A very important distinguishing feature of an ethnographic research strategy is fieldwork. In fact, Whitehead (2005) claims that spending long periods of time in the field is “a crucial aspect of the classical ethnographer’s ability to comprehensively describe components of a cultural system as accurately and with little bias as possible” (p. 5).
In Analysis 1, the adopted method to collect data is semi structured in-depth interviews.
A very important aspect to consider while collecting data using an ethnographic method is their emic validity. According to Whitehead (2005) emic validity means to “understand the study host(s) from their own system of meanings” (p. 5). The author argues that emic validity can be obtained only through long fieldwork,
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to present some strategy implications for traditional corporations willing to understand how to best compete in a profoundly changing market, as the advent of the share economy does reflect. In fact, to reach this dissertation’s goal, the aim of ‘Analysis 2’ is to understand, in light of the theory presented in the ‘Theoretical framework’ and the insights resulting from ‘Analysis 1’, the different reasons that have led these corporations to participate in the share economy and the motivations behind their specific strategies. For this part of the Analysis, the case study approach, and specifically a multiple-case study method, has been chosen. There are two underlying arguments, in favour of such a methodological choice. First, Yin (2009) claims that, in comparison to other methods, a case study research has the strength to examine in-depth the specific case within its “real-life” context especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident. Secondly, although the cases will differ – they present different corporations, industries, scale of engagement in the share economy, etc. – the aim is to provide a general explanation that will be fitting to each case (Yin, 2009). In addition to the latter reason, the choice of presenting several cases instead of just focusing on one, can be found in the fact that multiple cases are often considered to provide more compelling