MscBA Thesis Maaike Nijbroek February 17th, 2011
A Service Innovation Research:
How to achieve legitimacy and reap the benefits of a new
service in the industry of managing absenteeism
Maaike Nijbroek
(s1537059)
Jan Lutmastraat 23
9718 LB Groningen
The Netherlands
T: +316-13035425
E: mnijbroek@gmail.com
VerzuimSupport B.V. Stavangerweg 23-10 9723 JC Groningen Tel: 050 – 549 26 51 Supervisors: Anton Benedictus and Harry Machiel University of Groningen Landleven 5 9700 AV Groningen Supervisors: Rene van der Eijk and Killian McCarthyPreface
This study started out in February 2010, that is to say then I started out trying to find a subject of my interest. Not before May 2010 Verzuim Support and I came to an agreement on how to proceed and that probleemdossier.nl would be the topic of the study. An internship was my wish all along in order for me to combine the theoretic of the thesis with the real business of a company and in this case a new service.
The journey I took was longer and certainly not as straightforward as I expected. Over the whole of the summer I struggled to get a right direction and a well defined research question. When in September, finally, this was all set and clear and the search for interviewees started. The most of the 22 interviews were conducted in November and December of 2010. The last months were needed to carry out the last interviews, work out the results and conclusions and to make it a coherent study. To get to the right direction and well defined research question I received great help from Harry Magiel, Anton Benedictus and with regard to the academic aspects much input from Rene van der Eijk. Therefore I would like to send my graditude. All in all, with help and directions from these supervisors this study was a good and pleasant ending of my academic years.
Abstract
The aim of this study is to research the legitimacy issues of a new service as well as the ways to reap the benefits of the innovation probleemdossier.nl. The results of the study come forth out of 22 interviews with potential customers and the founders of the service. Within these interviews the subjects of diffusion and adoption of an innovation, legitimacy issues and the appropriability regime are adressed. For there is little written on service innovations, the theories are much on product innovations and, if appropriate, adjusted to services.
The interviews show that there is certainly a raison d’ être for a service like probleemdossier.nl. It seems that the service is not visible and therefore the adopter categorization of Rogers is dismissed, therefore one cannot state anything about which kind of customers one should approach. For probleemdossier.nl however it shows from the interviews that smaller companies are most likely to show more interest in the service.
Concerning legitimacy the study shows that there are in all three legitimacy forms (pragmatic, moral and cognitive) positive responses in more than half of the interviewees. This is already a good amount and as for important, credible players insurance companies are rejected while company doctors showed to be credible for most respondents. As for the appropriability regime the timing of approaching customers is more important than the first mover advantage. This kind of service will only be used when a company has a problematic file and this is not always the case as one is approached by a new product or service.
Index
1 Introduction ... 5 1.1 Research objective ... 6 1.2 Research question ... 6 2 Theoretical Framework ... 8 2.1 Definitions ... 8 2.2 Boundaries ... 8 2.3 Existing Literature ... 9 2.3.1 (Service) Innovations ... 92.3.2 Diffusion and adoption of an innovation ... 11
2.3.3 Attributes of innovations ... 12 2.3.4 Appropriability regime ... 13 2.3.5 Legitimacy ... 15 2.3.6 Reputation ... 17 2.4 Summary ... 19 3 Probleemdossier.nl ... 20 3.1 The industry ... 20 3.2 Introduction to probleemdossier.nl ... 21
3.3 Probleemdossier.nl, the characteristics of the diffusion ... 22
3.4 The attributes of Probleemdossier.nl ... 23
3.5 The appropriability regime ... 24
3.6 Legitimacy ... 24
3.7 The reputation of probleemdossier.nl ... 26
3.8 Summary ... 27 4 Methodology ... 28 4.1 Research Design ... 28 4.2 Data Collection ... 29 4.2.1 Interviews ... 29 4.2.2 Questions ... 30 4.3 Summary ... 30 5 Results ... 31 5.1 Propositions P1-P4 and P6-9 ... 31 5.2 Proposition P5 ... 38
5.3 Differences between categories ... 39
5.4 Summary ... 40
6 Conclusion ... 42
7 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research ... 45
References... 47
1 Introduction
This research aims to bring two seemingly diverse areas together: innovation and absence/sick leave of employees. There are innumerable innovations and it is often said that two third of all innovations fail to become successful in the market. Much can be learned from successes ánd failures in the innovation market. It has been repeatedly stated that you have to fail to succeed in inventing new products/services; the more often you fail, the closer you come to success. To illustrate that there are many reasons why an innovation succeeds or fails the following two examples are given.
As Rogers (1995) points out in his book, rap music was not at all expected to be a success, yet nowadays people (especially teenagers) over the whole world –black and white– are listening to this music. Despite the fact that most radio stations refused to play the rap music when it was introduced and that most popular music was uncovered by radio air play (which also determined the charts), rap music grew without access to established radio stations. This was due to the fact that many teenagers wanted to rebel against their parents. Most parents found rap music to be ugly noise and what better reason does a rebelling teenager need to like something?
On the other hand, there is the well-known example of V2000 by Philips. This videotape format went into battle with, among others, VHS and lost. This was remarkable because factual, the V2000 had the better format compared to the others. Although VHS was a bit sooner to the market, V2000 could still be a success (it is not always the first-mover who wins the battle), only that VHS had a much lower price and, with that, easier accessibility for the market. This example shows that an innovation with better factual qualities still can lose a battle with competitors on other grounds. This research focuses on an innovation in handling sick leave/absence in an organization. When employees get sick it can be a heavy financial burden on the employer. Especially when people have prolonged illness which can mean they are not able to work (fully) for a few years. If an employee is prolonged ill, an employer is not allowed, by law, to fire this employee and all kinds of actions should be undertaken to make sure the employee can reintegrate as soon as possible. This is not as easy as it sounds: when someone has been under a lot of stress for a while, either in his/her personal life or in the work atmosphere, it is relatively easy for that person to go and sit at home. When the employee stays at home for a while it keeps getting harder to reintegrate, the threshold to come back gets higher and higher. Or even if the person does comes back for a few hours during the week, but still perceives a hostile atmosphere or continues to have a lot of problems to deal with, it cannot work out as well as the manager expects.
On the other hand, there are people who pretend they are sick just to get out of work. These employees are sometimes hard to recognize because they can be pretty convincing. There can be a lot of reasons for trying to get out of work, with among others: fights in the office (either with supervisors or coworkers) or other (work related) activities. A manager should find out what the reason for the absence is and often, a heart-to-heart conversation can clear the air.
on the sick employee and trying to reintegrate the employee if possible. In 2005 a new legislation has been introduced which removes the requirement of joining such an institution. Now there are three possible options for organizations; - one can choose to do all of these things in-house, for example by hiring a company doctor (mostly done by large companies); - one can ask external organizations for certain tasks; or - one can still close a contract with an external institution, like “Arbodienst” (arbo-advies.nl).
Now that the legislation has changed, there has been a trend towards smaller organizations to take over the functions of the larger institutions like the “Arbodienst”. Verzuim Support is such a smaller organization, the perceived benefit of these organizations is that they can provide more adequate and less standardized solutions. Contrary to the expectations of a few years ago, the large institutions are still alive, although one can also see a growth in the number of smaller organizations like Verzuim Support. It is now unknown whether the well-known rigid institutions maintain their positions or that the most of the market will join the smaller organizations or choose to go with institutional hiring for certain tasks.
1.1 Research objective
The market of absenteeism and employment services is still developing and a new, innovative, tool that Verzuim Support has developed is: “probleemdossier.nl” (problemfile.nl). With this tool they are trying to attract the attention of potential new customers. The idea is to ask companies to hand in their problematic files of employees who are absence for a long time and a solution seems far from happening shortly. Verzuim Support is then going to evaluate the file and tries to find a solution, in consultation with the management of the client-organization. The solution can vary from re-integration possibilities to an exit-procedure.
This is a development that can work for both Verzuim Support as well as for clients. Some companies can choose to hand in only the problematic files because they do not see the benefit of having a contract with an organization that manages absenteeism. Others may see probleemdossier.nl as a try-out to see how Verzuim Support works for them and whether they will close a contract with the organization.
1.2 Research question
Also the legitimacy issue is an important factor in this light, will potential customers accept this service? Maybe it is not found to be consistent with the norms and values of the market to use this kind of service? Or is it not seen as new at all and therefore not as innovative as the innovator thinks? Therefore, the main research question is:
2 Theoretical Framework
This chapter contains the literature review, in here the definitions, boundaries and existing literature on the research topic are extensively expounded. The main goal of this chapter is to provide theoretical base and background for this research.
2.1 Definitions
The main purpose of this research is, as laid out in the previous chapter, “How to achieve legitimacy and thereby reap the benefits of the innovation probleemdossier.nl?”. There have been various authors that wrote about the adoption of a new product or service in the market and the appropriability regime and legitimacy issues that are involved. Several important topics in this area will be discussed in this research, these themes are defined in this paragraph. The most important subjects of this research are absenteeism, "Arbodienst" and/or companies managing absenteeism, appropriability regime and legitimacy.
In Dutch there is one word that covers all sickness and absenteeism (legal or illegal) in the working environment, "verzuim". In English, there is not one word that covers it all. That is why, in this research, it is chosen to use "absenteeism" as the word covering all (work-related) issues which lead employees to not appear at work.
In the Netherlands, for a long time there have been legal regulations that all companies should join an institution like the Arbodienst, in Great Brittain the Health and Safety Executive. As said above, that regulation has changed since 2005, now it is not necessary to join such an institution but often companies still decide to do so. On the other hand, companies like Verzuim Support have emerged to compete with these institutions. In this paper these companies will be called; companies managing absenteeism.
Another main point of focus is the appropriability regime, this refers to factors in the environment that will affect the ability of the innovator to capture the profits of the innovation (Teece, 1986). So it is not only the intellectual property rights (IPR), like patents, but also the way that an innovator can profit from its innovation. For the innovator, this is of enormous importance because it indicates, given the circumstances, how likely it is to gain profits from an innovation. Last topic worth defining is legitimacy, there are at least two kinds of legitimacy: cognitive and
sociopolitical. The cognitive kind is about the spread of knowledge on a new venture (innovation). The sociopolitical kind defines the process by which actors accept a venture as appropriate and right (Aldrich and Fiol, 1994). This is important in predicting the diffusion of an innovation because it can facilitate or hinder the adoption process. In paragraph 2.2.3 legitimacy is further explicated.
2.2 Boundaries
many other differences between products and services, but it goes beyond the scope of this study to investigate and name all the differences. The differences that are explained are chosen because it was thought that these were necessary to understand the rest of the study.
The adoption of the innovation probleemdossier.nl will be (partly) discussed, often this goes along with the diffusion of an innovation. But because of the early stage in which this innovation finds itself it is too hard to gather facts on the diffusion and to predict a diffusion is still nearly impossible (Rogers, 1995). Therefore, the scope of this research is limited in discussing the adoption. Only a few factors, the ones that will probably also affect the appropriability regime or legitimacy issues will be discussed. It speaks for itself that these choices will be thoroughly underpinned.
The aim of this study is to contribute to the existing literature in explaining more on the topic of service innovations. Little have been written on this topic, and what is written is often on specific themes, like the article of Pawlowski et al (2006) is on IT innovations. At the same time this is also a boundary of this study: it only focuses on one very specific service innovation but hopefully some general conclusions can be drawn. At least the existing literature on service innovations can be tested for this kind of innovation. The other limitation is that this service focuses on business-to-business, it is not a service innovation with respect to the consumer market.
2.3 Existing Literature
A lot have been written on innovations, this paragraph will lay out the most important themes like: defining (service) innovations, explaining the different kind of innovations and the adoption/diffusion of an innovation. Also the appropriability regime in service innovation is discussed. The last factor that is of importance in making an innovation beneficial is legitimacy, this issue will be discussed in the final paragraph of this chapter.
2.3.1 (Service) Innovations
There is one important distinction that has been made by many authors; innovation vs. invention. Like Fagerberg et al (2005) define: an invention is the first occurrence of an idea for a new product or process, while the innovation is the attempt to carry it out into practice. Also Schumpeter (1939) explicated that it is necessary to implement something new (an invention) in order for it to be seen as innovation. Robertson (1971) and Gatignon and Robertson (1989) think of an innovation as changes in current patterns of production or consumption. Thus two aspects of an innovation are; it should be new and it should be introduced to a market.
In literature, there have been made a distinction between different kinds of innovations. The most commonly used is: radical –innovations at the early stages of diffusion and adoption– and incremental innovations –innovations at the advanced stages, based on something known– (Garcia and Calantone, 2002). Obviously, there is a lot to be found in between those two, many authors make a distinction in “newness”. Kleinschmidt and Cooper (1991) for example make the classification: new to the world, new to the firm, new technology and a new product design. As one can see, the innovations become less and less radical as the continuum progresses. Garcia and Calantone (2002) take it to an even further level, they distinguish a macro and a micro perspective. From a macro perspective, innovativeness is based on factors outside of the firm, it contains discontinuities to the world, the industry and the marketplace. From a micro perspective, the innovativeness is based on factors from within the firm, it contains products, services and processes that are new to the firm or even to the firm’s customer.
This research focuses on a service innovation. The most mentioned difference between a service and a product is its tangibility, a service is intangible where the product is tangible. Shostack (1977) does not agree with this distinction, “it’s like when you say that apples are just like oranges except for their appleness”. According to her, a service is rendered and experienced, it cannot be touched or tried in advantage. The most accepted characteristics of services are (Dolfsma, 2004; Zeithaml and Bitner, 2000; Voss, 1992): -intangibility, -co-production, -perishable and –experienced or heterogeneous (Gadrey et al, 1995; Chase et al, 1998; Sirilli and Evangelista, 1998 and De Brentani, 1989). However, Dolfsma also states that the two latter mostly derive from the first two, so intangibility and co-production are the most fundamental characteristics. In 2004 Dolfsma argues that there is a difference between products and services from a management perspective, but to customers products may not be fundamentally different from services. This seems logical because what makes a customer buy something is never really the product, it is always the utility; that what a product does for him (Drucker, 1974).
For a long time the observation of Rathmell (1974) was echoed by leading scholars. This observation told us that “new services happen” rather than are formally developed (Martin and Horne, 1992). Another research, Sundbo (1997), tells us that innovation in services show many resemblance with organizational learning. However, these are two different concepts because organizational learning is more of a continues process while an innovation curve jumps when a new innovation is introduced (Sundbo, 1997). Also, back in the days, it was assumed that service innovations had little or no share in the development of a market, recently it is becoming more clear that this is not the case (Dolfsma, 2004; Howells, 2000 and OECD, 2000).
The difficulty in identifying an innovation in services is partly because of the resemblance with organizational learning (as said above) but it lies also in the fact that, because of the co-production and learning innovating in services may therefore occur naturally during the delivery (Voss, 1992). The same Voss (1992) stress the fact that service innovations often can be rapidly implemented but therefore also readily be copied. The secret in maintaining ahead of the competition is thus, according to Voss to keep on innovating.
Oxford Handbook of Innovation Miles (2005) states from surveys that service innovations do not seem to follow dramatically different paths from the displayed paths in manufacturing. That is why, in this research, there will also be a lot of literature discussed that mainly apply on manufacturing/product innovations and not particularly on service innovations. In these cases the author found the literature most likely to be able to apply on both kind of innovations. However, also many theories are dismissed by the author because of the lack of usefulness with respect to services. These choices will be extensively underpinned. Though many authors find there is no difference in the path to take between service and product innovations, there are some dissimilarities. Authors seem to agree (Gallouj & Weinstein, 1997; Kelly & Storey, 2000; Sundbo, 1997; Dolfsma, 2010) that with particular kinds of services each service provided is different from the others and in that way an innovation in itself. This makes it sometimes difficult to distinguish what really is a service innovation.
2.3.2 Diffusion and adoption of an innovation
In many research literature when talking about the diffusion and adoption of an innovation Rogers (1995) is cited. He describes four main concepts for the diffusion, these are: innovation (see previous paragraph), communication channels, time and social systems.
The communication channel used can be of great importance, for different innovations, different channels should be used. Mass media can be used for less complex innovations while complex new ideas should be communicated through more interpersonal contacts (Rogers, 1995). With a service innovation however, no such thing as mass innovation exists. A service is always an interaction process between the provider and the customer (co-production). The service, therefore, can be assessed differently by various customers (Voss, 1992) and should be communicated differently to the various target groups. Which communication channel(s) should be used in the diffusion of this innovation is, however, beyond the scope of this research as it has no (proven) influence on the legitimacy or appropriability regime.
When discussing time as a diffusion item, often the rate of adoption is considered an important issue and with that the adopter categorization of Rogers is cited (figure 1). The adopter categorization of figure 1 explains the different stages of innovativeness of adopters. However, with a service innovation this most likely does not apply. The reason why it can be argued
that this does not apply in services will be further expounded in the next chapter.
Another point that affects the innovations' rate of adoption is the nature of the social system. This includes according to Rogers (1995) the norms of the system and the degree to which the communication structure is interconnected. The structure of the social system can impede or facilitate the diffusion of an innovation within that system. Within a social system there are differences between members, for example one can distinguish innovative members, opinion
leaders, followers and change agents. A change agent usually seeks to obtain the adoption of new ideas. The change agents' promotional efforts can be of much significance at the introduction of the innovation, this is the stage that opinion leaders adopt (Rogers, 1995). As Goldenberg et al (2009) state; the widespread thought is that opinion leaders can have major impact on opinion formation and change. Thereby, it is possible for a small group of influential opinion leaders to accelerate or block the adoption of a product. This means that after the adoption of opinion leaders the change agents do not need as much promotional efforts because the critical mass is likely to be reached through these opinion leaders.
According to Thiriot and Kant (2008) the beliefs of adopters have an important contribution in explaining the innovations' success as well. When people learn about new products or services, there are several sources of information. These sources are perceived more or less credible, Thiriot and Kant (2008) work with four levels; (1) no credibility for e.g. advertisements, (2) plausible; advice from someone, (3) indirect experience; someone others' experience, and the strongest level (4) personal experience. They also assume that a previous advice can be erased by a stronger source of belief, because of the credibility that source has.
Summarizing, although just stated that the adopter categories are not applicable to service innovations, the opinion leader or gate keeper roles can still play a huge role in service innovations. What if a service is recommended by a government or an important association that grants quality marks? The credibility that the source has, is thereby important for the believes of the adopter.
2.3.3 Attributes of innovations
According to Rogers (1983) there are several characteristics of an innovation determining the rate of adoption of innovations: the five perceived attributes of innovations. Although this counts for 49 to 87 percent of the variance of the rate of adoption in product innovations (Rogers, 1983), not all of these factors seem to apply for service innovations.
RELATIVE ADVANTAGE
An innovation should have an advantage over the current offer, that is obvious otherwise nobody would buy that innovation. This is likely to count for both products as well as services. Rogers (1995) states a few reasons why an innovation has relative advantage; it can be because of status-seeking behavior of the adopter –with this, the image of the innovation is very important–. However Moore and Benbasat (2001) agree with Tornazky and Klein (1982) who say that researchers have found that the effect of image (social approval) is different enough from relative advantage to be a different factor. The question with services is, how visible is the service, can one gain a status/image from it? There are more researches in which relative advantage is split up in several factors; profitability, social benefits, time saved etc. (Tornatzky and Klein, 1982). In this study relative advantage will be considered as one concept, no split ups.
COMPATIBILITY
There are three things an innovation should (not) be compatible with, (1) the conventional service and previously introduced ideas, (2) the socio-cultural values and beliefs, and (3) client needs for the innovation. These factors are also important when discussing legitimacy, therefore, it will be set out in paragraph 2.3.5.
COMPLEXITY
Complexity of the innovation in terms of understanding and using the innovation, has been observed to discourage adoption (among others Cooper and Zmud, 1990). Even though an innovation appears to be useful, the client-organization may find it complex to understand and use. Since complexity has been observed to discourage adoption and therefore inhibits it, it is usually negatively related to adoption (Premkumar and Potter, 1995). Rogers (1995) agrees that the complexity of an innovation is negatively related to the adoption, but he also points out that it does not prevent the innovation from adoption, it only slows the rate of adoption. This factor is likely to apply to both products and services.
TRIALABILITY
Al-Gahtani (2003) summarizes trialability as: the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis. This is impossible for a service because, as said before, a service innovation cannot be tried in advantage (Shostack, 1977). This has to do with the co-production characteristics of a service. And although the service is often tried out in advance at the market with e.g. a prototype (Voss, 1992), the trialability for customers once the service is launched to the market is low and therefore left outside the scope of this research.
OBSERVABILITY
Rogers and Shoemaker (1971) define the observability of an innovation as the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others. With the consequence that “the more visible the results of an innovation, the more likely the innovation will be quickly adopted and implemented” (Tornazky and Klein, 1982 p38). The problem with service innovations on this aspect is that the intangibility, and therefore invisibility, makes it difficult for a customer to evaluate the service prior to alternative offerings unless they sample the alternatives as well (Voss, 1992). In this research the observability is left outside the scope of this research because it is assumed, based on literature, that observability plays a minor (negative or positive) role in the adoption of a service innovation.
N.B. It is important to focus on the perceived relative advantage and the perceived complexity because, according to Moore and Benbasat (2001), there is a leap between the primary attributes intrinsic to an innovation and the perception by potential adopters. The behavior of these individuals are, however, predicated by how they perceive these attributes, not the primary characteristics. This is even of more importance with service innovations, as Bowen and Ford (2002) state that it does not matter how the objective measures evaluate the service, only one thing matters: the customer’s perception of what occurred (Chase and Dasu, 2001).
2.3.4 Appropriability regime
because the tightness of the regime indicates the probability that the innovator captures the profits and not, for instance, an imitator. Two mechanisms have been frequently emphasized: the nature of core knowledge in innovation, and the efficacy of the legal protection of intellectual assets (Hurmelinna-Laukanen and Puumalainen, 2007; Teece and Pisano, 1998; Teece, 2000, see also Levin et al, 1987). However, Teece (1986) suggests that the appropriability regime consists of four elements; (1) legal environment, (2) dominant design, (3) complementary assets and (4) nature of technology or knowledge. Dolfsma (2010) sets the question whether all these elements are (of equal) importance to service innovations or not.
First, the appropriability regime for services, in legal perspective, is generally weak compared to the regime for products. Patents are not (yet) possible for many services because they do not have a technical component (Dolfsma, 2004) and although copyrights can be applied, these are much weaker protection than patents. This can result in an easily copied imitation of the innovation, according to Voss (1992) this is because of the intangibility of a service. And because of the weak appropriability regime with respect to protecting, such copying may not be preventable.
On the second element, dominant design, Teece (1986) argues that if the innovator comes up with a hard-to-copy dominant design it is likely that the innovator captures the profits. This also seems to be less of importance for services, a service is much more circumscribed than a product and thus it is harder to develop one standard, one dominant design (Dolfsma, 2010). Also complementary assets offers less opportunity for services to be beneficial than for products. There are few services in which complementary assets play a role, this is because of the interaction process in which a service finds itself.
Innovation in services often entails a change in the way the service is created. This brings us to the fourth element, nature of technology or knowledge, in here a service innovation is quite like the product innovation because this is about the tacit knowledge behind the service. A certain degree of tacit knowledge lies at the heart of many services, tacit knowledge is implicit and idiosyncratic. It is often embedded in routines and capabilities in an organization (Teece, 1995), because of these features, tacitness in itself is a defense against imitation (i.e., it is an appropriability mechanism as such) (Hurmelinna-Laukanen and Puumalainen, 2007). However, a service is often an interacted process in which the consumer can see and experience the creation of the service. With products the manufacturing is often hidden from the consumer. So it seems that to protect, and benefit from, a service innovation is not comparable with a product innovation.
For service innovations, Dolfsma (2010) introduces reputation as important asset of the appropriability regime (based on Henard and Dacin, 2010; Terrill, 1992; Bowen and Ford, 2002). Also Brentani (1989) agrees when stating that consumers often evaluate a service based on the reputation of the firm. In a research on the banking industry was found that although financial services will be imitated after only six months, the reputation of being innovative (and the competitive advantage of this) lasts for over five years (Menhart et al, 2004).
often been suggested to be among the most effective (e.g. Levin et al, 1987; Harabi, 1995; Arundel, 2001; Cohen et al, 2002; Hurmelinna-Laukanen and Puumalainen, 2007). López and Roberts (2002) investigated the financial services market, this industry has a weak appropriability regime in terms of protecting mechanisms. In that study was found that being first to the market has significant advantages. An important note in the results of this study is that the longer the innovator takes the lead, the greater the advantage. To conclude, the most-used definition and elements of the appropriability regime of Teece (1986) are most likely not applicable to services. The two elements for the appropriability regime for services are; reputation and lead-time advantages.
2.3.5 Legitimacy
Another concept that some authors found to be important when implementing a new product or service is legitimacy. For an innovation to succeed, the product or service has to be accepted and purchased. One of the first definitions of legitimacy stems from Maurer (1971, p. 361); “legitimation is the process whereby an organization justifies to a peer pr superordinate system its right to exist”. Later on, this definition has evolved towards more emphasis on the role of the social audience. In this study the definition of Suchman (1995, p. 574) is used, he composed this definition by comparing different authors; Ginzel, Kramer, & Sutton, 1992; Nielsen & Rao, 1987 and Perrow, 1970. “Legitimacy is a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions”. Legitimacy is important in gaining continuality and credibility for the organization or product, but also passive and active support is gained when legitimacy is achieved (Suchman, 1995). According to Suchman (1995) there are three broad types of legitimacy; pragmatic, moral and cognitive. Aldrich and Fiol (1994) identify two kinds of legitimacy: cognitive and socio-political. The cognitive kinds are about the same defined by both authors: as the spread of knowledge about a new venture, focus on the understanding (cognition) and taken-for-grantedness of this innovation. The socio-political of Aldrich and Fiol is in terms of Suchman divided in the two remaining; moral and pragmatic. Where the socio-political is defined as “the process by which actors accept a venture as appropriate and right“ (Aldrich and Fiol, 1994, p.648), Suchman identifies a difference between self interest –pragmatic–, focus on the acceptation of the closest audience (customers) and pro-social logic –moral– which is broader than the self interest: a positive normative evaluation (Pawlawski et al 2006). Fundamentally, these authors propose the same, legitimacy is about the spread of knowledge and understanding of a new product or service and the acceptation of an innovation by different interest groups.
This brings us to the compatibility mentioned in paragraph 2.3.3, according to Rogers (1995) an innovation should be compatible with three factors:
not meet the needs of the adopter. Thus, the compatibility with client needs can be compared with the relative advantage of an innovation (Agarwal and Karahanna, 1998).
The socio-cultural values and beliefs; it seems obvious that an innovation should be compatible with the cultural values and beliefs of a society. When an innovation is incompatible with these values and beliefs it probably blocks the adoption (Rogers, 1995). This shows correspondence with the cognitive aspect of legitimacy (Pawlawski et al, 2006).
The third factor Rogers (1995) mentions is compatibility with the conventional service and previously introduced ideas. When an innovation is compatible with the conventional services it can either speed up the rate of adoption or slow it down. When an innovation is compatible with what is known, the uncertainty is reduced because people always deal with an innovation on the basis of the familiar (Rogers, 1995). One should take into account that there is a difference between the compatibility and the perceived compatibility with conventional ideas. When adopters adopt the innovation on the base of perceived compatibility, this can lead to misuse of the innovation (in such cases the innovation seems so compatible that people assume to know how it works). As Montaguti et al (2002) state: the pursuit of compatibility may also allow a firm to achieve superior positioning, since consumers assign value to the possibility of accessing to a larger, existing network. So, compatibility will positively influence consumer evaluation of the innovation’s utility and hence willingness to pay.
There is also a negative side to this compatibility, “innovation negativism”, that is when negative experiences with one innovation damn the adoption of future, compatible, innovations. The risk of failed future adoption because of negative experiences should be assessed especially before planning a sequence of incremental innovations. This third factor is not explicitly represented in the table of Pawlawski et al (2006) but one can array it with the cognitive aspect, the spread of knowledge on the innovation, especially because it is important to know how the customer sees the innovation and with that, what is the perceived compatibility.
Aldrich and Fiol (1994) propose four levels of social context within the innovating firm should build trust, reliability, reputation and institutional legitimacy. Also, Aldrich and Fiol state that the further you will get on these levels, the broader context you will be able to gain legitimacy of, from an organizational to an institutional context. Bowen and Ford (2002) discuss the fact that many authors have written about the importance of the consumer happiness or acceptance. This is also a factor that comes to mind when talking about legitimacy and reputation. When a firm has the reputation of a customer-first mindset, an innovation is more likely to be accepted because the consumers have faith in the firm. Parasuraman et al (1985) also agree that the service design and specification must be based on consumer expectations and needs in order for the service to succeed.
trustworthiness in one context does not automatically means trustworthiness in another (broader) context.
There is a difference between innovative firms in new and existing industries, the latter has a slight advantage over the first because there exists more cognitive legitimacy. For both industries however, the product or service is new to the market and has uncertainties. According to Aldrich and Fiol (1994) a way to gain cognitive legitimacy is to use symbolic language and examples, also try to make use of charismatic leaders that can gain trust more easily.
Within the organization (previous to the market launch) diverse stakeholders have to be persuaded. Given the lack of externally validated arguments, the stakeholders have to be convinced by narration (story telling while making use of suggestion and identification, Kaplan, 1986). Also Hatch and Schultz (2003: 1060) argue that “a story is a good device for creating emotional and aesthetic connections between diverse groups, such as stakeholders normally are”. This is according to Aldrich and Fiol (1994) the best and quickest way to gain socio-political approval within an organization.
2.3.6 Reputation
Reputation is mentioned as important both with the appropriability regime and legitimacy. Therefore, this concept is extensively set out in this paragraph.
Not only in measuring the factors of Rogers characteristics of innovation it is important to look at the perceived factors instead of the objectively seen ones, also with reputation and image this is an
important issue. Hatch and Schultz (2003) state that there are five types of identity, -actual, -communicated, -conceived, -ideal and -desired. These types seem to speak for themselves. In the
research on innovation diffusion it is important to know what the communicated, ideal and conceived identity are. These also are very much interlinked, when it is noted that the conceived identity is not the ideal one, there is probably something wrong in the communication of the identity. In services, the providing firm almost always has more knowledge than the consumer. In this situation potential clients may have no other choice but to use information about the reputation of the firm (Grossman and Shapiro, 1988). When providing a very expensive service, it is important to increase the information on your reputation, it is more often cheap to provide that information (Dolfsma, 2010). A reputation is not only made by sending correlated information out, some firms also try to gain a good reputation by networking with other (established) firms, so called reputation-agents.
associations with other industries – for example the cooperation between the health-care and insurance industries – can increase the level of socio-political legitimacy. With associating or contracting with other parties however it is important to bear in mind that it is possible that the partner not act accordingly to your expectations and therefore damages your reputation instead of enhancing it (Teece, 1986). The two questions that come to mind in relation with networking and reputation enhancing are: when do consumers rely on others to determine the value of a service and, which others are that?
To answer these questions, Dolfsma (2010) first makes the distinction between search, experience and credence goods/services. The classification for goods with search – the quality can be determined prior to the purchase – and experience – the quality can only be determined after the purchase – characteristics was first made by Nelson (1974). Darby and Kami (1973) came up with the third classification, credence goods (qualities of the good cannot be determined even after purchase). Ekelund et all (1995) made it clear that there is not always such a clear line between the three, some goods may contain elements of each characteristic. Especially with credence goods consumers rely on the judgment of others to determine the value.
With this classification, three types of selection systems coincide. First there is market selection in which consumers select a good/service with reference to objective characteristics, this goes along with search goods. The other two types of selection systems run on the judgment of others, peers or experts. Certainly when credence goods
are involved (but also to less extend with experience goods), the valuation of the good/service is based on what others state about it. The interaction between the selection systems and the type of good/service is best described by the figure derived from Dolfsma (2010), figure 2. Because services are either experience or credence goods (Dolfsma, 2004), there will probably be a lot of relying on others to determine the value of a new service. Those others can be both peers as experts, thus when dealing with service innovations it seems to be important to obtain a good reputation.
Hatch and Schultz (2003) argue that it is not only important to build an image towards consumers of having a good reputation, a well established corporate brand, this also accounts for other stakeholders.
Search Experience Credence Selection System Type of good/service Market Expert Peer
2.4 Summary
In this chapter the major themes of this study were investigated in theory. At first, an explanation is given on which definitions will be used in this paper; absenteeism as the word for absence by employees and also the difference between an Arbodienst institution and a company handling absenteeism is given. Second, the various definitions of innovation and the differences between product and service innovations have been explicated. The lack of existing research on service innovations and the current disagreements between various authors on the theme are highlighted. In 2.3.2 the diffusion of an innovation is discussed, in this paragraph most of Rogers’ ideas on the diffusion and adoption of an innovation seem to be dismissed for service innovations. From the attributes of innovations according to Rogers also few remain intact concerning service innovations. These few are: relative advantage, compatibility and complexity.
Next, the appropriability regime is explained, the general applicable four elements of Teece do not seem to apply to service innovations according to Dolfsma. Most of this derives from the interacted process and the co-production of which a service is part. There are two other factors that stem from literature to be important for the appropriability regime for services; reputation and lead-time advantages.
Fig 3. The cloverleaf of Weijts (translated to English)
3 Probleemdossier.nl
In this chapter the main topic of the research will be set out. At first, an introduction to (and history of) the industry is presented, this tries to give understanding in the current state of affairs and the possible problems that companies can run into when managing absenteeism. This will be followed by an introduction of the innovation, probleemdossier.nl, and it is then measured against the factors extracted from the literature in the previous chapter. The main goal of this chapter is to provide a number of propositions to investigate.
3.1 The industry
For larger companies, an adequate arrangement to handle absenteeism is essential because there is a lot of money involved, only 1 percentage absenteeism can already lead to a loss of money of several millions (Broersen and Vrooland, 1993). And even though in smaller companies it concerns smaller amounts of money, it still can benefit these companies to a great extent if they have an adequate management of absenteeism.
Weijts (2002) wrote in Elsevier an article about the surplus value of an organization advisor, this article described a cloverleaf of the four points important in managing absenteeism (figure 3). To reintegrate employees with long-term sickness, it is important to integrate all the four leafs. However, most organizations only focus on the two leafs on the vertical axis and that is, as Weijts and Duinhoven (2004) state, a limited approach to handle absenteeism. To really reduce absenteeism structurally, it is also important to focus on the horizontal axis, these two leafs are aimed at preventing the absenteeism.
In the same article, Weijts and Duinhoven (2004) write that it is important that not only the case manager, this could be the Arbodienst or a company managing absenteeism, should be involved in solving the problems occurring with absenteeism. It is also important that the actual manager of the hiring company feels committed to solving the problem. Otherwise, the same thing as described above will be happening; the absenteeism is only handled (leaf 1 and 2), not prevented (leaf 3 and 4).
According to the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (Szw, 2010), other forms of absenteeism are "frequent absenteeism", "absenteeism due to back troubles" and "absenteeism due to labor dispute". Where with psychological issues and labor dispute the steps that should be followed are very clear and extensive, with frequent absenteeism and back troubles, sometimes a heart to heart talk can clear the air and therefore the prescriptions are less clear in that area. Interesting then is that, although several authors (van der Klink, 2001; Jonker and ter Horst, 1997) write about the importance of the personal attention and extensive guidance of the employees, it can be questioned whether all the forms of absenteeism are in need of this.
When an organization decides to join a company managing absenteeism or an Arbodienst, immediate access to treatment is on hands, this means absenteeism is reduced; as a consequence, productivity is improved (Moore, 2010). Perhaps this is not as simple as Moore puts it, the 'cures' to less absence in the organization can come from multiple perspectives, as said before in the introduction, the Dutch Occupational Health and Safety Act (in Great-Britain Health and Safety at Work Act and comparable to the USA Labor Law) has been more relaxed since 2005. Now, not only the Arbodienst is helping in managing absence and other HR-related issues, but also the smaller companies or even an in-house specialist can do that job. What is interesting to see is that the actions and efforts in institutions like the Arbodienst decrease as the costs for the employer raise (see figure 4, Hell, 2004). This is, of
course, an undesirable result for the employer.
An explanation of this might be the
standardized solutions these
institutions offer, the problem with that is that employees may interpret these, often vague, instructions as if they were not heard (Gulden and Nauta, 2008). The companies managing absenteeism, like Verzuim Support, offer something different than the Arbodienst. They do not say it is necessarily better, but often they offer less standardized, and perhaps more adequate, solutions.
3.2 Introduction to probleemdossier.nl
When companies join an Arbodienst or a company managing absenteeism it is standard to close a contract for the whole company. Every employee is included and when one gets sick, the arbodienst handles it. Within this system are diverse degrees, from the arbodienst handling every step of the way to a contract where the arbodienst only acts when asked by the client-company. Many companies have the same contracts for years now and the expectation is that they do not know if and how it could be improved.
Efforts Arbodienst 0 15 28 31 32 35 45 365 Number of days Number of reported absence
Cost line absenteeism and WAO*
WAO
As long as one does not come across a problem file, in which an employee is sick/absence for a long period of time without clear diagnosis –like a broken leg–, this can work out for the best. However, once such a problematic file occurs and the arbodienst does or cannot solve this file, companies might want to obtain a second opinion. In the current industry this is not possible because all arbodiensten work with a contract-basis. Probleemdossier.nl is in essence a single relationship, which Verzuim Support hopes to prolong to a regular contract. With this new service, a company can hand in a single problem file and the basis of the contract is that that particular file is solved within a certain time frame. The question is whether this service can provide help on all the four cloverleaves of Weijts and Duinhoven (2004) or that it only focuses on the vertical axes. It appears beneficial for Verzuim Support to want to focus on long term solutions and prevention, because it is easier to proceed on contract base when there is still work to be done. However, it also seems logical to give priority to the "curing" of the employee because that is the basis of the (temporarily) relationship with the client.
The service can be marked as innovative because of the temporal identity of the contract and the fact that it handles only one employee instead of the whole company. However, one can also argue that it is not really that innovative because the procedure remains in essence the same. It is because of this that existing clients of Verzuim Support should never want to hand in a problem file with probleemdossier.nl because it is the same procedure only on one employee. Thus this service can be innovative to potential clients that have a contract with an arbodienst that does or cannot solve their problems properly, but cannot be marked innovative to existing clients.
That brings us to the classification of the previous chapter, in terms of Rogers (1995) a service can be classified as new when the adopters perceive it as new. Whether this is the case should be investigated in this research. For the Garcia and Calantone (2002) classification counts that it is definitely not a radical innovation but an incremental innovation. In terms of Kleinschmidt and Cooper (1991) it is not new to the world (there is a company in the west of the Netherlands that offers sort of the same service –hoofdpijndossier–), not new to the firm or a new technology, however, it can be classified as new to the market. And in the words of Garcia and Calantone (2002), this is probably best described as a micro innovation because it is certainly not a world-changing innovation, it is only new to the potential clients. Whichever definition is used, it can be concluded into the following proposition;
P1. This service can be seen as new to the market/potential customers
3.3 Probleemdossier.nl, the characteristics of the diffusion
The innovation, probleemdossier.nl, is explained in the paragraph above. From this paragraph on, the other concepts that stems from literature are discussed with relation to probleemdossier.nl resulting in propositions that need to be investigated in this research.
beginning of its existence, therefore one could argue that the companies adopting the service now or in the near future would be innovators or at least early adopters. Nonetheless, it can also be reasoned that because of the assumption that this innovation is quite invisible (as proposed in P2), the gate keeping status of the innovators and the early adopters’ “individual to check with”-status are not valid. No company that has used probleemdossier.nl will announce that with beat of drum because having a problem file with an employee it is most likely not something to be proud of.
P2: Because of the sensitive information concerning the company and the employee, a problematic employee file is not discussed outside the company
Another reason why this adopter categorization does not apply is that a company might find probleemdossier.nl a service worthwhile to try out, but that particular company has no problem file at that moment, than the company is most likely not to adopt. Therefore, in this research the categorization of adopters is disregarded as important theme.
When discussing change agents and opinion leaders, the categorization of adopters may not play a role, this does not mean that these two kinds of roles are not applicable in the case of probleemdosser.nl. In the Dutch market many insurance companies are working together with one of the Arbodienst institutions, this means that they can oblige companies that use their insurances to join ‘their’ Arbodienst. In the table in appendix 1 can be seen which insurance companies have ties with which Arbodienst. At this stage, it is hard to argue whether the role of the insurance companies can be best described as opinion leaders or gatekeepers, if they even have such a role in this industry. This question should be answered during the research and will also return in discussing the legitimacy issues of probleemdossier.nl.
3.4 The attributes of Probleemdossier.nl
Where in the previous paragraph the concepts of the diffusion of innovation have been discussed, the attributes of the innovation probleemdosser.nl will be shortly set out in the next paragraph. As mentioned in the previous chapter, not all are of equal importance for products and services. The elimination has already occurred and in this paragraph the remaining attributes will be set out except for compatibility, this will be discussed within the legitimacy paragraph.
RELATIVE ADVANTAGE
Relative advantage is seen in this study as one concept, see previous chapter. When applying this to probleemdossier.nl one can conclude that the (perceived) relative advantage, if present, must lay in the service itself. This is because of the following rationale: the reason to adopt probleemdossier.nl will be because the adopter expects that their problem file will be solved by using this service. This is an advantage over their current ways of management because they did not solve the file.
P3:The perceived relative advantage of probleemdossier.nl lies in the service itself
COMPLEXITY
Objectively, probleemdossier.nl is not a complex service, no complex technologies or theories are used in this service. However, it is to be shown from this research whether potential clients also perceive probleemdossier.nl as having low complexity. It is important to have low (perceived) complexity because high (perceived) complexity would slow down the rate of adoption. And it would be a challenge to overcome this in order to have a legitimate service.
P4: Potential clients do not perceive probleemdossier.nl as a complex service
3.5 The appropriability regime
From literature it became clear that the often-used definition of Teece (1986) is probably not applicable for service innovations. Reputation and lead-time advantages are the only appropriability factors with respect to service innovations that withstand. For reputation a separate paragraph was composed, so only the time advantages will be discussed here. For probleemdossier.nl the lead-time advantage can become one of the greatest benefits this service has over followers/imitators. As said before, in the west of the Netherlands there is a company that provides a service that looks like probleemdossier.nl. However, as can be seen in the customer database of Verzuim Support, for smaller companies handling absenteeism the region brings the biggest source of customers. (Only 10,91 percent of the customers of Verzuim Support are not settled in the same or two direct surrounding provinces. And even 58,18 percent of the customers are settled within the province Groningen (appendix 2).) So within this region, probleemdossier.nl can become the leading and first provider for this (kind of) service in the north of the Netherlands.
Furthermore, the potential protection mechanism and ways to make sure profitability is maintained should be discussed with the founders of probleemdossier.nl. Because from an objective assessment based on literature, few possibilities seem possible given the weak appropriability regime. Only being the first to the market and therefore gain a lead-time advantage over potential imitators.
P5: Lead-time advantage is the only factor in terms of appropriability regime that applies to probleemdossier.nl
3.6 Legitimacy
these statements instead of the general strategies of Suchman, because these are more concrete and that is useful in developing interview questions.
In the next section, the statements from the table of Pawlowski et al (2006) will be presented, after which it is argued why probleemdossier.nl has or has not that kind of legitimacy.
P1: “describe the needs that the innovation addresses; present the situation as problematic”. P4: “Advertise alliances (e.g., endorsements, affiliations) with reputable players within the field related to the innovation (e.g., professional organizations, special interest groups, government agencies”.
P6: “Describe positive market response to the innovation (e.g. growing market penetration/rate of diffusion, decisions to adopt – individual organization)”.
Table 1. Statements extracted from appendix 3
It can be argued that probleemdossier.nl addresses the needs in the market, and therefore the interests of the individual customers, because they can pick up where a regular Arbodienst left off. Especially because a primary decision to adopt would probably be because of figure 4 (presented by Hell, 2004) where it can be seen that, as the cost line for the employer increases the efforts of arbodienst institutions decrease. However, to increase pragmatic legitimacy, it would be wise for probleemdossier.nl to form alliances with reputable players (e.g. insurance companies because it is assumed they have a big role in choosing an Arbodienst).
P6: Probleemdossier.nl has pragmatic legitimacy, but it can extend it by forming alliances with reputable players
M1: “Explain (through rhetoric) how the innovation is congruent with cultural norms/beliefs (e.g., principles of justice/welfare, protection of life/rights)”.
M3: “Advertise alliances with entities that have “moral authority” in the field”.
Table 2. Statements extracted from appendix 3
The moral legitimacy is more difficult to gain for probleemdossier.nl as it can be questioned whether it will be perceived as “the right thing to do” or not. The innovation can be seen as more congruent with cultural norms and beliefs since the law change in 2005, but it is to be seen if the mindset of the general public is changed. Also it is to be seen if employers find it to be permissible towards the employee and/or the Arbodienst. Maybe if alliances with company doctors will be formed, the service can attain moral legitimacy, but it is to be seen if these doctors have much credibility as “moral authority” and if they have, whether they want to join forces or not.
C1: “Explicitly define key attributes/features/use conditions of the innovation”. C7: “Discuss challenges/risks associated with the innovation”.
C9: “Demonstrate implementation successes (examples)”.
Table 3. Statements extracted from appendix 3
The cognitive legitimacy is difficult to predict because it is mostly about the perceptions of the public. People have to understand the service and view there are little risks attached to it. The understanding can be influenced by explanation of the service and perceived risks can be assessed in the interviews. Another factor that can be of importance and mentioned in the last chapter is the perceived compatibility. In the case of probleemdossier.nl, it should not be compatible with current services and previously introduced ideas. When the service would be compatible, it would automatically lose its relative advantage, the service then is not an improvement on current services. Also the taken for grantedness is hard to measure at this stage because that will be something that has more importance once the service is on the market for some time.
P8: The service is easy to understand but therefore, the (potential) customer also does not see the advantage(s) of probleemdossier.nl compared with existing services
With probleemdossier.nl it is also important that there should be no innovation negativism because the secondary goal is to obtain the client as regular customer for Verzuim Support after the problem file has been solved with help of probleemdossier.nl. When innovation negativism is achieved during the process, the likelihood of obtaining the organization as a regular customer reduces firmly. This however, cannot be researched within this timeframe and because of the scope of this research.
3.7 The reputation of probleemdossier.nl
In the previous chapter the appropriability regime and legitimacy was explained from theory. The main element for appropriability regime was the reputation of the innovating company. This reputation turned out to be of importance for gaining legitimacy too. In gaining legitimacy it is also important to give attention to trust. This factor is especially important for services (because these are often experience/credence goods) but are not getting enough attention according to Dasgupta (1988).
For probleemdossier.nl it is important to make a decision in choosing between being part of Verzuim Support or to really stand alone. There are pros and cons to both options.
With remaining connected to Verzuim Support the advantage is that the new service can gain from the reputation that the established company has. The connection gives more credibility to probleemdossier.nl, in here Verzuim Support acts as reputation agent. The downside to remaining connected is that probleemdossier.nl can be seen as a trick to join Verzuim Support. And although Verzuim Support hopes to obtain some new customers through this new service, it is not the main goal of probleemdossier.nl. Potential-clients must not be afraid there is a snag in it!
probleemdossier.nl, thus for probleemdossier.nl it is important to have a trustworthy agent in the field selling the service. Or perhaps it is for the best to disconnect probleemdossier.nl and Verzuim Support completely from each other.
P9: Probleemdossier.nl and Verzuim Support should be completely separated in order to gain trust and credibility for probleemdossier.nl as a separate service
3.8 Summary
This chapter started out with a short introduction to the industry of absenteeism management. The changes that occurred in the last few years and the implications of those are set out. Thereafter, in paragraph 3.2 an introduction to the service innovation is given. Probleemdossier.nl is a single contract for one problematic file of an employee who is absence for a long time without clear diagnosis. Probleemdossier.nl then tries to solve the problem file (whether it is towards reintegration or an exit procedure) within a certain, agreed upon, time frame.
4 Methodology
This section will deal with the methodology used in this research. At first an explanation is given for why this particular research design is chosen following, the kind of data collection methods used are enlightened. Furthermore this chapter will give details about the interviews, which interviewees have been chosen and what questions have been asked.
4.1 Research Design
Forecasting is dangerous, there is always an amount of uncertainty. However, in new markets, with unknown outcomes and consumers forecasting is frequently necessary (Mackay and Metcalfe, 2002). Before interviews with potential stakeholders can be conducted, some basic market analysis has to be conducted. How else would one know who are which stakeholders in potential markets (Mackay and Metcalfe, 2002)? For stakeholder research to be successful the diverse and appropriate stakeholders need to have been identified. After this, the interviews with these stakeholders should follow up on the propositions formulated in the previous chapter.
This research is based on two kinds of data: literature and interviews, it is a qualitative research. The qualitative research format is chosen because of the information that is gained from the interviews is not only about the facts but also about experiences, perceptions of respondents and the meaning of the facts. Also, with interviews, often a smaller amount of respondents is involved. This may seem less adequate however, one must bear in mind that with this kind of data gathering the context of the research can be involved more which lead to adequate results (Zanoni, 2005). According to Denzin and Lincoln (2005-p5), a qualitative research is an attempt to through the use of multiple methods secure an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon in question. As Cooper and Schindler (2001) state, a qualitative research is useful in describing particular, localized occurrences or contexts and the perspectives of a participant group toward events, beliefs or practices. As this research focuses on a new service in the northern of the Netherlands with also only the scope of the three north provinces, it fits that criteria of Cooper and Schindler.
