Research Strategy
The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate if the existing theories of internationalisation could be applied on international manufacturing companies' internationalisation processes, within the region of Skane. We would try to explore similarities and differences between the companies' choice of internationalisation. Further, our purpose was to investigate if there were other factors influencing a company's internationalisation decision process.
There are two research approaches to choose between, inductive and deductive, according to Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2003. The deductive part consists of the theoretical framework and the inductive part is the findings of other influencing factors derived from the interviews.
To answer the research questions we developed eight hypotheses. In order to test them we chose to do in-depth interviews. Since our purpose was not to generalise, but to study the companies in our setting, we chose to do face-to-face interviews in order to get a deeper understanding of the companies. At first, we intended to conduct a survey using questionnaires, but then we realised that we needed to get deeper answers to able to answer our research questions. Through we looked at the population of international manufacturing companies within the region of Skane, and our sample of 30 companies were collected.
Our samples consisted of companies with various age, size and degree of internationalisation. The aim was to use companies in both high-tech and non high-tech industries. Another requirement was that it had to be manufacturing companies, mainly since we had difficulties to find service companies with headquarters in the region of Skane. All of the companies in our sample were originally founded in the region of Skane, with the only exception of Kron International that was founded in Stockholm and early moved to Vinslov in Skane. The main reason why we chose companies in Skane was the limitations of money and time. Since our intention was to conduct in-depth interviews the companies needed to be located in the nearby market. The final respondents within our sample, that were interested in participating in the interviews, were Alfa Laval, Perstorp AB, Backer AB, Kron International and Furninova. These companies represent different industries. Alfa Laval, Perstorp AB and partly Backer AB are in the high-tech industry. Kron International and Furninova have a low degree of high-tech.