why the patterns matched or not (Almutairi et al., 2013).

However, it is important to note that there are some limitations concerning the validity and reliability of the data collected in the study. For example, the questions developed in the interview guide are suggestive where it includes questions that I considered important for the study. Therefore, some of the interviews were carried out as focus groups in order to provide an interesting discussion between the participants. In addition, my own understanding of legitimacy theory might have introduced some inaccuracies according to the form of questions developed. I might have some overlapping questions between the three types of legitimacy.

Therefore, in the coding process I made sure to code the right statements under its related theme (moral, pragmatic and cognitive legitimacy). In addition, my contact person arranged the interviews and selected the participants of the study, which might lead to sample selection bias.

However, in order to improve the quality of the method employed in data collection and analysis, a data reduction process (triangulation) was followed to enable better comparison of the different types of data from both primary and secondary data (Miles, Huberman, &

Saldana1994). This is important in order to gain a more complete and objective picture of the representative phenomenon (Yin, 2014b). In addition, in order to avoid the use of subjective conceptualisation and judgments, the quotes derived from the transcripts was sent to the contact person to obtain feedback and further reflections. As a result, this helped shift the main logical frame from exploring data using retroduction (refine and redevelop theory) to verifying theory through deduction (develop propositions and test them) (Van De Ven & Poole, 2002).