Chapter 8 Discussion
Introduction
This chapter reflects on the main findings of the research in terms of its contributions
to: the key issues of the case study, questions raised in the e-commerce literature, the
methodology of agent-based modelling applied to these issues, and the stakeholder /
participatory approach. The latter two are very important aspects of the contribution
to knowledge because they are an original combination in methodological approach,
and so they shall be the focus of attention in this chapter.
Section one returns to the discussion of stakeholder participation which was presented
in chapter six, and extends it to consider in further detail the problems with lack of
feedback and access to the organisation. Section two considers the extent to which the
objectives of the participatory aspect of the case study were attained, and reflects
upon the experience of collaborating with industry by considering the usability of the
approach. It also develops some personal views on how the research progressed and
what was learnt from the experience. Section three compares three alternative
approaches to participatory enquiry, and draws some additional lessons from this
literature.
Section four reflects on the main findings of the research, by revisiting the original
research hypotheses, and considering how the case study has developed
understanding in these areas. The findings are placed in the context of the earlier
literature about the impact of e-commerce, and are used to make some observations
on the key themes of intermediation, value chain relations, and the integration of ecommerce systems. In particular the section looks at the issue of how to attain a
widespread use from the perspective of the multinational. The contribution to these
debates is elucidated, in view of the extent to which the case study findings can be
generalised.
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Section five presents a critique of the thesis, focusing upon the related issues of lack
of data and the rather singular perspective of the research. Finally, section six
suggests some avenues for further research.
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8.1 Reflection on the Stakeholder Participation
This section reflects on the outcomes of the stakeholder involvement, and positions
the contribution to knowledge of this research in terms of participatory methodology.
As stated previously in section 6.1, the stakeholders were very important to
undertaking the project as they were involved in several key phases. To summarise
the research experiences described in that section, it was concluded that:
•
Viability depends upon the interest of small number of people
•
Obtaining required access to these people can be problematic
•
Changing circumstances can curtail the research
The first of these points signifies that it may be difficult to get an initial ‘foot in the
door’ of the organisation. It illustrates the principle, described by Hammersley and
Atkinson (1983, pg. 60), of informal ‘sponsorship’ that serves to validate the presence
of the researcher and pave the way for access. Furthermore, as in this case study, the
sponsoring individual(s) are likely to be willing to fulfil the stakeholder role.
The second point signifies that there may be limited access to those persons and also
to the organisation. The nature of the relationship with the sponsor / stakeholder will
shape the development of the research in that it can facilitate some kinds of access
(for example, to the company’s sales data) and obstruct others (for example, to
knowledge about the customers of the company). From the third point it should be
recognised that access negotiations are ongoing and changeable, as explained by
Hammersley and Atkinson on their chapter on access in ethnographic research:
“The problem of access is not resolved once one has gained access to a setting, since
this by no means guarantees access to all the data available within it … negotiation
of access is therefore likely to be a recurrent preoccupation”. (Hammersley and
Atkinson 1983, pg. 76)
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One aspect of organisational access that was particularly problematic was that of
access to feedback from the stakeholders. There are three reasons that can be put
forward to explain the lack of feedback in this case study.
Firstly, there was a tendency to get sidetracked during these meetings. In particular, I
felt that we spent too much time discussing the breadth of what could be included in
the investigation rather than focusing on getting results from a small study, which
may have been a more productive use of the available time. Though very interesting,
the meetings failed to converge upon the practical considerations that likely would
have led to a more complete research investigation. This has implications for the
conclusions we can draw from the study (see section 8.5).
Without a doubt, it is easy to find oneself swapping ideas and stories and trying to
make sense of a multifaceted, emerging technology like e-commerce, and I must
accept responsibility for allowing conversation to drift from topic to topic. It was
interesting for me to hear about the practical problems and perspectives of those
involved in setting up these systems, and to see how this sat with the literature
produced. The stakeholders were very fond of exchanging anecdotes and stories about
their experiences, but were also interested to hear the latest academic views, which
were often outside the scope of their learning material and sources of background
information.
Setting aside these fertile discussions, in order to make good progress with the
research these experiences suggest that setting goals for each meeting would be
beneficial. Also the researcher must if possible take the initiative and set the agenda
for the meeting, in order to make sure those goals are attained.
The second reason to explain the difficulty of obtaining feedback is that there were
often long lengths of time between meetings. The stakeholders, and myself, would
sometimes forget what had been previously discussed. It is very important in
participatory projects that everyone knows what the others are doing, and what they
have agreed to do themselves. In contrast to many empirical methods such as
interviews or surveys, in participatory projects the ‘subjects’ of the research are
themselves part of the research team.
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It was perhaps unavoidable that there are large gaps of time. Lack of man-hours to the
project meant that progress was quite slow and a long time had passed between the
data collection and the point where the first results were available (a period of 9
months) for example. During this time I did provide a report on the fieldwork analysis
– a partial first draft of chapter five of this thesis. However, the stakeholders perhaps
felt that they did not know what I was doing during these times. This was a comment
dropped by one of them before our final meeting, and I suspect it to be partly a result
of these relatively large time gaps. If there were a regular communication between
participants, then this problem (of lack of face-to-face contact) would be alleviated, to
some extent. This is important because large gaps in time are likely to increase the
danger that the participants interests in the project will diminish.
Thirdly, and finally, the largest reason for poor feedback was the increasing lack of
involvement of the stakeholders because of their time constraints. My research
logbook shows several cancelled or rescheduled meetings and lower e-mail and
telephone response. In my opinion, this was clearly the most important reason for the
lack of feedback. On more than one occasion, the stakeholders themselves said that
their own time constraints were the main factor in their lack of involvement, adding
that they were regretful of this situation.
They did evaluate the model, and provide feedback in a limited sense, which was less
than had been expected. We tested the model by discussing the list of drivers and
inhibitors of Internet e-commerce that were based on the fieldwork findings, and by
discussing the endorsements model that was being developed. We also looked at
some of the preliminary results, once the model was working, but this was quite brief.
Most of the time was spent discussing the assumptions of the model, which was in
fact more appropriate at that stage of development (see section 6.6).
Given that one feature of participatory enquiry is the likelihood of access problems
mentioned earlier, and given the discussion of the problems of achieving feedback
issues, one final principle would recognise the imperative to take all opportunities
available to proceed with the work to a satisfactory conclusion.
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The next section considers what was achieved by the research approach, in terms of
informing the stakeholders and bringing insight to their understanding of some
aspects of the business.
8.2 Reflection upon the Usability of the Approach
One of the objectives was for the research to produce some findings that would be
useful to the stakeholders. This section reflects upon the question of how well the
approach did what it was hoped in chapter four - what exactly it achieved in terms of
helping the stakeholders. Bearing in mind here what was discussed in 8.1, i.e. the lack
of involvement on the part of the stakeholders, it is difficult to answer this question.
As stated earlier, I did set out to inform stakeholders on the benefits and opportunities
associated with the development of e-commerce. However, this was found to be
difficult in practice, as result of the lack of access. This became increasingly a
problem after late 2002 whilst the model was still under development and the
experiments had not yet been carried out.
The results from the prototype experiments that were taken back to the company
inspired the stakeholders to ask questions and pursue the introduction of further
studies (i.e. surveys), which is an indication of their interest and the fact that they
value the potential of this kind of work to highlight customer relationship and internal
efficiency shortcomings. In addition, they could see how it could lead to MAS
applications, for example they were interested in the development of software
systems for managing and analysing their e-commerce data. This kind of research and
its applications was seen by the stakeholders as something which could give them an
advantage in terms of expertise in e-commerce, which was something considered very
important within the strategic planning of the company.
To clarify, the situation was that the research approach was seen as showing strong
potential to be useful to the stakeholders, and indeed it did produce some interesting
findings (see later section 8.4 for a summary), though ultimately these findings were
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not used by the stakeholders or the organisation to inform policy making in the sense
of the perspective of action research.
Action research is based on the premise that the participants will act upon the findings
of the research, that the research and the real-world problem situation are directly
entwined, and therefore any intervention capabilities are planned for and made a part
of the research design. Viewed from the perspective of action research, the
participatory method that was used in this project could have had a much more
problem-solving and interventionist focus. Instead there was more of an emphasis
placed upon observation, description and reflection than upon choosing particular
courses of action. In this sense, the approach has more in common with a soft systems
methodology (SSM) approach (Checkland 1981; Checkland and Scholes 1990) than
with action research. Hindle, Checkland et al. (1995) discuss differences of research
objective focus by comparing social science, action research and soft systems
methodology. We return to the comparison with SSM and other participatory
approaches in the next section (8.3).
The idea of taking action based on the findings of this case study was discussed at the
beginning of the project. Furthermore, although it was put forward as part of an
‘evaluation’ in an internally circulated e-mail, the fieldwork was clearly considered
by some of the interview respondents as an investigation which may inform some
course of action. This can be linked to the literature on ‘models of the researcher’ as
‘expert’ or ‘critic’, that may be an inaccurate expectation on the part of the manager
(Hammersley and Atkinson 1983, pg. 75)
However, I do not know that any decision-making in the organisation relating to ecommerce has been influenced by the findings. Moreover, it is unlikely to contribute
to policy change at the company or within the value chain. This is a result of several
factors. Firstly, the collaborators did not evaluate the results in detail, partly due to
changing circumstances at the company. Secondly, company policy in e-commerce is
still emerging and taking new directions. For example, the company is now
reconsidering the possibility of direct sales via the Internet to all customers, an
outcome that had been ruled out at the time of the study.
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Company policy on intermediation might similarly change in line with overall ecommerce strategy. At the time of the study, policy suggested allowing
disintermediation of a limited number of less competent / technologically reluctant
suppliers. Whilst intermediaries would not be deliberately cut out of the chain, there
might be a more subtle process where certain suppliers are favoured over others, with
the main objective of improving customer service provision.
Such fast-changing policy implies that the model will be increasingly difficult to keep
up-to-date and relevant. This is an unfortunate but typical state of affairs where ecommerce policy is concerned – it should be remembered that industry is still in the
very early stages of developing Internet EC systems. Furthermore, other research
(Caswell 2000) has shown that manufacturers are not very successful at stating their
EC policy, though at least most are aware of the likely importance of this technology
in the future. These factors underline the difficulty of doing modelling to inform
policy making in this area.
These difficulties notwithstanding, I do believe that the approach has potential to be
used in a more interventionist manner. There are a number of conclusions that can be
made from the evidence of this project, which would guide future participatory
projects to make them more useful to stakeholders. Firstly, there needs to be
developed ways to speed up the development process of models to complete them in a
more useful time frame. Secondly, it was apparent that developing better visualisation
tools would illustrate the dynamics of the model and make the simulation outcomes
more understandable. Thirdly, developing closer links by planning for regular
meetings would give the stakeholders more control over the direction of the research,
and allow them to fine-tune it as their needs change over the course of time.
It should be stated that, as a modeller entering an organisational setting for the first
time, I was very much on a learning curve in forming my strategy for doing
participatory research. Without taking much heed of other participatory approaches, I
conducted the research on e-commerce impacts with the input of the two stakeholders
who were acting as my ‘sponsors’. As demonstrated in section 8.1, this rather naïve
approach lead to the unfolding of research issues typical of those relating to what are
considered the ‘classic’ problems of ethnography, i.e. access and field relations.
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In view of this fact, consideration of other participatory approaches in the literature
has been deferred to this chapter rather than in an earlier section where the case study
methodology was described (section 4.2). In the next section, these participatory
approaches are explored with a view to suggesting what lessons might be learnt from
them that were not considered in the case study, and how these lessons could be
absorbed into future agent-based modelling research.
8.3 Other Participatory Approaches
The purpose of this section is to make comparisons between the stakeholder approach
used in this case study with other established participatory approaches: cognitive
mapping, business process modelling (BPM), and soft systems methodology (SSM).
Cognitive mapping is a technique used by management and organisational researchers
which has its roots in the field of cognitive psychology (Korzybski 1933; Tolman
1948). It aims to offer cognitive explanations for organisational performance, and is
used, chiefly, to study the understandings and thinking of managers and how this is
linked with knowledge and learning in the organisation.
The cognitive map itself describes individual managers’ mental maps (i.e. their
internal representations of particular domains of business knowledge) by identifying
the sets of concepts which the managers perceive, and their beliefs about how those
different concepts are related. Although the relationship between two concepts A and
B could be any specified phenomenological relationship (e.g. A is a member of B, or,
e.g. if A then not B) it is most common to study the causal or efficacy relationships,
i.e. those of the form A influences B or A is an outcome of B. The resulting maps are
known as cause maps. Cause maps are of great interest to strategy researchers
because they are believed to best reflect decision and policy-making in the
organisation.
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The traditional matrix (Bougon, Weick et al. 1977) technique for eliciting this
information involves presenting the manager with a pairwise sequence of elements,
and asking for clarification of the efficacy relationship. Constructing the matrix and
calculating the indegree values could lead to the discovery of interesting patterns in
the data. An alternative technique used by qualitative researchers involves semistructured interviews with management (Eden 1988; Laukkanen 1994). The objective
is to probe the manager’s cognitive structures by similarly focusing on questions
about the causal relationships amongst a number of key concepts.
Both techniques involve creating lists of standard terms to group together sets of key
terms or concepts having a virtually identical meaning. The main difference is that
with the former technique, the standard terms must be defined well in advance of the
fieldwork, whereas the second technique allows a more flexible approach in terms of
the ability to derive the standard terms from the data and to analyse the data using
more than one set of terms. On the one hand the data analysis technique used in
cognitive mapping is rigorous and less dependent upon the interpretative skills of the
researcher. However, on the other hand the potential drawback of cognitive mapping
is that the technique tends to isolate features of managerial cognition from their social
and organisational context.
There is plenty of discussion about comparison of different maps across and between
organisations and management groups (Laukkanen 1994; Swan and Newell 1998). It
is also standard practice to involve stakeholders in the role of evaluating the graphs.
There is starting to be more of a focus upon how to mediate between the individual
maps generated by the technique, and the normative patterns of the organisational
culture. Researchers want to understand the performance of the organisation and how
it can be improved through learning and effective use of the knowledge that has
accumulated over time.
However, because the mapping technique tends to reveal quite well established
patterns of managerial thinking, it is difficult to capture learning processes with this
approach unless the researcher can be involved during a period of organisational
change.
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Another approach which uses participatory techniques and analyses qualitative data is
Business Process Modelling (BPM). In this sense it has similar objectives to the
modelling approach described in this thesis, that is, to understand the impact of
technological systems. In particular, the objective is to assess the technical feasibility
of developing a computer system by analysing the business processes to identify the
improvements that could be made and the steps to be taken to achieve them. In other
words, to perform a requirements analysis to support organisational change.
Firstly, it should be noted that there is a similarity between business process and
value chain activity – they are seen in a similar light by both communities because
they both stress the value adding nature of these processes. Also both consider
activities undertaken jointly across organisations as within their scope of interest.
More specific concepts used in BPM are as follows:
•
The model consists of a number of processes, each of which have defined
goals
•
There are many agents (customers, employees, machines) that carry out
different roles within the system
In the sense that this analysis is process centred, concerned with dynamic behaviour,
and involves different types of agent, there are evident similarities in the BPM
perspective as that of ABM.
The analysis will involve different groups of stakeholders participating in the research
and will incorporate cycles of reformulating and re-evaluating the problem. In this
approach, the research design more deliberately makes use of the model to provide a
common language for discussion among the participants. It aims to provoke a
discussion amongst the various stakeholders that will identify the issues of contention
and conflict as well as the points of agreement. This can be the first step to reaching
consensus through negotiation. Loucopoulos (2003) describes the qualitative testing
of models with the input of many stakeholders as follows:
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“The deployment of testing parameters at each key process element encourages
group brainstorming through which participants could focus on alternative solutions
and envisage potential behaviour of the system prior to its implementation.”
(Loucopoulos 2003)
Since one of the main objectives of BPM is to support the process of reaching
agreements among the groups in order to support the collective making of decisions
impacting on the use of computer technology in organisations, it shares similarity
with the action research methodology discussed in the previous section. The research
is aimed at aiding managers to take action within the context of implementing new
computer-based systems.
SSM (Checkland 1981; Checkland and Scholes 1990) arose out of the realisation that
it was very problematic to apply systems engineering principles ("hard" systems
theory) to managerial decision-making. It was developed by operational research
scientists to resolve situations of high ambiguity due to the subjective views of
different stakeholders on what constitutes the research problem (Hindle, Checkland et
al. 1995). SSM aims to elicit managers’ “worldviews” and use this understanding to
base the discussion and negotiate agreements among stakeholders. This involves
constructing models of ‘purposeful human activity systems’ which are proposed
solutions for going from a starting state to some desired end state.
The system diagrams produced are called “holons” and normally consist of
contingent relations represented by arrows linking the activities. The diagrams
therefore resemble those used in cause mapping research. However the differences
are that the holon is an organisational worldview rather than an individual one, which
integrates the views of all stakeholders in a single system diagram, and that it is more
prescriptive in terms of describing a desired path, solution, or opportunity for
intervention, rather than describing the understandings of managers in any business
domain. For these reasons it produces a less descriptively rich (i.e. qualitative)
formalisation than that encapsulated in either BPM or cognitive mapping diagrams.
In other words, SSM provides tools for making a problem more specific. It relies
heavily upon the experienced researcher acting as a ‘process facilitator’ to encourage
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the stakeholders to engage in negotiation and development of a process model. It is
suggested that better results can be obtained when the facilitator has a relatively
vague problem definition in the early stages in order not to constrain the project.
However, it is also proposed that a formal methodology should be stated in advance
of undertaking the research, which describes the aims of the intervention as well as
the framework of ideas or theories that will be applied.
The central issue of SSM of the contrast between the imprecision of the problem
domain and the formal nature of the available techniques is one that is also key to the
field of social simulation. In both approaches, the design of models is seen as a
disambiguation process that abstracts from the problem definition and research issues
(which may be contested) to a limited set of formal statements (a process model or an
agent-based model). In the abstraction process much of the complexity of the problem
is lost, and this leaves us with the difficult issue of identifying to what extent the
model is representative of and relevant to the problem area.
Concluding from this discussion of other participatory approaches, ABSS can draw
upon these insights to inform future interactions with domain experts or field
‘insiders’. In a similar way to SSM and BPM, interactions that involve identifying
(and generating debate about) participants’ conflicting worldviews could become a
good focus for eliciting knowledge. Any consensus-building activity that takes place
within this context would be useful in developing the conceptual model of business
activities, and the engagement would be a bridge to them becoming more strongly
engaged in the subsequent stages of evaluation.
A further principle that can be taken from this discussion is that stakeholders may
require the researcher’s guidance in coming to conclusions and reaching consensus, in
far more of an advisory capacity. This could be carried out by ‘chairing’ the
discussion. The modeller must possess skills in acting as an interface between the
stakeholders and the model as well as facilitating debate and consensus-building
amongst the stakeholders in order to fully realise the potential of the approach. This
role requires a lot of additional work on the part of the researcher, and skills that need
to be attained through experience of working in different research and organisational
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settings. The difficulties of engaging the stakeholders could be eased by the use of
more intuitive model visualisation tools, and by using less jargon, for instance.
8.4 Revisiting the Research Hypotheses
In this section the findings of chapters five, six and seven are discussed and evaluated
against the research hypotheses presented in chapter four. It outlines the contribution
of this research to knowledge about value chain, e-commerce and intermediation
issues.
In section 4.2.4 it was hypothesised that market intermediation will remain a very
important function in the distribution of the manufacturer’s products, based on the
nature of the products, which are generic, and the nature of the market, which is
diffuse. In chapter five, however, it was seen that there are factors which complicate
this analysis, namely that products are increasingly seen as complex in terms of
requiring specialist knowledge in developing and marketing them. Management want
to promote these ‘specialised’ characteristics of their products and services over the
traditional image of ‘off-the-shelf’ products sold by ‘box-shifting’ distributors.
E-commerce is part of this developing perspective because it is also seen as enabling
greater collaboration in product development as well as facilitating stronger customer
relations management. These aims (of management) are not served by market-like
interactions but instead require the development of high knowledge and expertise in
working with customers. Whilst rejecting market-like arrangements as a solution for
these requirements, it should also be recognised that there are problems with
vertically-integrated (i.e. hierarchical) operations since, as discussed earlier, it is
difficult for the company to achieve an expertise over many different business areas.
Drawing upon the fieldwork analysis of the case study, the favoured strategy was
found to be one of encouraging more customers to deal through distributors, and
encouraging those distributors to provide the required consultancy / technology
expertise or advanced e-commerce facilities as their ‘co-specialised asset’. This can
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be described neither as a strict markets nor a hierarchies solution to the distribution
arrangement, but a form of tightly-coupled network whose function is best described
by the value chain perspective.
The effect of the introduction of e-commerce technology is to make production and
distribution processes more complex and knowledge intensive. This increase in
complexity is consistent with the finding that a limited amount of disintermediation
was anticipated in the wake of the e-business initiative. However, new opportunities
were shown to exist in developing expertise in value-adding activities such as
improved inventory management systems or specialist technical knowledge of
developing market sectors. Whilst the overall market share of intermediation was
expected to go up, there would be increasing competition amongst distributors that
would make it an increasingly difficult climate to do business without some kind of
‘advantage’. Furthermore, from the manufacturer’s perspective it was thought
imperative that the improvements in the transparency of business information should
be carried through to the smaller customers. These two factors (the increasing
competition and the information imperative) would likely threaten the intermediaries
and lead to a reduction in their number.
The case study findings suggested that some of the distributors will struggle to
reintermediate themselves under a fully enabled e-commerce system, one where
electronic orders might potentially be mandated by the manufacturer. On the future of
those distributors, there was detected a very pessimistic view on the part of some
respondents. Furthermore, in the literature review there were few actual examples of
the disintermediation – reintermediation (IDR) cycle in e-commerce where a
particular company has successfully managed to adapt. However, one factor which
may have been neglected is the difficulty of setting up the longitudinal case studies
required to track such adaptations. This could be an area for future research.
Experiments with the simulation model looked at the importance of price and
technical competence characteristics of the distributors. Comparing across different
scenarios, analysis of intermediary performance (market share, profitability and
survival rate) suggested that intermediaries profitability is strongly correlated to
intermediaries’ technical competence, but it is not correlated to selling price. In
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addition, agents that do not survive in the simulation always have the lowest technical
competence level. Market share is closely related to price, but due to variability in
intermediary mark-up, agents with large sales are not necessarily the most profitable.
Simulation results seemed to support the analysis of the fieldwork. Some
intermediaries having low technical knowledge might not survive in a value chain
augmented by Internet technology; increasing competition would make it difficult for
them to remain profitable.
Bearing in mind the earlier literature on adoption of EDI technology, research
questions centring upon diffusion of e-commerce systems were investigated. The
fieldwork showed that, most importantly, the onus was on the manufacturer to
describe the possibilities of EC to the customers, and to make it attractive for them to
adopt. A heavy reliance would be laid upon the different support strategies that were
available to the company. The study revealed these incentives or ‘drivers’ of ecommerce, along with a number of inhibitors, largely result from technical and
organisational under-preparedness of the customers and distributors. Clearly if the
manufacturer does take into account such obstacles to diffusion, the customers will
not be able to engage effectively in EC and hence the value chain will under perform.
These factors were then later incorporated prominently in the simulation model as
customer perceptions and beliefs. The model was intended to be representative of the
case study situation, and was reliant on the input of the stakeholders for establishing
the validity of the mapping between model and target system. Simulation experiments
were carried out to investigate the issues surrounding the e-commerce initiative and to
develop understandings of those scenarios.
The model was also based on the assumption that social influence plays an important
role in the attitude formation of potential users of the e-commerce system. Scenario
analysis carried out with the model suggested that a simple customer-customer
referrals process can produce a strong effect in influencing agents’ choice of supplier
that can ultimately drive high levels of inequality in market share for intermediaries,
as well as changes in levels of adoption and use of e-commerce.
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The results on intermediaries’ market shares were plotted to test for the existence of
the Pareto Power Law distribution, a ‘statistical signature’ of many observed market
systems, and there was found to be a logarithmic relationship between the cumulative
number of units sold and the ordering of intermediaries. Experimental outputs also
exhibited s-shaped e-commerce adoption and usage curves, resembling patterns
identified in empirical studies of technology diffusion, as well as the actual uptake
plotted from statistical logs collected by the stakeholders for the first fourteen months
of operation of the electronic mall.
In summary, a combination of interpretative fieldwork analysis and agent-based
modelling research was used to address the research hypotheses and produce some
findings and conclusions to add to knowledge on value chains, intermediation and the
impact of e-commerce.
Whilst it is not proposed that modelling techniques developed here are sufficiently
penetrating to use as replacement for multiple, qualitative case studies, it can be
argued that much can be gained from using agent-based modelling in parallel. In
essence, this is the argument for multimethodology – a debate which is attracting
much attention in the area of management of information systems. In this thesis,
agent-based modelling is put forward as one such alternative.
Moving on from the discussion of what new knowledge or insight has been gained
from this case study, the next section considers the issue of limitations to the
approach.
8.5 Limitations of the Research
In addition to the main shortcoming, the uncertainty over the extent to which the
research would be useful to the stakeholders, discussed in detail in section 8.3, there
are other areas where the limitations of the findings should be clarified.
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A critique of the thesis should focus upon the lack of data to inform the model, such
as the basic information about the nature or characteristics of intermediaries and
customers. There is also a shortage of information about the behaviour of
intermediated customers (i.e. customers who do not have contact with the
manufacturer) and the perceptions that drive their behaviour. Since it was not possible
to speak to any intermediaries to get their views and those of their customers, this
must necessarily lead to a one-sided perspective of e-commerce development. It also
resulted in an exploration of possible strategic options for the manufacturer only.
There was very little consideration of customer and distributor alternatives, i.e. their
responses to manufacturer actions. In general, the lack of information was
problematic because it left a number of model assumptions that were less well
validated than they might have been.
A quantitative survey would have added to the study, and made it easier to quantify
some of the parameters, in particular those involved in the sensitivity analysis (i.e.
initial perceptions and the cohesiveness / density of the network). Collecting
information articulating the perspectives of the business partners would also allow
development of the critical theory approach, where conflicts and the power
relationships that structure interactions are more fully considered. The study had an
essentially singular perspective of employees at the company and so couldn’t capture
these aspects.
Since only a single case study was considered, that was centred upon one
manufacturer, the findings are not safely generalised to development of a pluralistic
perspective on the impact of e-commerce. The study has concentrated upon a specific
case involving empirical research that adds to knowledge about markets, the value
chain, and technology diffusion. To the question of whether the findings could be
generalised to other situations, the position taken here is that although similarities
were found with other empirical work (see chapter two) across different industrial
sectors, the case study itself is very specific.
The model developed as part of this case study, is relatively fine-grain and therefore
unlikely to be relevant to other cases. The flexibility of the agent-based approach,
however, allows the possibility for particular components of the model to be replaced.
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Though this would require a significant amount of work, in the long run suites of
models could be built that would allow a gradual establishment of more general
findings relevant to more than one situation. We return to the generalisation issue in
the following section (i.e. suggested further research).
However, this leaves us with another question: how successfully does the modelling
address the research hypotheses? This is a more general issue than that concerning the
substantive findings of the research, which was reviewed in the previous section.
Here, the interest is in how useful are the answers, and to what extent they are
limited? It should be noted that what can be inferred from the model results about the
target system, i.e. the policy implications of the model, is largely determined by the
level of confidence in the model. On the one hand, it was difficult to give policy
recommendations because lack of data with which to calibrate the model. On the
other hand, policy prescriptions such as encouraging adoption through various types
of intervention strategies and distributed communication amongst customers and
distributors, which were supported by the fieldwork analysis as well as by simulation
modelling, are reasonable ones to recommend to management.
The modelling is limited in the sense that it is not feasible to explore every possible
parameter setting but uncertainty must be dealt with through rigorous testing of the
results, repeated simulation, statistical analysis, and sensitivity analysis. However, the
model may be limited in other ways, not only upon how much trust can be placed in
the results.
It also was limited in that there were no conflicts apparent in the views of
stakeholders which could significantly complicate the research. In one sense it could
be considered fortunate that the stakeholders very closely shared views because it
made easier the task of formulating objectives suitable for a collaborative project. On
the other hand, conflicts amongst the stakeholders are interesting precisely because
they bring up issues which can be drawn into the model, by probing them, making
them explicit and understanding them through the model development process.
Negotiating upon conflicting views of the participants could therefore be a possible
use and benefit of the modelling as discussed earlier in section 8.3. An explanation
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for the lack of conflicts is that it was a result of having a very small group of
stakeholders, who possessed essentially unified views. However, with larger groups
of stakeholders, the likelihood is that different members hold different views, and
therefore there is a greater possibility of conflicts.
The ABSS methodology is not sufficiently developed to give guidance on how to
manage conflict issues, should they emerge, during the course of a participatory
project. It is an important question because it would, at least in part, indicate how the
method would scale up to projects involving lots of stakeholders. More attention
would need to be paid to conflicts and power relations amongst stakeholders, and the
relations between those individuals and the organisation. It would also be likely to
cause more confusion as to the project objectives (i.e. what are we going to study and
for what purpose – i.e. who is supposed to benefit?) and problem specification.
8.6 Reflection on the Areas Deserving Further Work
This chapter will now conclude with some suggestions for further research along
these lines of enquiry. Firstly, it has been argued that the research approach worked
reasonably well for a single case study and has proved worthy of trial for a bigger
study incorporating several cases and models of the impact of e-commerce upon the
value chain. Similarities exist across industry in the way business-to-business ecommerce is organised. It would be worthwhile to explore how case alignment might
be carried out when several (similar) studies exist, and therefore the opportunity
exists for making comparisons and generalisations across these findings.
Secondly, it would be valuable to undertake a study incorporating ABSS modelling of
multiple perspectives of the value chain. There are several market-types that a
company may choose to enter: intermediary controlled and buyer controlled as well
as those initiated by themselves. Investigating the strategies of other members of the
value chain would allow us to develop further insights into the issues associated with
the introduction of EC and its impact upon the value chain.
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Thirdly, further research should aim to demonstrate the utility of the ABSS approach
in developing multi-agent software systems using sociological principles. These
principles encapsulate the flexible, robust, scalable, distributed and adaptive qualities
that we consider important for systems that are required to operate in complex
business environments. Finally, it is clear that new tools for improving visualisation
of simulation data would greatly enhance the ability of industrial collaborators to
interpret the meaning of simulation results and recognise behavioural patterns. These
tools would also undoubtedly have a positive impact on the feedback process between
industrial participants and research team.
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Conclusion
The original aspect of the work presented here was to combine qualitative with
quantitative insights in the development of an ABSS model. The qualitative approach
is encapsulated by the data collected through interviews, and the quantitative by sales
and other data. The key problem is to relate the quantitative to the qualitative, and
vice versa, i.e. to translate the qualitative data into a form suitable to apply the formal
methods of computer modelling, and likewise to interpret numerical outputs of
simulation experiments in terms of qualitative descriptions of modelled phenomena.
This is an important point, because stakeholder participation requires developing
explanations of model behaviour to which the stakeholders can understand and
discuss. As discussed in chapter six, the participatory approach was central to the
research although it produced problems in obtaining data that stakeholders had
initially agreed to provide, in completing the model evaluation process, and in an
eventual abrupt ending to the project. All of these problems were linked with the
literature on ethnographic research settings, namely the issues of ‘sponsorship’,
‘ongoing access relations’, and ‘models of the researcher’.
The lack of information was particularly problematic for model development because
the assumptions were less well validated than they might have been. Similarly to
SSM and BPM approaches to participatory inquiry, ABSS modelling is a process
which forces disambiguation amongst stakeholders in specifying a ‘conceptual
model’ of the system under investigation, and the (often hidden) assumptions that
constitute it.
In addition to simulating the consequences of managers’ decision-making and other
scenarios involving dynamic processes, a main strength of the approach would be this
disambiguation of the specification of a problem area. In the course of doing this,
necessarily the researcher will elicit stakeholders’ subjective positions. It must be
recognised then, that the model is not an objective one but, on the contrary, contains a
number of subjective interpretations. Nevertheless, the view of the author is that it is
possible to claim objectivity on the grounds that there are common ‘threads’ running
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through the dialogue, and that this type of objectivity may be a desirable ontological
position to aim for in the face of stakeholders conflicting worldviews and
subjectivity.
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