Abstract
This chapter describes the research methodology and design of the study in detail. After the introduction, the second section includes some information about the automotive industry in Turkey, which includes basic economic indicators such as production, foreign trade, sales, capacity, employment, place of industry in world, AMMs, and the supply industry in Turkey. In the third and fourth sections, the scope, purpose, and main research questions of the study are discussed. Then, research methodology is justified. In the sixth section, the basic research methods adopted for data gathering are explained in detail. Lastly, some concepts and differences for the firms constructed and used in the analyses are described.
This study was supported by a research grant from both TUBITAK under 1002-short term R&D funding programme and Faculty Development Program of METU (OYP). Moreover, the professional supports of OSD and TAYSAD (two main representatives of Turkish automotive industry) have played an instrumental role in the success of the questionnaire survey application (see Appendices C and D for their letters of support).
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Notes
- 1.
We will use the four terms “customers”, “buyers”, “AMMs”, and “MNCs” interchangeably throughout the study to refer to the same concept since approximately all of the AMMs operating in Turkey are MNC affiliates and/or they are manufacturing under foreign license/brand of global AMMs; by the way, majority of the surveyed firms are direct suppliers of at least one AMM in Turkey and they carry out most of their sales to these customers, so these four terms are used interchangeably (see section “AMMs in Turkey”, Sects. 3.7, 4.5, and Appendix H for details).
- 2.
- 3.
It was detected from the interviews that two AMMs which are not seen as manufacturing under a foreign license (B.M.C and Türk Traktör) in Appendix H use foreign licenses to manufacture some parts and/or import their powertrain parts and components from MNCs.
- 4.
- 5.
Author calculations based on TurkStat foreign trade statistics database, NACE 34 ISIC Rev. 3 for motor vehicle industry, BEC 51 for personal cars.
- 6.
- 7.
See Bailey (1987), Hamel, Dufour, and Fortin (1993), Gomm, Hammersley, and Foster (2000), Carson, Gilmore, Perry, and Gronhaug (2001), Travers (2001), Yin (2003), George and Bennett (2005), Anfara and Mertz (2006), Hancock and Algozzine (2006), Ellet (2007), Gerring (2007), Lavrakas (2008), Creswell (2009), Merriam (2009), Mills, Durepos, and Wiebe (2009), and Sekaran and Bougie (2009) for detailed information on research methodologies in terms of case-study.
- 8.
- 9.
The author participated in the workshop entitled main industry and supplier relations held in Bursa by UIB in the last week of October 2008 and had the chance to meet with top-executive representatives of the AMMs and suppliers in Turkey. As a result of the interviews and evaluations done with these people, some very important ideas regarding the study and survey were obtained, and the questionnaire form was also evaluated and reviewed accordingly. Furthermore, the opportunity for observing buyer and supplier relations closely was obtained in these meetings.
- 10.
The number of the version of draft questionnaire form prepared during the design is approximately ten. Many modifications regarding the general structure, sections, questions, and items of questionnaire form were made during this process. The reasons why the process of questionnaire finalization and design took such a long time are as follows briefly; (1) many firms discontinued production in the industry due to 2008–2009 global financial crisis and/or many top-executives who were requested to be interviewed could not be accessed in the application period due to this crisis, (2) quantitative questions which would be asked to the firms for a specific year were re-organized permanently due to the effects of the crisis, (3) difficulties were encountered while looking for the Turkish equivalents of the English terms (jargons) used in the international literature which would express the same meaning in the most appropriate way, (4) the questionnaire was tested in order to ensure that it is comprehended similarly by the people who will answer them, and (5) the questionnaire form was continuously revised according to the methods to be followed in order to obtain confidential information regarding the firms in a most appropriate way, and reach a high response rate.
- 11.
Others and no response options were also added to items and questions to give the respondents a chance to express their opinions on the issues.
- 12.
We take into account employee number as an indicator of firm size.
- 13.
One of the important reasons for not applying the survey on all firms operating in the industry is that a study on such a scale requires a longer period of time, a larger project team and budget.
- 14.
Author calculations based on annual ISSS database, 2008, TurkStat.
- 15.
Source: TAYSAD’s web page; http://www.taysad.org.tr/www/en/default.asp?x=hakkinda
- 16.
These three research reports are conducted and published yearly by The Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ICI), Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) and Bursa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BTSO), respectively.
- 17.
The excluded 32 members of TAYSAD are in 14 different provinces: Aksaray (1), Ankara (4), Düzce (1), Eskişehir (1), Hatay (1), Konya (5), Kütahya (1), Manisa (5), Mersin (1), Sakarya (2), Samsun (1), Sivas (1), Tekirdağ (7), and Trabzon (1).
- 18.
It was revealed during the pilot study that unpaid leave was applied and the production of many firms ceased in the industry in this period due to the effects of 2008–2009 global financial crisis, so these are the most important causes for low response rate.
- 19.
The company that provided cooperation for the questionnaire application is a research enterprise (incorporated company, Co. Inc.) which has been engaged in many national and international projects; and a specialist and pioneer in this field. Supplier firms which were surveyed were additionally informed about this company. Nevertheless, confidentiality agreement was signed with this cooperated company due to data privacy committed by us to the firms.
- 20.
As is the case in international studies, the managers contacted for the survey were given the guarantee that all kinds of information and data provided for the survey would certainly be kept confidential, and both the names of the interviewed people and the title of the firm would never be cited in publications such as a report or article taking the concerns of the firms regarding their competitors and competition environment into account. Therefore, information regarding the interviewed firms and managers were not released in the study.
- 21.
Contact information and address of the firms were obtained from TAYSAD.
- 22.
In this report there are 14 different industries; automotive industry is in the first row with 65 firms. The turnover of these 65 firms is TL 15.8B and export value is US$ 7.6B. However, these firms include two AMMs, TOFAŞ and Oyak-Renault, the turnover and export value of these TL 10B and US$ 5.8B, respectively.
- 23.
In this list, there are 2,489 members from 42 different provinces in Turkey. This list also includes TAYSAD members, AMMs and firms from various industrial zones.
- 24.
Firstly, the web pages of the firms were checked and up-to-date information such as organization structure, sales, productions, references, quality certificates, customers were used. When the required information was not available or when deemed necessary, firms were called and information was obtained.
- 25.
The said firm (case) refused to respond to the questions regarding the transfers.
- 26.
Author calculations based on annual ISSS database, 2008, TurkStat.
- 27.
It refers to whether a scale measures the theoretical construct for which the scale is designed (Sekaran, 2003).
- 28.
- 29.
Two of the AMMs which did not accept to participate in the survey are manufacturing personal car, pick up, and minibus with 100 and 70 % FS respectively, while the other two are manufacturing truck, pick up, minibus, midibus, bus, and farm tractor with no FS.
- 30.
In the last years, as result of global competition and crises, it has been observed that many manufacturers began to take stakes in other automotive manufacturers. Therefore the number of the automotive manufacturers decreased globally. In addition, many cooperation activities are observed among these manufacturers.
- 31.
Due to these reasons, we put a special emphasis on the fact that supplier firms used in the survey are 0.5 and 1st-tier suppliers.
- 32.
When it is taken into consideration that the main activity of the surveyed domestic suppliers is manufacturing for the automotive industry, it is anticipated that suppliers which are the main customer of these firms (either domestic or overseas) are supplier firms operating in automotive industry on a higher tier.
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Sönmez, A. (2013). Research Methodology and Design. In: Multinational Companies, Knowledge and Technology Transfer. Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02033-4_3
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