A New Dynamic approach on stakeholder’s
model:
A case study on strategic intentions of non-profit healthcare industry in South Africa
MSc Entrepreneurship Master Thesis
Student: Pablo Aguirre
Supervisor: PhD. Nazlihan Ugur
Index
1 Introduction ... 6
1.1 Introduction ... 6
1.2 Background to the study ... 6
1.3 Research questions/objectives ... 7
1.4 Research methodology and approach ... 7
2 Literature review ... 8
2.1 Existing classifications of stakeholders ... 8
2.1.1 Stakeholders defined through its boundaries ... 9
2.1.2 Stakeholders defined through its influences ... 11
2.1.3 Stakeholders defined through its importance (salience) ... 12
2.2 Strategic intent as the connecting issue among stakeholders ... 14
2.2.1 Strategic intent from within the organization compared to internal stakeholders ... 14
2.2.2 Strategic intent taken from an outside perspective compared to the external stakeholders ... 15
2.3 The Stakeholder relationships at the level of the strategic intents ... 17
2.3.1 The relationship between organization strategic intent and stakeholders’ strategic intent can be classified in terms of alignment ... 18
2.3.2 Internal stakeholder’s relationship of positive alignment ... 21
2.4 Typologies of external stakeholders in the health industry ... 22
3 Research methodology and approach ... 24
3.1 Research paradigm and philosophy ... 24
3.2 Description of inquiry strategy and broad research design ... 25
3.2.1 Research Phases ... 26
3.3.1 Qualitative Research ... 28
3.3.2 Quantitative Research ... 32
3.4 Sampling ... 34
3.4.1 Units of analysis ... 34
3.4.2 Research sampling techniques ... 34
3.4.3 Research sample size ... 34
3.5 Data collection and analysis ... 35
3.5.1 Data collection: Qualitative phase ... 35
3.5.2 Data collection: Quantitative phase ... 36
3.5.3 Data analysis ... 36
3.6 Research ethics ... 38
4 Results ... 40
4.1 Results from the qualitative analysis ... 40
4.2 Interpretation of the quantitative results ... 44
5 Discussion and Conclusion ... 51
5.1 Research findings ... 51
5.2 Theoretical and practical implications of the research ... 52
5.3 Limitations of the research ... 53
6 References ... 55
7 Appendix ... 60
7.1 Matrix to classify stakeholders in an organization according to its influences and boundaries to the organization ... 60
7.2 Categories of an organization’ stakeholders ... 60
7.3 Adapted questionnaire to measure Strategic Intent existence ... 60
7.4 Transcription of the First interview ... 61
7.5 Transcription of the Second interview ... 66
7.6 Consulted documents sources for the document review per external stakeholder (organization) ... 69
7.7 Questions measuring importance (salience) of stakeholders ... 70
7.8 Results from First Phase: Documentary analysis ... 71
7.9 Stakeholders surfacing from the Semi-structured interview ... 72
7.11 Strategic intent of external stakeholders according to them ... 76
7.12 Strategic intent of the organization according to internal stakeholders . 81 7.13 Dynamic Map of External Stakeholders ... 98
List of tables Table 1: Relevant aspects regarding stakeholders theory ... 9
Table 2: Example 7.1 Matrix to classify stakeholders in an organization according to its influ-ences and boundaries to the organization ... 31
Table 3: Emerging themes regarding the Organizational strategic intent ... 41
Table 4: Summary stakeholders perception ... 44
Table 5: Funding organizations perception of alignment ... 45
Table 6: Other External Stakeholders perception of alignment ... 45
Table 7: Competitors perception of alignment ... 46
Table 8: International Tertiary Institutions perception of alignment ... 47
Table 9: National Tertiary Institutions perception of alignment ... 47
Table 10: Special Interests / Advocacy Groups perception of alignment ... 47
Table 11: Accreditation Bodies / Authorities perception of alignment ... 48
Table 12: International Bodies perception of alignment ... 49
Table 13: Implementation partners perception of alignment ... 49
List of figures Figure 1: Graphical representation of the stakeholders defined through its boundaries adapted from Dansky and Gamm (2004) ... 10
Figure 2: Graphical representation of the stakeholders defined through its influences ... 11
Figure 3: Graphical representation of Stakeholders defined through its importance (salience) ... 12
Figure 4: A Simplified Stakeholder Map for a Large U.S. Hospital in Late 1980s (from Fotler et al., 1989, p. 530) ... 18
Figure 5: Relationship Between the Organization and Its Stakeholders Using Stakeholder Alignment ... 19
Figure 6: Map of the stakeholders allignment regarding its strategic intent ... 43
Figure 7: Example of Dynamic Stakeholder Model Classified According to the Stakeholder’s importance ... 50
Figure 8: Summary Stakeholders perception ... 83
Figure 9: Summary Stakeholders perception (averages) ... 83
Figure 10: Summary Stakeholders perception (salience) ... 84
Figure 11: Funding organizations perception of alignment ... 84
Figure 12: Funding organizations perception of alignment (averages) ... 85
Figure 13: Funding organizations perception of alignment (salience) ... 85
Figure 14: Other External Stakeholders perception of alignment ... 86
Figure 15: Other External Stakeholders perception of alignment (averages) ... 86
Figure 16: Other External Stakeholders perception of alignment (salience) ... 87
Figure 17: Competitors perception of alignment ... 87
Figure 18: Competitors perception of alignment (averages) ... 88
Figure 19: Competitors perception of alignment (salience) ... 88
Figure 20: International Tertiary Institutions perception of alignment ... 89
Figure 21: International Tertiary Institutions perception of alignment (averages) . 89 Figure 22: International Tertiary Institutions perception of alignment (salience) ... 90
Figure 23: National Tertiary Institutions perception of alignment ... 90
Figure 24: National Tertiary Institutions perception of alignment (averages) ... 91
Figure 25: National Tertiary Institutions perception of alignment (salience) ... 91
Figure 26: Special Interests/Advocacy Groups perception of alignment ... 92
Figure 27: Special Interests/Advocacy Groups perc. of alignment (averages) .... 93
Figure 28: Special Interests/Advocacy Groups perc. of alignment (salience) ... 93
Figure 29: Accreditation Bodies/Authorities perc. of alignment ... 94
Figure 30: Accreditation Bodies/Authorities perc. of alignment (averages) ... 94
Figure 31: Accreditation Bodies/Authorities perc. of alignment (salience) ... 95
Figure 32: International Bodies perception of alignment ... 95
Figure 33: International Bodies perception of alignment (averages) ... 96
Figure 34: International Bodies perception of alignment (salience) ... 96
Figure 35: Implementation partners perception of alignment ... 97
Figure 36: Implementation partners perception of alignment (averages) ... 97
A New Dynamic approach on
stakehold-er’s model: A case study on strategic
in-tentions of non-profit healthcare industry
in South Africa
1
Introduction
1.1 IntroductionBusinesses operate in a complex environment consisting of multiple stake-holders (Verdeyen, Put & van Buggenhout, 2004). This environmental com-plexity means that organizations have to deal with different stakeholders. Those stakeholders have their own, and sometimes, a conflicting strategic in-tent (e.g. Savage, Nix, Whitehead & Blair; 1991). The importance of the stra-tegic intent is that, according to Hamel and Prahalad (1989), it is a way to reduce the gap between the internal and the external stakeholders’ ambi-tions/intent (Campbell, & Yeung, 1991); as well as to increase the organiza-tion’s performance (Hamilton, Eskin & Michaels; 1998). Thus, the ability of an organization to navigate through the complexity of stakeholder relationships, expectations and to manage these stakeholders is a critical capability that will ensure success for organizations.
1.2 Background to the study
An important actor in an organization is the executor of the strategy (Gome-zelj, Omerzel & Antončič; 2008). Consequently, the strategic decisions taken by the executor regarding the strategic intent can result in a conflict of inter-ests with other parties involved (i.e. stakeholders). This is because, according
to Fottler, Blair, Whitehead, Laus and Savage (1989), actors interacting in an
ecosystem influence one-another. Typically, this happens in three ways: a positive, negative or neutral way. Thus, the latter authors highlighted the im-portance to manage the relationship between the organization and its ex-ternal stakeholders. Particularly, when the relationship between the organiza-tion (its internal stakeholders) and and external stakeholders can be neutral, non-supportive or even hostile (i.e. not positive).
Accordingly, by being able to classify the relationships between stakeholders in a more dynamic way it is possible to use the vast literature that allows ex-ecutives to deal with conflicts among each one of the stakeholders.
Moreo-ver, defining stakeholders through alignment helps strategists to implement strategy, since alignment of multiple stakeholders in strategy implementation is needed to assure actual strategy implementation (Mantere & Sillince, 2007).
1.3 Research questions/objectives
There are different frameworks in place that address positive, negative and neutral classification of the relationship between the organization and its stakeholders based on classifications of stakeholders regarding the power of influence to the organization. However, little is said about the relationship be-tween the different strategic intents among the organizations.
That is why this paper address the following research question: what is the perception of conflicts among different strategic intent, particularly what is the relationship between the organization and the external stakeholders? Next, this paper addresses the following sub-questions: (1) what does the or-ganization set as their primary strategic intent; (2) what is the perceived rela-tionship (alignment/no-alignment) between the strategic intent of the organi-zation and that of its external stakeholders?
1.4 Research methodology and approach
The paper starts with a literature review of the current state of the knowledge regarding the definition of strategic intent, stakeholders of an organization and the relationships among them, as well as the importance of strategic in-tent in the literature (i.e. ‘why’). Next, a way (i.e. ‘how’) to define the organi-zational and stakeholders’ strategic intent is exposed, possible stakeholders’ themes emerging from the literature review, as well as the relationship among them. Consequently, a South African, public benefit organization in the healthcare industry – as opposed to a Dutch organization - was chosen be-cause the researcher had access to key information about the organization researched. Thus, the methodology section continues defining the represent-atives of each stakeholder group inside the organization, and describing the questions and answers from each representative to discover the different ac-tors’ strategic intent. By the use of a deductive approach each strategic in-tent theme is compared with each-other, and each relationship is classified as ‘positive’, ‘negative’ or ‘neutral’. Moreover, a classification of the align-ment relationship from the perspective of the internal stakeholders is pro-posed. The paper finishes with a conclusion and a practical recommenda-tion for the organizarecommenda-tion.
2
Literature review
In this section workable definitions emerge from a thorough review of the theoretical concept of stakeholders in the business field. It is followed by the key aspects to define the organization’s strategic intent. Later, the researcher explains how to define the relationship between each stakeholders’ strategic intent.
2.1 Existing classifications of stakeholders
Although stakeholder approaches and concepts have been articulated within business management from the early 1930s (Clarkson, 1995), a wide spread definition in business management is given by Freeman’s (1984) who defines stakeholder as ‘any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the firm’s objectives’ (p. 25). Since the first-time stake-holders was introduced in the literature, many sub fields in management, such as strategy, politics and marketing literature, have adopted the stake-holders’ theory, and it is defined differently depending on the industry and the author - see Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997) for an overview.
Brugha and Varvasovszky warns that ‘the purpose, time-dimension of interest, the context in which the analysis is carried out, and the degree to which an issue has been clearly defined and the stakeholders identified, each has a bearing on how one conducts’ stakeholder analysis’ (2000, p. 240). But in-stead, if seen as a genre, the use of stakeholder’s theory gives more flexibility (Wicks, Freeman & Gilbert; 1994). Moreover, the latter authors prescribe that each individual ‘stakeholder narrative’ (p. 232) would bring an insight behind the actual enterprise strategy.
From a strategy point of view, the stakeholders can be divided according to where in the boundaries of the organization they are located. A widely adopted classification can be represented by Dansky and Gamm who classi-fied the stakeholders in ‘internal stakeholders’ (i.e. within the boundaries or the organization), and ‘external stakeholders’ (i.e. outside the boundaries of the organization) (2004, p. 291). The same authors also defined the ‘interface stakeholders’ (i.e. boundary spanners), but they are besides the scope of this analysis.
Another view is formulated from a political stand, classifying stakeholders ac-cording to the amount of influence that an actor has over the companies’ policy and decision-making (Verdeyen, Put & van Buggenhout; 2003). Verdeyen and colleagues described that stakeholders may be either primary or secondary. As an example, among the first most influential group (i.e. pri-mary stakeholders), the board of directors and management can be found. Verdeyen, Put and van Buggenhout continue defining the secondary stake-holders as “all the other groups or individuals who are affected by or can af-fect indirectly the achievement of the organization’s objectives, such as em-ployees, suppliers, customers, media, interest organizations and competitors” (2003, p. 327).
Although the importance of the relationship is hinted at in the political litera-ture, the political standpoint could also be found in some economical strate-gy papers. That is the case, for example, in Savage, Nix, Whitehead and Blair (1991). The latter authors use a framework classifying the stakeholders ac-cording to the potential to threatening or cooperating with the organization. Thus, this classification adds to the literature a cooperative aspect of holders. More importantly, it does not take into account the internal stake-holders defined by Dansky and Gamm (2004). Savage, Nix, Whitehead and Blair (1991) explain that one reason behind this analysis that excludes the in-ternal stakeholders is that the inin-ternal stakeholders are more likely to have a positive relationship with the organization.
Author (year) Most relevant aspects regarding to stakeholders theory
Includes internal stake-holders In-cludes Exter-nal stake-holders
Dansky & Gamm (2004)
Boundaries of organization (i.e. in-ternal, interface, external
stake-holders) Yes Yes
Verdeyen, Put &
van Buggenhout
(2003)
Influence over organization’s poli-cy and decision making (i.e.
pri-mary, secondary stakeholders) Yes Yes
Savage, Nix, White-head & Blair (1991)
Importance of the stakeholders (potential of threatening or
coop-erating) No Yes
Table 1: Relevant aspects regarding stakeholders theory
In the table above it is possible to see that three emerging aspects are rele-vant to the authors when the stakeholders as seen as a genre. The relerele-vant elements, then, are: its boundaries, the various influences each one of the stakeholder has on the organization, as well of the importance.
In the following text each of the aspects is described in more detail accom-panied with a graphical representation. More importantly, it will be shown that the models are rather static.
2.1.1 Stakeholders defined through its boundaries
Based on the work of Dansky and Gamm (2004), stakeholders can be divided into three categories according the location of the boundaries relative to the organization. The researchers classify stakeholders in ‘internal stakeholders’ (i.e. within the boundaries or the organization), ‘interface stakeholders’ (i.e. boundary spanners), and ‘external stakeholders’ (i.e. outside the boundaries
of the organization) (p. 291). Bellow a graphical representation of the stake-holders model defined though its boundaries can be found (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Graphical representation of the stakeholders defined through its boundaries adapted from Dansky and Gamm (2004)
From the graph it is possible to distinguish three elements. Firstly, the internal stakeholders operate within the boundaries of the organization. Fottler et al., 1989 explains that it particularly includes management and professional staff. Secondly, according to the same authors, the external stakeholders are de-fined as a group that only have a vested interest in the organization. It usually includes special interest groups, governmental associations, as well as other organizations outside the boundaries of the organization (1989). Lastly, the interface stakeholders are actors or groups of actors who interact across boundaries and functions both externally and internally (Fottler et al., 1989). That is, they are dependent and independent of the organization. Typical examples are the physicians in a hospital.
The inability of the map to show the dynamic nature of the stakeholders can make it difficult for the making of strategic decisions in dynamic environ-ments. According to the external/internal classification, the categories of-fered by the authors do not change over time. That is, once defined the stakeholder group, it is also defined where does it belong in the stakeholders’ map (e.g. the stakeholder is external, internal, etc.). Thus, there is an anchor of the classification of the stakeholder to the moment the stakeholder was classified. For example, Fottler et al. (1989) developed a stakeholder model of the United States in the health sector where in two different decades it was possible to observe great fluctuations among the classification of internal and external stakeholders.
2.1.2 Stakeholders defined through its influences
Many authors have found it useful to differentiate stakeholders according to its influence over the organization, as either primary or secondary (Carroll, 1989; Clarkson, 1995; and Freeman. 1984). Verdeyen, Put and van Buggen-hout (2003) explain that influences over the policy and decision making is crucial since it affects the interaction of the organization to the strategic, the socio-political, and the economical ecosystem where the organization inter-acts. Those stakeholder’s influences were classified in either primary or sec-ondary. Within the first group of stakeholders (i.e. primary stakeholders) are the groups that can influence policy and decision-making of the organiza-tion. Using this definition, primary stakeholders can include the board of direc-tors, CEO, managing direcdirec-tors, etc. Secondary stakeholders, the second group, are stakeholders that are directly affected by the decisions, and can indirectly affect the organization’s objectives (Verdeyen, Put & van Buggen-hout; 2003). For example: employees, suppliers, customers, media, interest or-ganizations and competitors.
Figure 2: Graphical representation of the stakeholders defined through its influences
The second figure (above) is the graphical representation of a way of model-ing stakeholders accordmodel-ing to the influences to the organization - as opposed to the boundary based form of mapping the stakeholders-. From a strategy making perspective, the model in Figure 2 is mode dynamic. That is, it is time sensitive, and it accounts for changes in the configuration of the mapping of the stakeholders. Nonetheless this form of mapping has to be made again for each issue, making it difficult to reuse to other issues.
2.1.3 Stakeholders defined through its importance (salience)
Concerning to the importance of stakeholders, a key question in stakehold-er’s theory is how firms identify and prioritize different stakeholders. Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997) concluded that the salience of an interest group de-pends on the manager's perception of three stakeholder attributes: power, legitimacy and urgency. For an empirical demonstration in USA see Agle, Mitchell and Sonnenfeld (1999), and in the Spanish context see Fernandez and Nieto (2004).
These characteristics are further defined as the power to influence the firm, the legitimacy of the stakeholders' claims, and the urgency of the stakehold-ers' demands as related to the organization. Consequently, the notoriety of stakeholders improves as they acquire power, legitimacy and urgency, and as the manager perceives these attributes (Mitchell, Agle & Wood; 1997). That is, as the importance of stakeholder increases, their level of influence on the firm's behavior also increases. Furthermore, stakeholder salience is issue-based (Buysee & Verbeke, 2003), implying that some stakeholders may have more influence on certain topics (Álvarez-Gil, Berrone, Husillos & Lado; 2007).
Figure 3: Graphical representation of Stakeholders defined through its importance (salience)
The above form of graphical representation (Figure 3) allows for a first idea of the salience of an stakeholder in a first glance. Although a more dynamic model, just as in the previous way of mapping (i.e. according to its influ-ences), this form of mapping is issue based.
To summarize, a stakeholder is a person or a group of persons who is or are directly affected by the decisions, or can directly or indirectly affect the
ganization’s objectives. Stakeholders, thus, can be classified in categories of primary or secondary, as well as the internal, intermediary and external stakeholders. Another important aspect of the stakeholders is the strength of the influence due to its perceived potential of power, legitimacy and urgen-cy from the organization’s perspective. Lastly, a practical problem for strate-gy building, strategic planning, and stratestrate-gy implementation is how dynamic the model is. That is, whether the model can be updated and reused.
2.2 Strategic intent as the connecting issue among stakeholders
As described in previous paragraphs, the existing literature has a categorized the organizational stakeholders according to their boundaries, influences and importance. The following text try to explains why strategic intent categoriza-tion is relevant when analyzing and mapping stakeholder.
The term strategic intent was created by Hamel and Prahalad (1989, 1993, 1994) as a result of their study of companies such as Honda, Komatsu, and Canon – global leaders at the time the articles were written –. The latter au-thors explain that ‘companies that have risen to global leadership over the past 20 years invariably began with ambitions that were out of all proportion to their resources and capabilities. But they created an obsession with win-ning at all levels of the organization and then sustained that obsession over the 10- to 20-year quest for global leadership. We call this obsession strategic intent’ (1989, p. 64).
The strategic intent concept differs from more traditional strategic planning models. In the latter models, the suggestion is that setting goals or intentions depended on the organization’s resources and an understanding of the con-straints of the environment (see Sheehan, 1999). Conversely, in the strategic intent construct the organization’s current commitment and aspirations are left aside. Thus, the goals could be accomplished based on more than solely resources and the environment. An exponent of this later view is Hamel and Prahalad (1989), who contrast their strategic intent approach with the tradi-tional concept of ‘strategic fit’ between resources and opportunities. The lat-ter concept was believed to have ‘often abetted the process of competitive decline’ (1989, p. 63): ‘Strategic intent implies a sizable stretch for an organi-zation. Current capabilities and resources will not suffice’.
In the following text the stakeholder’s construct is compared to the non-traditional strategic intent construct. Additionally, it is explained that the stra-tegic intent has two main components: one coming from within and other coming from outside the organization. Therefore, both views are necessary to understand the strategic intent construct related to the stakeholders of an organization.
2.2.1 Strategic intent from within the organization compared to internal stake-holders
From the origins of the strategic intent construct, Hamel and Prahalad (1989) explained that the organizational performance is justified by the creation of a misfit between [internal] ambitions and resources of the organization. Next, researchers tried to explain weather the process was caused from internal or external factors to the organization. Consequently, when the organizational strategic intent is understood to come from within the organization, it is possi-ble to draw a parallel between the strategic intent construct and the stake-holders construct. Both constructs have common terminology, expressing an
internal environment as well as the external environment as part of the organ-ization success (i.e. resources and ambitions).
A prominent school cited in the business literature of the 90s was the re-source-based view. According to that view, strategic intent originates inside the organization. Thus, it takes the organization as the solely cause of an in-creased performance compared to the rest of the organizations and/or its external stakeholders. Sheehan (1999) compares the creation of a ‘gap’ be-tween ‘vision and reality’ with the one described by Peter Senge as ‘the source of creative energy’ (1990, p. 150). In the same page, Senge calls the vision-reality gap ‘creative tension’. This line of research proposes that Sen-ge’s view comes from within the organization, exposing creativity as the re-solving construct to the tension between the vision and current reality. An-other expression of this internally resolved view is exposed by Levy, Powell and Worrall (2005) who state that strategic intent influences the strategic choices made regarding to the markets and products. Choices inside the or-ganization, then, become the center of attention. That is, the direction of the relationship is also explained from inside-the-organization to the outside of it, putting the internal stakeholders at the center.
Furthermore, the current of thoughts that ascribe to the strategic intent as coming from within the organization suggest that cohesion between the in-ternal parts of an organization (i.e. inin-ternal stakeholders) is crucial for the construct definition. In short, according to those authors, the internal focus also regards strategic intent as a phenomenon diffused at multiple organiza-tional levels (Hart, 1992; Hamel & Prahalad, 1989, 1994; Manterea & Sillince, 2007). Each actor has an impact on the strategic intent of the organization. This view could be contrasted to the belief that some other authors still con-sider strategic intent as a top-down approach (Prahalad & Doz, 1987; Noda & Bower, 1996; Lovas & Ghoshal, 2000) usually based in the CEO views (Burgelman, 1994; Burgelman & Grove, 1996). Unlike the entire organization sharing one view regarding the organization’s strategic intent, the top-down approach is closely related to the construct of vision, defined as a top man-agement leadership tool (Kotter, 1995), often ascribed to a single visionary leader (Mintzberg & Waters, 1985). Thus, a strategic intent is achieved when the whole organization embraces its intent (Manterea & Sillince, 2007) and not only its leaders. A mismatch between leaders’ wishes and the rest of the internal stakeholders’ wishes could explain why some firms are more strategi-cally aggressive and ambitious than others (Johnson & Sohi, 2001).
2.2.2 Strategic intent taken from an outside perspective compared to the exter-nal stakeholders
Although the strategic intent can express the adoption of a unified view of the strategic purpose within the organization and not only by its CEOs, the strategic intent literature has adopted another angle regarding the direction of the relationship between the strategic intent and the performance of the firm. That is, it is not only the actors inside the organization (e.g. internal
stake-holders) who are responsible for the performance of the organization in cer-tain ecosystem, but the responsibility also lies with the outside actors influenc-ing the inside of the organization. This is the case of actors such as other competing firms and collaborating customers forming part of the manage-ment literature regarding strategic intent. Those outside actors have also been compared to the external stakeholders of an organization.
In the case of the other organizations one could connect the strategic intent construct regarding to other firms as its external stakeholders. This view was predominant in the application of strategic intent to the organizational strat-egy literature. The term strategic intent, for example, referred to strategic or competitive priorities, objectives and future directions (Campbell & Yeung, 1991; Fawcett, Smith & Cooper, 1997; Hitt, Tyler, Hardee & Park; 1995). Thus, it deals with the question: “[...] ‘what business are we in and what strategic po-sition do we seek?’” (Campbell & Yeung, 1991, p. 146). Similarly, in the original definition written by Hamel and Prahalad (1989) there was a hint of the exter-nal focus on the influence of the strategic intent construct. The authors de-fined strategic intent as an ambition or obsession to achieve something (1989) or as an obsession with winning (2005) that plays an important part in the organization success. Thus, there is not a complete new revolutionary ambition, but strategic intent is dependent on the current state of the envi-ronment; in other words, the current organizational landscape. The outwards looking view could explain why successful companies who exhibit strategic intent tend to focus on the market or international leadership (e.g. Hamel & Prahalad, 1989), both external factors.
Besides taking into account another organization as a stakeholder, the stra-tegic intent literature connected the strastra-tegic intent construct to the cus-tomers – another external stakeholder-. Ryals and Davies (2013) state that strategic intent is closer to the concept of ‘mission’ preferred by Campbell and Yeung (1991). Therefore, strategic intent was defined as looking for a strategic and operational alignment between suppliers and its customers (Richards & Jones, 2009), goal congruence (Frankwick, Porter & Crosby; 2001), and ‘mutuality and commitment’ (McDonald & Woodburn, 2007). In summary, strategic intent is defined as the organization’s common ambi-tion driving its desire to excel related to the organizaambi-tion’s environment. This construct called strategic intent has been paired to the relationship between the actors within the organization and outside influences of the organization. The earlier view exposes that the existence of a strategic intent is dependent on internal cohesion between the actors within the organization. We called these actors internal stakeholders. Moreover, the latter view sees the strategic intent of the organization also related to the external stakeholders: the rela-tionship with the outside firm was included in the link among organizations, and the link between the organization and its customers (i.e. external stake-holders). Therefore, the stakeholders model calls for the need to include the current organizational internal stakeholders and external stakeholders land-scape. Moreover, by incorporating the strategic intent of the different stake-holders (internal and external) to the organization, it is possible to create a
mode dynamic model based on the different organizations objectives and goals.
2.3 The Stakeholder relationships at the level of the strategic intents
The previous section showed why strategic intent is a relevant aspect to be analyzed when looking at the stakeholders inside and outside an organiza-tion. The reason behind is that the the different organizations objectives and goals modify how different stakeholders interact among each other. The fol-lowing text explains the mechanisms underlining how the stakeholders’ stra-tegic intents influence the relationships between organizations as a whole. Practitioners in the strategic field can make use of many tools available for strategic planning or implementation. For example, an extensively used method applied to look at the relationship between the stakeholders are the stakeholders’ maps. Stakeholders’ maps allow the users to have a graphical representation of the stakeholders regarding to an issue (i.e. strategic intent). When looking at the organization external stakeholders, it is important to un-derstand the angle from where the stakeholders’ map is drawn. On one hand, the organization can take into account the different views on the posi-tion that the organizaposi-tion plays in shaping the organizaposi-tional [stakeholders] ecosystem. Similar to classical network theories, Jeff (1999) found that the multiple actors’ relationship could be expressed with a scope ‘macro in na-ture rather than firm centric’ (Laczniak & Murphy, 2012). That is, each actor’s perspectives are taken into account in the mapping of the relationship be-tween stakeholders. On the other hand, the classical view is characterized by Freeman (1984), whom among others articulated stakeholder theory as a dyadic relationship, expressed in a sort of ‘hub-and-spoke’ (Rowley, 1997) stakeholder diagram where the firm is at the center of the wheel. Thus, the relationships are marked according and around the perception of this main actor.
Although the mapping of the relationships can be drawn through a single or-ganization or multiple stakeholders centered perspective, both views come together in that they assume a dynamic relationship. As such, stakeholders’ theory is a process with multiple possible outcomes. Moreover, its dialectic nature assumes a tacit relationship between the roles of the parts, influencing one another. When the relationship among organizations is viewed at the level of the strategic intent, it is possible to explain why: the strategic intent helps on focusing on developing a long-term relationship (Andriof et al., 2002). In line with the latter thought, the notion that the joint effort and partic-ipation of multiple stakeholders in strategy implementation is needed to as-sure strategy implementation of the organization seems to be widespread (e.g. Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1994; Beer & Eisenstat, 2000; Floyd & Wooldridge, 1992; Guth & MacMillan, 1986; Hart, 1992; Kaplan & Norton, 1996; Mantere, & Sillince, 2007; Prahalad & Hamel, 1990; Weick, 1987, 1995).
In short, strategic intent interactions can be drawn in the form of a map, in-cluding the different stakeholders as actor, and using an organization cen-tered lens.
Figure 4: A Simplified Stakeholder Map for a Large U.S. Hospital in Late 1980s (from Fotler et al., 1989, p. 530)
2.3.1 The relationship between organization strategic intent and stakeholders’ strategic intent can be classified in terms of alignment
The following paragraphs expose that the relationship between the stake-holders can be mapped through the interaction between strategic intents defined in terms of alignment. The mappings categorizing the alignment rela-tionship among stakeholders is of managerial executive importance. The rea-son behind this is that alignment of multiple stakeholders in strategy imple-mentation is needed to assure actual strategy impleimple-mentation (Mantere & Sillince, 2007).
In order to give a novel approach to analyze the relationship between the organization and the external stakeholders, this paper uses an adaptation of the typology from Fottler et al. (1989) (see Figure 4 above). The authors ana-lyzed the health industry in the United States, describing the relationship be-tween the organization and the stakeholders as a generally positive
relation-ship, a generally neutral relationrelation-ship, or a generally negative relationship. The relationship was explained using each issue that the hospital needs to ad-dress. That was done through a stakeholder classification, and its likely reac-tion using deductive reasoning. For instance, the relareac-tionship between the large hospital in the U.S. in the late 1980s and the competing hospitals was negative. This paper, in turn, tries to classify the relationship between the or-ganization and the company using its stated strategic intent in terms of alignment.
The classification of the relationship regarding alignment is as follow: first, the relationship is positive when the stakeholder contributes to the realization of the organizational strategic intent (i.e. there is a positive alignment); a rela-tionship is neutral when it does not contribute nor detract from the strategic intent of the organization (i.e. there is no alignment); and a negative relation-ship is defined as one that detracts from the strategic intent of the organiza-tion (i.e. there is a negative alignment). That is a classificaorganiza-tion connecting the stated strategic intent of the organization and its stakeholders (e.g. competi-tor ‘A’ has a positive relationship with the organization); as opposed to using a general classification for the relationship (e.g. all competitors have a gen-erally negative relationship with the organization). See the graph bellow.
Figure 5: Relationship Between the Organization and Its Stakeholders Using Stakeholder Alignment
Regarding the external stakeholders, the achievement of the strategic intent can be explained by the positive alignment between the organization and other stakeholders - such as suppliers and customers. Strategic intent has
been shown to be a mutual mission that relates to the level of relationship closeness between the supplier and the customer (Ryals & Davies, 2013). It is used in this way in the paper written by Hitt, Tyler, Hardee and Park (1995) re-ferring to it as partnerships, and in Jeff (1999) to dissect relationships regarding corporate social responsibility. Moreover, attention to stakeholders beyond the consumer often means engaging with groups, such as activists, scientists, politicians, and the local community, that managers sometimes view as ad-versaries (Spar & La Mure 2003; Yaziji, 2004; Smith, Drumwright & Gentile, 2010). Collaborating with these stakeholders provides achieved intent, through increased creativity (Smith, Drumwright, & Gentile, 2010).
Besides the benefits of alignment between an organization and its customers, alignment of interests -both behavioral and intentional- is a recurring theme in inter-organizational research. This includes the connection of the organization with other stakeholders. Alignment between two competing organizations’ strategic intents has been referred to in the literature as commitment (Ojasa-lo, 2001; Lemke, Goffin & Szwejczewski, 2002), relationship marketing or recip-rocating (Sin et al., 2004), shared interest (Dwyer, Schurr & Oh, 1987), strategic fit (Doyle & Roth, 1992; Toulan, Birkinshaw & Arnold, 2007), strate-gic/operational fit (Millman & Wilson, 1995; Richards & Jones, 2009), align-ment of relationship requirealign-ments (Piercy & Lane, 2006).
Moreover, alignment of interests between an organization's strategic intent to other stakeholders was found to lead to an increase in organizational per-formance (e.g. Gunasekaran, Patel & Tirtiroglu, 2001; McDonald, Rogers & Woodburn, 2000; Morash, 2001). Additionally, Fiegenbaum, Hart and Schen-delthe (1996) affirmed that an organizations’ strategic behavior and perfor-mance is influenced by the reference points, which are unconsciously as well as consciously adopted. The authors found, thus, that actively seeking align-ment with the external environalign-ment could yield improved organizational per-formance.
To conclude, alignment among the organization and the external stakehold-ers have an impact on the desired performance and, more importantly, on the achievement of its strategic intent. Classifying stakeholders according to alignment could shield novel insights on the stakeholder’s analysis. The classi-fication of the relationship regarding alignment is as follows: first, the relation-ship is a generally positive relationrelation-ship when the stakeholder contributes to the realization of the organizational strategic intent (i.e. there is a positive alignment); a relationship is a generally neutral relationship when it does not contribute neither does it detract from the strategic intent of the organization (i.e. there is no alignment); and a generally negative relationship is defined as a relationship that detracts from the strategic intent of the organization (i.e. there is a negative alignment).
Proposition 1: The relationship between the stakeholders can be mapped by the perceived interaction among strategic
2.3.2 Internal stakeholder’s relationship of positive alignment
The relationship among internal stakeholders is of positive alignment. The lit-erature explains that to reach the strategic intent the majority of the internal stakeholders in health organizations have to support the achievement of the strategic intent. That is, the strategic intent is achieved if the whole organiza-tion embraces its intent (Manterea & Sillince, 2007) and not only its leaders. The mismatch between leaders wishes and the rest of the internal stakehold-ers wishes could explain why some firms are strategically more effective, ag-gressive and ambitious than others (Johnson & Sohi, 2001).
Proposition 2: the relationship among internal stakeholder’s strategic intent is of positive alignment.
2.4 Typologies of external stakeholders in the health industry
Besides describing the relationship of alignment between the organization and the stakeholders based on the strategic intents, this paper tried to incor-porate typologies. The reason behind is that typologies could help to create simple model that can be used by professionals in the strategy field.
Typologies have been used as a proxy to group different group of stakehold-er who share a special charactstakehold-eristic. The following text explain why the ty-pology of Fottler et. al (1989) was chosen above the rest to compare the proposed stakeholder’s strategic intent framework. Those stakeholders are: ‘Input’, ‘Competitors’, and ‘Special-interest’ groups.
In the health industry, many ways have been used to classify the external stakeholders. One classification is based on how likely are the stakeholders to influence the organization. Savage, Nix, Whitehead and Blair (1991) suggest that there are two critical distinctions to be made by the executives regard-ing stakeholders’ assessment: their potential to threaten the organization and their potential to cooperate with it.
Although classifying the external stakeholders in two dimensions is useful to understand each stakeholder person or group, the model proposed by Sav-age and his colleagues does not offer themes to group them. Gamm (1996), instead, assessed stakeholders from the perspective of four domains of ac-countability: political, commercial, community and clinical accountability. He argued that the type and extent of management practices used influ-enced the strategic landscape of the organization and its ability to address the concerns of its stakeholders.
Besides assessing the external stakeholders by their accountability, stake-holders in the health industry have been classified regarding their interaction with the organization. That was done by assuming that the relationship be-tween health care organizations and stakeholders fall into three categories: some provide inputs into the organization, some compete with it, and others
barely have a special interest in how the organization functions (Fottler et al.,
1989). The advantage of the model proposed by the latter author is that the themes are more specific than the ones from Gamm (1996); making it easier to test the propositions. Fottler et al. (1989), assumes cooperation given by an invisible symbiotic bond, explaining that the stakeholders who provide input are mutually dependent - rather than opting in the relationship. Thus, this re-search adopted the themes from Fottler et al. (1989) to test its propositions. According to the latter author, suppliers, patients, third party payers, and the financial community are among those providing input. He and his colleagues continue explaining that the relationship between the organization and these external stakeholders is a symbiotic one because the organization depends on these stakeholders for its survival. In turn, these stakeholders depend on
the organization to take their outputs. Fottler et al. (1989) exposes that the
degree of the hospital's dependence on these stakeholders (and vice versa) depends on the number and relative attractiveness of alternate providers of
similar services. Mutual interdependence characterizes these relationships. Thus, since there is mutual dependency between the stakeholders who pro-vide input and the organization, it is expected the relationship between the organization strategic intent and the stakeholders’ strategic intent to be also of mutual dependency (i.e. of positive alignment). That is, the alignment is expected to be to be positive.
Proposition 3: the relationship between the organization and the external stakeholders who provide input is of positive
alignment.
Competitors, the second proposed category of external stakeholders, seek to attract the focal organization's dependents. These stakeholders may directly compete for patients (i.e. other hospitals) or for skilled personnel (i.e. related health organizations). Competitors do not need one another to survive
(Fottler et al., 1989). Furthermore, the landscape is expected to be dynamic.
Coddington and Moore (1987) warned that both cooperation and competi-tion had increased over time. Thus, it is expected that competicompeti-tion increases. Moreover, the mutual concern between the organization and its competitors is given by the interests in the same resources. Leaving the cooperative as-pect aside, it is exas-pected that the stakeholders either positively or negatively relate at the level of the strategic intent. Which leads to proposition 4:
Proposition 4: the relationship between the organization and the Competitor stakeholders is either of positive alignment or
of negative alignment.
The third category of external stakeholders is special-interest groups. They ‘are concerned with the impact of the hospital's operations relative to their specific interests’ (Fottler et. al, 1989, p. 528). On the same page it is stated that “the major special-interest groups affecting hospitals were government regulatory agencies, private accrediting associations, professional associa-tions, labor unions, the media, the local community, and various political-action groups such as the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and right-to-life groups”. Therefore, compromise rather than collaboration was most often the solution to conflict among them. No extra information can be added to the level of strategic intent between the organization and its stakeholders.
3
Research methodology and approach
The following section provides an overview on how the research was con-ducted assuring a transparent overview, increasing the generalizability of the research (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2016). In the first section (3.1), there is a discussion of the research philosophy and assumptions. Next, it continues with the manner the research was approached, which methodology was used, and with which aim the research was conducted (section 3.2). It results, then, in the chosen research sampling strategy (section 0) and data collection methods used (section 3.5). Lastly, an overview of how the analysis of data was conducted is provided in section 3.5.3.
3.1 Research paradigm and philosophy
Before conducting research, it is important to decide the research philosophy (Grix, 2002), since it helps to understand the underlining assumptions made by the researcher and it can impact the way research is conducted (Saunders & Lewis, 2014; Saunders et al., 2016). ‘To ensure a strong research design, re-searchers must choose a research paradigm that is congruent with their be-liefs about the nature of reality’ (Mills, Bonner & Francis, 2006). Moreover, Cre-swell (2009) suggests that it is important for the researcher to articulate and share the philosophical worldviews and beliefs that inform his or her research topic, strategy and design. Assumptions can be classified in ontological and epistemological (Saunders et al., 2016). Ontological assumptions can be di-vided in objective and subjective view of the nature of reality (Grix, 2002), and involve what the researcher believe could be investigated.
Whereas in the objective view there is only one true reality, the subjective view assumes the possibility of multiple realities (Saunders et al., 2016). The ob-jective of this research was to draft the thinking and decision making frame-work highlighting each stakeholder from the organization’s point of view; moreover, the research tries to shed light on what are the perceived align-ment relationship between the organizations’ strategic intent and the strate-gic intent of its stakeholders. Both objectives were taken from a subjective standpoint, meaning that different realities or outcomes could be possible in different industries, different firms, across the several activities in the same firm, and between individuals, regarding to the organization stakeholders’ analysis (Brugha & Varvasovszky, 2000). Consequently, the researcher took into account the context dependency.
The epistemological assumptions, on the other hand, include what is possible to know about the phenomenon to be researched (Grix, 2002; Saunders et al., 2016). The latter authors explain that it involves the concept of knowledge. The subjective view is characterized by attributed meanings and opinions, while the objective views the type of knowledge as observable phenomena, numbers and facts. (Saunders et al., 2016). Accordingly, this paper assumes an intepretativistic research philosophy. The research philoso-phy of interpretivism takes a subjective perspective, and one of its goals is to
construct broader, or even newer, interpretations of social worlds and con-texts (Saunders et al., 2016). The advantage of this research philosophy is that it studies situations in their natural context (Saunders et al., 2016), which are specifically relevant for this research.
3.2 Description of inquiry strategy and broad research design
Kerlinger (1979) describes the research design as follow: ‘…the overall scheme or program of research. It includes the outline of everything the in-vestigation will do, from writing the propositions, to the operational applica-tion to the final analysis of data. Firstly, a qualitative and quantitative re-search method approach was used. In the case of this paper, primary and secondary data; particularly a case study method was used complemented by quantitative and qualitative data from semi-structured interviews.
A case study is defined as ‘a research strategy which involves the investiga-tion of a particular contemporary topic within its real-life context, using multi-ple sources of evidence’ (Saunders & Lewis, 2014, p. 116). Yin (2009) pro-posed that a case study should be used when a ‘what’ question is being asked, there is no control of behavioral events, and it focuses on a contem-porary event (Hancock, 1998; Pratt, 2009); which it is the case of this research. Furthermore, Eisenhardt (1989) described the research strategy of case stud-ies as one where the interpretation of the dynamics in a context is the most important, which is in line with Saunders and Lewis (2014) and is also in line with the aim of the current research.
Yin (2009) described four types of case studies: case studies can include sin-gle or multiple cases, and these options can either contain one unit (holistic case) or multiple units (embedded case) to be analyzed. Due to the time re-strictions and the location being in South Africa, the thesis focused on a single case. Therefore, the current thesis research was focused on a so-called single
embedded case study (Yin, 2009). The organization is an African, public-
benefit organization with over 15 years’ experience in leading the response, treatment and research efforts to eradicate TB and HIV (from now on, the or-ganization). The organization has been working alongside government, the mining industry, among NGO’s and in communities to better understand global health challenges to provide real solutions.
Furthermore, strategic intent combined with stakeholders and alignment, is an intermediate theory research since not all of its constructs are clearly fined. Specifically, one construct it is not clearly defined is the relationship de-fined as alignment. Intermediate theory research frequently integrates quali-tative and quantiquali-tative data to help establish the external and construct va-lidity of new measures through triangulation (Jick, 1979; Eisenhardt, 1989). Tri-angulation could help to enhance credibility in the research (Saunders & Lewis, 2014) and also the construct’s validity (Yin, 2009). Two different types of data methods were used in this research: interviews, and document analysis. Because of the time limitations involved in this research, interviewees were interviewed within a short time spam, making it a cross-sectional study.
How-ever, and in addition, the use of document analysis allowed a more longitu-dinal perspective (Saunders & Lewis, 2014).
In conclusion, a mixed research strategy has been adopted for this study and will include both qualitative and quantitative methods with the qualitative method used predominantly and as the basis for the quantitative part of this research.
3.2.1 Research Phases
The research was conducted in five main phases namely: (1) document analysis, (2) semi-structured interviews, (3) uncovering the strategic intent of the organization according to its internal stakeholders, (4) defining the strate-gic intent according to the external stakeholders, and (5) measuring the alignment of the external stakeholders to the strategic intent of the organiza-tion.
3.2.1.1 Phase 1: Document analysis
A document analysis focusing on available information regarding the strate-gic intent was conducted. These sources included: (1) the organizations web-site; (2) published articles/works; and (3) news articles from the past 12 months. Moreover, specific focus was given to sources that contain infor-mation about the organizations ambitions and its synonyms extracted from the Oxford dictionary: aspiration, intention, goal, aim, objective, object, pur-pose, intent, plan, scheme, mission, calling, vocation, desire, wish, design, target, end, dream, hope (Ambition in Oxford Thesaurus, 2017).
In addition to this, the document review phase also aimed to identify a list of potential stakeholders using the stakeholder matrix developed in the litera-ture review. Moreover, a thematic analysis was used based on the typologies
suggested by Fottler et al. (1989) –inputs, competitors and special interest
groups. The typologies served as themes to organize the information regard-ing the stakeholders of the organization and to test the propositions.
3.2.1.2 Phase 2: Conduct semi-structured interviews
The semi-structured interview was conducted with a knowledgeable person in the researched organization (e.g. regional CEO). To make sure the semi-structured interviews were aligned to the research question, a questionnaire was designed before the interview using the themes and the information gathered in the ‘Phase 1: Document analysis’ (section 3.2.1.1).
3.2.1.3 Phase 3: Uncovering the strategic intent of the researched organization according to its internal stakeholders
To arrive to a final draft of the organizational strategic intent, the semi-structured interview was used as a baseline to write the strategic intent of the organization. Next, to triangulate this information a short online questionnaire
was sent to a sample of the representatives of each group or individual inter-nal stakeholders (appendix 7.10).
3.2.1.4 Phase 4: Defining the strategic intent for external stakeholders
Similar to the process conducted in the document analysis of the organiza-tion, (phase one in section 3.2.1.1), a document analysis focusing on availa-ble information was conducted. These sources included: (1) the organizations website; (2) published articles/works; and (3) news articles from the past twelve months. Furthermore, specific focus was given to sources that contain information about the organizations ambitions and its synonyms extracted from the Oxford dictionary: aspiration, intention, goal, aim, objective, object, purpose, intent, plan, scheme, mission, calling, vocation, desire, wish, design, target, end, dream, hope (Ambition in Oxford Thesaurus, 2017). Thus, for prac-tical purposes, this research focused on one organization perspective – similar to the hub-and-spoke model proposed by Rowley (1997)–, and not on the general view taking each individual perspective.
3.2.1.5 Phase 5: Measuring the alignment of the external stakeholders to the strategic intent of the organization
In a fifth step, a measurement of the alignment was developed. Since there was no previously developed tool for this task, this researcher created a framework to advance this task. In phase 3, a tool was used to uncover the strategic intent of the researched organization according to its internal stakeholders. In contrast, the tool to measure in phase 5 was developed by comparing the organization strategic intentions to the external stakeholders’ strategic intentions. For the purpose of this research, only external stakehold-ers which have an officially stated strategic intent were used.
In order to succeed on the quest for examining the alignment relationship be-tween organization stated strategic intent and those of their external stake-holders, both strategic intents were compared guided by the similarity (or not) of the stated concerns. That is, if the strategic intentions can influence each-other in some respect.
For example: one external stakeholder strategic intent includes ‘the increase of labor’, whereas the strategic intent of the other organization includes ‘the decrease of labor’. Then, those strategic intents influence each-other since they connect at the ‘labor’ point. In the case of this example the relationship is called of ‘negative alignment’.
3.3 Type of research
Research were divided in qualitative and quantitative research. They are ex-plained in the following paragraphs.
3.3.1 Qualitative Research
Qualitative research has at its core two fundamental objectives. The first is to study and observe different phenomena in its natural setting. The second of these objectives is to study and understand the relationship between these different phenomena in a complex environment (Leedy & Ormond, 2010). In the domain of qualitative research, there are many different approaches; and these types of research studies typically aim to achieve at least one of the following purposes: describe, interpret, verify, and evaluate (Leedy & Or-mond, 2010; Creswell, 2009; Saunders et al., 2009). This study aims to achieve a combination of description and interpretation. Description means that the research aims to describe the relationship between the organizations’ strate-gic intent and the stakeholders’ stratestrate-gic intent (i.e. what question). Moreo-ver, interpretation means that the research aims to create new insights on the organization, and the potential problems that may exist (i.e. how question). Within qualitative research there are three types of interviews: structured, un-structured and semi-un-structured interviews (Saunders & Lewis, 2014). This study used semi-structured interviews, which are interviews where the researcher has compiled an interview guide with open-ended question to serve as a guideline for the interview. Semi-structured interviews were preferred over structured interviews due to the exploratory aim of the research, which also provide some overall themes and direction (Saunders & Lewis, 2014). Fur-thermore, semi-structured interviews allowed for flexibility while still being able to compare the themes gathered in the literature regarding to the stake-holders in the health industry. Within each primary activity, semi-structured in-terviews have been conducted. Both the use of a stakeholder framework de-scribed below as well as previously gathered official data (i.e. document analysis) was used as a base for the semi-structured interviews.
3.3.1.1 Document analysis
Thematic analysis can be seen as a systematic and logic way for analyzing qualitative data (Saunders et al., 2016) while still being flexible (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Furthermore, the goal of the thematic analysis is to find themes and patterns in the datasets, and it allows for shifting between inductive and deductive parts, which is suitable with the approach of the current thesis (Saunders et al., 2016). The phases of thematic analyses are described in steps by Saunders et al. (2016) and Braun and Clarke (2006):
1. Familiarization of data, for example during the transcription process (Braun
& Clarke, 2006; Saunders et al., 2016).
2. Coding of the data. The organizations website, the published
vast amount of secondary data. In order to analyze this data, it was first needed to organize and structure it. According to Huberman and Miles (1994) coding is a useful mechanism to reduce the amount of data and to think about the meaning of the data. Coding is the process ‘whereby da-ta are broken down into component parts, which are given names’ (Bry-man, 2008). Coding is the process of labeling sets (or units) of data, such as words or small phrases (Saunders et al., 2016). The software program Microsoft Excel has been used for the coding process and was also used in the following steps described below.
3. Looking for themes and relationship. After the coding process was
final-ized, the codes founded were analyzed for patterns and relationships. These patterns were then collected in ‘themes’. Themes can be described as broad groups of different connected codes that appear to be im-portant for the research question (Saunders et al., 2016). Themes, like the codes, can stem from the data itself but also from the literature (Ryan & Bernard, 2003), if found applicable.
4. Refining common themes. The current step is treated as two steps in Braun
and Clarke (2006), namely review and define. Codes were reinvestigated together with the themes found in both the data as literature and refined if needed. The outcomes were then described in a code book, which de-scribes the different themes derived from the codes with their descriptions (DeCuir-Gunby, Marshall, & McCulloch, 2011). Providing these descriptions increased the transparency and consequently increased the generaliza-bility of the current thesis’ research (Saunders et al., 2016). Furthermore, the codebook allows for comparison to be made and for the study to be repeated as it makes it easier to follow the applied methods (Shenton, 2004). Furthermore, to develop substantiated conclusions, it is important to test the working propositions including looking for negative cases or other clarifications (Saunders et al., 2016).
3.3.1.2 Semi-structured interview questionnaire
According to Hale (2002), the first step in designing a questionnaire is to clear-ly articulate the purpose and the topic you wish to measure. In this study the purpose was: (1) defining a strategic intent that can be attributed to the en-tire organization; (2) uncovering of new stakeholders that did not surface in the document review; (3) classifying of those stakeholders according to the matrix exposed in section 2.1.3; and (4) the classification of the importance of each stakeholder.
In the second step, Hale (2002) stresses the importance of formulating the questions or statements in the questionnaire in such a way that it is simple and easily understood by the audience. In the case of this study the audi-ence was a specialized person in the organization capable having an over-view of the stakeholders within the organization and outside of it (i.e. the re-gional CEO).
The third phase is the designing of the questionnaire (Hale, 2002). The latter author states that all the concepts which one wishes to measure and gather information on should have a corresponding question or statement. After
writ-ing the questions in the fourth step, Hale (2002) recommends that the ques-tions/statements should be written in simple and understandable language to then, in the fifth stage, be matched with a corresponding measurement. 3.3.1.2.1
The operationalization of the definition of the strategic intent of the organization ac-cording to the internal stakeholders of the organization
In order to define the organization’s researched strategic intent, a question was adapted from the definition used in this research. The objective was to ask what is the strategic intent of the company. In plain words: ‘Can you tell me what is (are) the main goal(s)/objective(s) of your organization?’. The in-formation was compared with the strategic intent expressed in the semi-structured interview. The overlapping themes were understood as the strate-gic intent of the organization researched.
To increase the reliability of this new method to measure the strategic intent, a previously developed framework was adapted from the one exposed by Mariadoss, Johnson and Martin (2014). The reason behind is that this frame-work was widely adopted in the literature related to strategic intent (see ap-pendix 7.3 for the adapted questionnaire). Moreover, using a previously de-veloped framework helps to increase the external validity of the findings. If the researcher finds a positive response to the questions, then as exposed by Mariadoss and his colleagues, we assumed the existence of a strategic in-tent.
3.3.1.2.2 The operationalization of the confirmation and uncover of new stakeholders that did not surface in the document review
To uncover new stakeholders and confirm the previously founded stakehold-ers, this research used the definition of stakeholders from section 2.1. There were not tools or framework developed to uncover all the stakeholders, since the definition of stakeholders was the result of a novel combination of differ-ent authors definitions. Thus, a new questions were formulated to adapt to this new framework (see questionnaire in appendix 7.3). The use of new tools can create decrease the reliability of the tool. For that reason, this researcher used a common technique in the stakeholders’ literature which includes a confirmation of the different stakeholders from the side of the organization. By using a new tool, the generalizability of the results decreased, increasing the internal validity of the results.
