Vietnam – a new market for Subway

Get Complete Project Material File(s) Now! »

Methodology

This chapter describes the used methods applied in writing this paper. It also illustrates the ways of collecting and analyzing data. Finally, the explanation of why we chose particular methods instead of others is provided.
The methodology part of our thesis aims to inform readers about the existing research designs and the reasons we are using some of them. We explain why we chose qualitative method of collecting data instead of quantitative (Ghauri & Gronhaug, 2005). Furthermore, the description of sub methods of qualitative research will be discussed with reasons of using particularly them.

Research philosophy

The philosophy for all the time is based on two opposite views which are objectivism and subjectivism. The natural sciences gave birth to the objectivism and are using its methods in today‟s experiments, observations and any types of work where something concrete should be calculated or proved (Holden & Lynch, 2004).
The approach that states that the common view has to be in all scientific questions where the social world can be explained with the aims of the natural science is called positivism. (Smith, Booth & Zalewski, 1996). According to Flick (2006), gathering and analyzing data must be conducted in the similar way for both natural and social sciences. Thus, the core idea of the positivistic method is to support all studies by statistical data. This approach goes against to our views of conducting the research. We believe that using the social networks for communicating with people cannot be studied by implementing mathematical or statistical methods. Thus, positivism method is not the one we can and will use in our research and analyze part.
The method, opposite to positivism, is hermeneutics. The history of the word hermeneutics refers to the ancient Greek language where a verb hermeneueien can be translated as to interpret. Therefore, we can state that the hermeneutics approach deals with understanding and rephrasing the textual materials which can be in form of: “stories, interviews, participant observations, dimes, letters, or other relevant documents” (Byrne, 2001, p.968). According to Gadamer and Marshall (2004), the two researchers of the philosophical hermeneutics, hermeneutics analysis is a research which does not define clear the material (the meaning can be interpreted) and is highly connected to the situational background. The latter one can be affected by the individual assumptions of the researcher, the people surrounding him at the particular moment, their current activities. The hermeneutics research interprets the text depending on his or her prejudgment (which in their case is affected by the language the researcher uses) (Chalmers, 2004).
We decided to choose the hermeneutics approach as the basics for our analysis part. We are intending to analyze Subway and how it is presented in social networks in four very different countries: France, Russia, Sweden and Vietnam. It is impossible to create using scientific tools such a model that will take into consideration the culture, language peculiarities, specifics of every social network and other criteria by which the comparison should be made. Oppositely, the hermeneutics methods allow us to make assumptions, discuss changes between countries and social networks and make our own conclusions verified by collected data.
Thus, as the former one is used in the qualitative research methods while the latter one in the quantitative. (Filmer, Phillipson, Silverman & Walsh, 1972), hermeneutics is appropriate for us.

Research approach

An approach should be followed and reasons. However, there exists different ways of reasoning the concept of interest (Morse & Mitcham, 2002). The two most common and used approaches are deduction and induction. The main difference lies in the way of moving along with analyzing a case.
Deduction is an approach which starts from broad and is finalized by the specifics. It implies the usage of the theory in the first stage followed by the observation and finishing with summing up the result. Thus the result one should come logically from the theory (Dey, 2004). The induction approach makes the opposite direction movements. It, vice versa, has the starting point as a case. Further the observation is made of this case and, finally, the last step is the generalization to a broader population (Dey, 2004).
Our thesis research is established on the inductive method. According to the induction the first step we need to take is to make an observation of the actual situation of how Subway is presented in every chosen country and how it uses the social networks. The following step will be conducting a research of the official pages of Subway in social networks‟. Finally, the comparative analyze will be fulfilled supported by the theory (Neuman, 2010).

Research method

Qualitative and quantitative approaches are two fundamental types of collecting information that are widely used in the studies.
According to Hammersley (1992) the following comparative table can be constructed
Quantitative method is a method that proves all theories statistically. As well it presents the analyzed data in figures, chats, diagrams and other statistical – based ways. Quantitative method is highly used in natural sciences (such as chemistry, physics etc) thus a lot of terminology is the same as applied for studying the nature. For example, “variables, control, measurement, experiment” (Bryman, 1988). In the analyzing of the social networks we will use neither such scientific terminology nor the methods they imply. Being too much scientific can create an omission of the observed data. Quantitative analysis does not take into consideration the “behavior in everyday situations” as well as “the difference between natural and social world” (Silverman, 2000, p. 4). This results in the inability to investigate the social and cultural constructions of the life, which are brought there by human beings. And logically the observation of people‟s behavior cannot be done. The research itself is made without or with little contact with people so it cannot analyze the reasons of any phenomena (Silverman, 2000). The absence of people in our researches contradicts to the sense of our thesis. As a result, we cannot use quantitative analysis in our thesis work.
Thus, as our aim is to find out and make a descriptive analyze of the Subway‟s strategy in social networks, we are employing the controversially to the above described quantitative research a qualitative data collection method, that studies the fundamentals of the social relations (Silverman, 2000). This should be made due to the increasing complications in the life (Flick, 2006). So the aim of this research method is to separate and understand causes and effects of the studied phenomena. We need to investigate is it worth for Subway to be in social networks and also what are the main reasons for it. Moreover, the common design should be created that would allow to make the similar conclusions for analogous cases (Flick, 2006). We are intending to construct a common structure for analysis of every country and to fill it. One important rule that should be followed during conduction of the qualitative research is to eliminate as much as possible the researchers‟ and as well the people‟s views or influence. This is made in order to make the research less subjective what will result in a higher quality and more precise analysis (Flick, 2006). The features of the qualitative research are to obser ve rather than to conduct an experiment using randomly chosen people; to make unstructured interviews instead of structured and allow the conversation flow in not-determined beforehand way – so relying on the deeper answers, which can be given due to the unstrained discussion. We are planning to make an observation of the fan messages, their behavior especially in cases of not being satisfied. That has been randomly chosen followers of the social networks. Moreover, we are going to take interviews in the semi structured form. The world is studied from the view point of chosen people, so that the behavior can be explained by the unlimited amount of reasons. Obviously, it is impossible to take them all into consideration. Consequently the qualitative research method prefers to generate hypothesis (in contrarily to quantitative method which proves them) (Silverman, 2000).
All investigations of our thesis are based on the qualitative research in particularly on netnography and interviews. There is no need for us to make any statistically proved researches as we are intending to make a research of the strategies of Subway in social networks.
Netnography is rather a young method and the theoretical base of it is not so well developed comparing to other qualitative methods such as interviews. Netnography is relevant for our research as using its concepts we can make a right observation and analysis of the Facebook, Twitter and Vkontakte pages of local Subway branches.
Interviews are the best way to get relevant inside-company information. It is trust worthy data as the questions that are preferred not to be opened to the public are simply not answered with the following explanation. Thus we trust that all other information given for us by the Subway branches is trustworthy. Thus, interviews are also a method we chose in conducting our research.

Research strategy

There are a lot of research strategy methods and they are based on the purpose and questions of the thesis. Experiments, archival research, surveys, ethnography, case study, grounded theory, action research are all the existing research strategies (Saunders et al., 2009).
Our research strategy for the analysis part will be related to the case study. Case study is a tool to make a full and complete observation of a specific example. It makes the reliable conclusions just for this particular case and it is impossible to give any trustworthy information for a broader population. In any case, it gives the hypotheses which first of all can be checked on a broader number of similar cases and secondly which can be used in the beginning steps of the researches (Abercrombie et al, 1984). Case study method is used with the aim to make a deeper research of a complex issue, simplify it and to understand better. The research part we are going to divide for countries so we are dividing the case into small parts. We will make an analysis for every country and only after that it will be possible for us to make a table of comparison and conduct a full analysis of it.
The case study method has disadvantages as well. Among them the following can be mentioned: it is impossible to generalize from a single case and misunderstandings can occur as a result of the researcher‟s interpretation. Writing the thesis in an international team we tried to take as much advantage of it as possible. Thus, we chose our countries for the analyzing, so that there should not occur the culture and language misunderstandings. We observed all the messages left in the walls of social networks what also leads to the decreasing of our wrong interpretation as we can make our conclusions based to a wider population. We made the analysis for three countries and based on them generalized the overall strategy. We are trying to decrease as much as possible the possible disadvantages of the case study method.
Case study research is used widely in all kinds of works but still some misunderstandings can appear along with applying it (Flyvbjerg, 2004):
Misunde rstanding 1: a lot of scientists and researchers believe that the most important knowledge in conducting studies is theoretical. But, in fact, experts base their results on the concrete knowledge. To be clearer, researcher is familiar up to several thousand of concrete cases based on this practical knowledge the whole analysis is made.
After finishing the observation and research of the social networks‟ official pages of local Subways we are writing the analysis to each country. Thus, we will get appropriate concrete knowledge for France, Russia and Sweden consequently. Based on this knowledge and the theoretical one which we gained working on the frame of reference part we can make further conclusions and general analysis.
Misunde rstanding 2: It is improperly to generalize one case study to a wider population. Such study cannot be appropriate for further scientific development as the life situations are pretty much complicated and if a researcher managed to consider most reasons of the phenomena it does not mean that the same reasons are applicable to even a similar phenomenon.
We are walking away this misunderstanding by doing three case studies of the local Subways in social networks. This helps us to make the generalization as reliable as possible.
Misunde rstanding 3: Researchers preconceived opinion is usually supported. Thus a “bias towards verification” (Flyvbjerg, 2004, p. 421) exists. According to Diamond (1996) the final case study analysis can be damaged sufficiently by the unscientific methods which can be used by the researcher.
In the research observation and analysis we are trying to stick ourselves to the methods described in this part (in particular to interview techniques and netnography method).
Misunde rstanding 4: Specific case study can be not sufficient for summarizing and introducing a generalized theory or idea. This is so due to narrative elements that occurs in the case study description. The real life‟s complexities and contradictories are in most cases more complicated than it is possible to describe them. As mentioned above, this makes the generalization impossible or introduces the mistakes and contraventions.
We presented more than one case study before generalizing the result – thus the unreliability decreases. All observations and descriptions we will supply with print screens that will reduce the narrative inventing.
The case study method is the core method we will apply in the practical part. We are intending to describe the way local Subways use social networks (to be more precise Facebook, Twitter and Vkontakte), analyze its strategie s, make a comparative table based on the main criteria and finally making the conclusion based on it.

Data collection

Primary data collection

In this part we will discuss our choice about which kind of primary data we will use. Primary data consists of information obtained through researches directly and which did not exist before (Silverman, 2000). Primary data‟s are new information and in our case we take them from interviews. We decided to use interviews among other means to have the point of view of the company we study. To understand and assess the content strategy of Subway we need internal information which cannot be found from outside the company. We will also discuss the preparation of the interviews and the treatment of the information afterwards.
Inte rvie ws
We will conduct three interviews for each country we studied (France, Russia and Sweden). We planned to make the forth interview with the representative of Subway Vietnam, but since we did not get any response we are presenting our own observa tions. We have decided make these interviews in our research process after having general knowledge and studying previous research about the field and existing theories about content strategy. Secondly, we need to start our netnography research before doing the interviews in order to ask more precise questions and to adapt them to what we would have already observed. This method of work also permits to ask for explanations to the managers we will contact about the facts we observe on social networks.
The interviewees are three managers of the three countries we decided to analyze for our thesis. They will be conducted by phone only. We are planning to do one interview for each person because we will already be well prepared for them and know most of the point we want to raise during the interviews thank to our previous work on theory and netnography. However, it may be possible to contact the person a second time in order to clarify complicated parts. We will take notes during the interview so that we can transcript the main points of the collected information. Because of the promise between our team and the managers, the name of these managers will remain anonymous in our thesis. We, therefore, name the head of marketing in Sweden as manager Swe, the marketing manager in France as manager Fra, the marketing manager in Russia as manger Rus. We also got a reply from a manger that is in charge of European region. He is a Communications and Customer Service Coordinator as well as an Ombudsman in Subway. We will call him manager EU in our thesis from now on.
The interviews will be semi structured. Semi structured interviews follow a general plan but at the same time is flexible so the discussion can go in several directions (Yin, 1989). The answers are not limited and do not necessarily answer just the initial question but can lead to related topics which are relevant to our work. Semi structured interviews allow to get a global impression and more understanding of the topic (Yin, 1989). We designed our interview with questions in a certain order for practical reasons but this order does not have to be followed exactly. We will make a structure to be well prepared for the interview and to be ready to jump from one question to another quickly without interrupting the discussion. We decided to use several types of questions, open, semi-open and closed. Some answers to closed questions will consequently be very short; most of such are such due to the clearness of the fact. Open questions on the contrary lead to deeper and more detailed answers. The two types of answers are primordial and valuable for our understanding of Subway‟s content strategy. The interviews transcript can be found in the appendix. These transcripts are results of the notes we took and the memories we have from the interviews but they cannot in any case be considered as quotes of the interviewees.

READ  3D Seismic Geophysical Evaluation

Secondary data collection

Netnography
The last decades changed the perception of the information a lot: instead of “watching the big networks consumers became them”. Now it is possible for everyone to gather a unique combination of the information by being a member of different communities (Kozinets, 2006). People join together to share information, experience and thoughts more and more in the World Wide Web. Thus a new qualitative method of studying people‟s minds appears and it is called netnography (Kozinets, 1998).
Netnography, or “internet – based ethnography”, can be defined from 2 points of view. The first one is, as a product, netnography is a studying of textual on- line communication inside the cybercultures (Kozinets, 1997) to understand their attitudes, perception, imagery, feelings (Langer & Beckman, 2005), needs and the way decisions are formed (Kozinets, 2002). From the other point of view, netnography in terms of process or research methodology is “a new qualitative research” method in which ethnographic techniques of conducting research are used with the aim of analysis communities formed in the WWW space (Kozinets, 2002). We are intending to make an observation of the Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and Vkontakte groups. We will consider the participants‟ behavior inside the social networks.
There can be mentioned the following reasons for the appearance of the netnography. The first one is the Internet becomes more and more popular way of communicating between people so different communities are formed varying by interests, beliefs, values and rules of behaving. (Bowler, 2010) Another re ason for conducting netnographic research is to avoid sensitive topics in the direct communication of the researcher and informants. Sometimes it happens that people do not want to meet personally and answer all questions of the interviewer thus a good solution is to find the same target group in the Internet and make the research in their community group (Langer & Beckman, 2005).
Netnography is often compared with the traditional ethnography and it has its advantages. It is simpler to conduct the netnographic research there is no need for finding a proper person for the research or joining several people together (Kozinets, 2006). Everyone whom we need to analyze is in our place, in one social platform and it becomes easy for them to communicate and for us to evaluate. Thus such studies are made quicker so they are less time consuming (Langer & Beckman, 2005). The costs for conducting a netnographic research are smaller due to reasons of the uselessness of renting a location for focus- groups or printing expenses of paper surveys. The instantaneous research of consumers‟ thoughts can be made by an immediate questionnaire in the websites of the on- line communities. (Kozinets, 2006). Netnography is the most suitable research method to study sensitive topics. It is the easiest way for people to feel free and be able to share information about their experience and knowledge concerning topics about which he would never give an interview or answer questions (Langer & Beckman, 2005). This is very important issue for us. Some people, especially those who are shy, would ne ver complain about the experienced negative treatment or the low service quality. Oppositely, in the web environment most people feel themselves freer and thus they share with their thoughts. It is valuable for us as we can study the real people‟s behavior and the way Subway answers. This effect can be gained from the netnographic researches through the fact that informants answering the questions in their usual environment making the everyday activities, in such situation in which they feel themselves the most comfortable (Sandlin, 2007). To sum up with advantages of the netnographic research methods we can say that it is a very speedy, easy and cheap way of making an analysis.
At the same time, the weak sites of the netnographic research exist as the whole analysis is based only on the textual materials so the in-person communicating sighs such as pauses, mimicry, changes in voice, body movements are absent. Thus the data collected can be wrongly analyzed. The other possible problem is that the informant does not provide with the true facts about himself. It is quite easy to create another person including sex, age, preferences and act from his name. As it comes from the name World Wide Web it is clear that the whole world is connected to the Internet and anyone can share with his/her opinion. This creates the following language and cultural problems. It can happen that due to language barriers or misunderstanding in culture the researcher will not analyze rightly the received information (Kozinets, 2006).
The netnography is usually made in 5 steps. They are entrée, data collection, analysis, research ethics, and member checks.
Entrée
Entrée can be divided into 2 steps where the first step is aimed to formulate the research question and following that it is essential to find the most proper group for analysis (Langer & Beckman, 2005). The search of the suitable group can be easily achieved as they are located in the Internet (Sandlin, 2007). We are taking three social networks for analysis. They are Facebook, Vkontakte and Twitter. These social networks are appropriate for us because Subway is presented in them. What is so, in its turn, due to the facts that these social networks are the most popular in France, Russia and Sweden. The second step is to find as much of the information concerning the chosen group as possible. (Kozinets, 1998). We monitored all the discussions, walls and any other information left on the official pages of the local Subways.
To conduct a research, participants should be understood and divided as they act in different ways. Thus according to Kozinets (1999), people using social networks or those who are active in different forms of blogs should be divided into 4 categories. The first one is tourists: the least active participants o f the online community, they do not have strong links to the group and their interest can pass quickly. At the same time this is the widest group of page fans. Minglers possess with the social links to the group but their interest in the central activity o f it is perfunctorily. Devotees‟ interest in the group activities is high still they have just few social links to it. And finally insiders are those who have the strongest links to the group and at the same time their interest in the activity is permanent and high. For the research the key two data sources are devotees and insiders as they make the hugest contribution in the development of the online community (Kozinets, 1998).
Data collection
Data, which can be obtained in the Internet and through social communications in the WWW space, sometimes might be in the enormous quantity. It is essential to choose the proper one for making the following analysis. To do so the principle of selecting the information is according to the research question. The data collection process should last as long as the important views are still written and the active discussion of the topic is exist (Kozinets, 1998). All the groups we are observing are young and maintained professionally. Participants are really active. Still the information that is in social networks is not in the enormous amount and it is possible to make the analysis of those that is presented. Plus all the information is relevant for our research. As the groups are maintained by Subway, all the messages are related to the company and no abstract discussions take place.
Data collected by the researcher can be divided into 2 types: 1) direct data from the social community‟s communication and 2) data that is generated (or basically, the remarks and analysis) by the researcher on the basis of the community‟s interactions. We provide in the research part both types of the data. We are adding the print screens to our analyze parts.
Analysis
Within the analysis stage the “Classification, coding analysis and contextualization of communicative acts” should be made. This will be basics for last steps. (Langer & Beckman, 2005). In the analysis, our group will firstly use our observation of the Facebook account of Subway and the interview result. After that, we will combine the real information we get with the theory to see the fit between them. Finally, we will draw conclusion for each country. Our group also will make a summary of three countries and make conclusion base on that summary. After that, our team will give possible recommendations for each of the three countries. Then, we will talk about Vietnam and give possible recommendation.
Research ethics
A great risk to harm a member of the online community exists. It can be done occasionally or intentionally within the community‟s space. The researcher has to be twice careful with choosing the ways to announce the results (King, 1996).
The four guidelines are provided by Kozinets (Kozinets, 2002; Kozinets and Handelman, 1998) that describe the rules needed to be followed in netnographic research:
• There should not be any signs of the researcher in the online community, so members would not know about the intentions under the text. This way will help to observe participants in the most natural way. We did not disc lose ourselves. We acted like general participants. In case when we needed to check the speed of the answer or to pose any other question we simply left messages with the same content as everyone does;
• The gathered data from online community members should be analyzed together. The risk to misunderstand someone‟s word by analyzing just one comment is high. Thus we observed someone‟s performance taking into consideration all his messages or ones which are close to the particular.
Membe r checks
The final report or parts of it are presented to the people who have been studied. This is done in order to get their views and feedback on particular topics discussed in the work. Thus, deeper information can be gathered with the members‟ attitude so the most finalized work will include real people‟s thoughts and omit researchers‟ misunderstandings (Kozinets, 1998).
Netnography is a rare way of analyzing Internet data. This method is rather young what can be explained by the relative novelty of the Internet itself (20-30 years is not a long time for different research methods to be formed). Still we used this method a lot in our practical part.

Table of Contents
1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem discussion
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Definition
2 Frame of reference
2.1 Content strategy
2.2 Social media
2.3 Literature review
3 Methodology
3.1 Research philosophy
3.2 Research approach
3.3 Research method
3.4 Research strategy
3.5 Data collection
3.6 Method triangulation
3.7 Social network ethics
4 Empirical findings and analysis
4.1 France
4.2 Russia
4.3 Sweden
4.4 Summary of the three countries
4.5 Recommendations for Subway
4.6 Vietnam – a new market for Subway
5 Conclusions
5.1 Discussion
5.2 Limitations
5.3 Suggestions for further research
References
GET THE COMPLETE PROJECT

Related Posts