Data presentation Methodological reflection on Case Study 1

Case Study 1 does not suggest a reformulation of a proposition that was not confirmed. A probabilistic proposition agrees with the test results, and it would be defensible to reformulate propositions 1a and 3a as probabilistic relations.

5.3.11 Replication strategy

Because the two hypotheses on technological capabilities 2a and 2b were confirmed for all cases it is concluded that a replication strategy should be applied in which the confirmed hypotheses are tested for cases that are very different from the ones studied here, i.e. innovation projects in other fields than telecommunication, and involving other companies than Nokia. With each new test, the researcher should put more energy into identifying and selecting a case that is less “typical” in order to increase the likelihood of a rejection of the proposition and which boils down to the same to try to get a sense of the boundaries of the domain to which the proposition applies. For the other propositions, the hypotheses were rejected. Then the researcher has two options for replication: 1. The researcher might interpret the proposition itself as cor- rect, but only in a more limited domain. Then a replication must be done with cases from a more limited domain, in which the theory points to a higher chance of its confirm- ation. This replication strategy was adopted for the two propositions on collaboration history 1a and 1b. It stated that these propositions, though not true for all projects undertaken by Nokia, might be true for a domain of innova- tion projects that does not include Nokia’s and perhaps some more projects. 2. The researcher might interpret the rejection of a hypothesis as evidence that the proposition could not be correct at all. Case Study 1 adopted this strategy for the two propositions on level of commitment 3a and 3b. A very different strategy could be to reformulate the propositions on the basis of the test results as probabilistic ones. This strategy would be defensible for propositions 1a and 3a. If such a strategy were adopted, the newly formulated propositions should be tested in a new study. If an experiment was not possible, this study could be a survey, either of newly collected data or by using the CGCP database. It is, however,