Implications Case Study 7: Descriptive practice-oriented research

evaluating, and comparing the standardization activities in each of these companies and, next, to design a “best practice” for company standardiz- ation to be implemented in the six companies participating in the proj- ect. The result of this study consisted of a description of the standardization processes in each company and an evaluation against criteria that were developed in this study. A compilation of these criteria resulted in a pro- posal for a best practice for standardization procedures. The resulting best practice has also been published in professional journals in France, Germany, India, and the Netherlands. It also proved to be of interest for an academic audience that was interested in our descriptive data on how companies carry out company standardization see De Vries, 2006. These descriptions can form a starting point for further research in which propositions might be tested that are based on the assumptions that we used when we formulated the criteria that form the basis of the best practice that we developed.

11.5 Methodological reflection on Case Study 7

11.5.1 Practice

Case Study 7 is oriented to the practice of company standardization in six big Dutch chemical and petrochemical companies. After being con- tacted by the researchers, these companies expressed the wish that research be conducted in order to help them to improve their own standardization performance by describing, evaluating, and compar- ing the standardization activities in each of these companies. In this practice-oriented research, the problem was positioned in the “design of intervention” phase of the intervention cycle, and descriptive know- ledge was needed about the companies’ standardization processes.

11.5.2 Research objective

The objective of this descriptive research was to contribute to the improve- ment of the company standardization processes of six companies by designing a best practice. Because the elements of which this best practice should consist were not yet known and, therefore, must be discovered in this research, and also because finding and describing a design does not involve the discovery and testing of causal relations between variables, a descriptive case study was appropriate. Chapter 11

11.5.3 Research strategy

Because the six companies requesting the development of a best practice also wanted the study to generate an evaluation of their own practices, and because each of these companies had given access to their prac- tices, it was an appropriate decision to include all six companies in this study. The design of this study, thus, became a comparative descriptive case study of the standardization procedures in the six companies that had requested it.

11.5.4 Candidate cases

Because the best practice that should be designed was explicitly meant to be a best practice for the process industry only, candidate cases for the description of elements of current practices from which a best practice could be built should be instances of standardization proced- ures in the process industry. The six companies were all part of the process industry.

11.5.5 Case selection

In a descriptive case study, case selection should be governed by con- venience, feasibility, and likely effectiveness. All six companies were included in the study.

11.5.6 Measurement

The researchers in this study needed to use a framework that helped them to decide which kinds of processes should be looked for in the six companies. Partially based on some initial exploratory measurement about the standardization processes in the six companies, and partially based on a model found in the literature, the researchers developed a process model of company standardization. This model defined four “core” and four “facilitating” processes that had to be “filled” with descriptions of how these processes were actually shaped in the six com- panies. Using a questionnaire that covered the eight processes of the model as an interview guide, semi-structured interviews with standardiza- tion managers and other informants were conducted in each of the six 250