Methodology

Methodology

Methodology

Methodology

Research design

Given our objective to elaborate the notion of competencies, we have selected a qualitative case study researchs. The case study set about matches well the exploratory and inductive way of bearing out this research in specific because we are looking at a up to designated day occurrence in a real-life context. Our empirical study aspires at showing competence change and development.

The selected case business, which we have granted the fictive title Pine Furniture Manufacturer Ltd. (in the balance of the paper called PiFurMa), is part of a bigger research program of longitudinal investigations of eight Danish pine furniture manufacturing firms. Even though we discerned alike outsourcing patterns and matters in four other firms, PiFurMa has supplied the most comprehensive get access to to the demanded data. Compared with other businesses that are a part of this longitudinal study, PiFurMa is lesser and there are less persons engaged in the outsourcing process. Therefore, it has been simpler to organise meetings, even on short observe, and to be in direct communicate with those key individuals that are engaged in the outsourcing process.

 

Data collection

Data assemblage for this case study is founded on eight individual, semi-structured meetings over a time span of two years. The first interview took location in February 2005 when the proprietor of the firm was interviewed. In the next three meetings in April, May and August 2005, the buying supervisor of the firm and his associate were interviewed. The next four meetings took location in October 2005, February and June 2006 and April 2007, engaging the proprietor of the firm and the buying supervisor who became co-owner of the business in October 2005. Interviews continued on mean 1 1/2 h and the data has been validated through follow-up considerations with the interviewees and added published material.

 

The pine furniture industry

Furniture manufacturing was both a resource- and a labor-intensive industry. Manufacturing undertakings were conventionally conveyed out by localized craft-based firms. Large capacity mass-production of furniture became a viable manufacturing scheme in the 1970s when ready-to-assemble (RTA) furniture became more popular. Large scale RTA pine furniture manufacturers often traded their goods to trade items markets where clients were large retailers (Kaplinsky et al., 2003). These retailers were international purchasers that compelled the manufacturing firms to make upon buyers' demands and at comparable prices.

Thus, making RTA furniture was normally directed at minimizing procurement and manufacturing costs. Efficient and productive administration of ...