Hello Camila, 

When I started reading your question, I instantly thought about a survey design for your research question. However, since you describe later that you will use quantitative and qualitative data, I would suggest you will conduct a mixed methods research (MMR). In MMR there are several designs and analysis according to with what you want to develop or how you want to develop your research project. 

Hope this helps. 

Best, 

Juan 

Thank you Juan! 

I considered both, survey and mixed methods. However, I'm only using one questionnaire in which I have closed questions as well as open questions. And to my understanding, if I want to use MMR I need to use at least two different kind of methods (like interviews-questionnaires).  

Thank you, Camila

I likely misunderstood something. You mentioned you would gather qualitative and quantitative data. I assumed the quantitative data would come from your survey (using or applying a questionnaire). However, I am not sure where your qualitative data will come from. Could you specify it? Thanks.

I was probably my mistake, Im not really good with these term.

So the aim of the research is to provide information for the inventors of this model, and they would then do whatever they want with that information. They want to know if it is being used in this one specific country and what these certain people think about it.

My research question then is 'what do **** think about this model?' or 'To what extent it the model appreciated and used among these certain people in this certain country.' I also have 5 subordinate questions to add more value to research and for the inventors.

In the questionnaire I have close-ended questions, like have you ever heard about this model (yes/no) and has it been used in your organisation (yes/no). As well as open-ended questions asking 'do you think this model could be incorporated to your organisation, why yes/no. And 'what is your overall opinion about the model'. My idea is then to use these answer together with the literature review to answer my research questions. The model is also explained in the questionnaire. 

Did this clarify it at all?

Dear Camilla

The fact that you have used open-ended and closed questions in your questionnaire, does not make your research a mixed method research (MMR). In an MMR design the qualitative and quantitative phases are designed to produce a whole superior to the parts. On the other hand consider the following, when using open-ended questions, although qualitative answers are obtained, these are not deep but superfical. I would recomend you 2 alternative ways to follow:

1) Process the quantitative questions. Then process the open-ended in the style of content analysis and make frequency counts of categories. That is, in this first option presents the results of your questionnaire  mainly in a quantitative way (both  closed and open-ended questions).

2) In this other processing option, you can processes the open-ended questions inducatively, that is to say, yo have to stablish categories and in each category you have to select the most representative answers. Then use this information to give context to the quantitative results (closed questions).

Regards

Jorge

Thank you Jorge!

Would that then be a survey design research? And the data would be analysed by using content analysis?

Have you thought of doing some in-depth interviews to determine what your response choices should be?  Without probing, as Jorge said, what you will obtain in your open-ended questions will probably be pretty superficial.  Using literature review and some in-depth interviews you can probably develop some good response choices.

Another option would be to do a survey and then follow-up interviews with a small number of survey respondents to get more depth and understanding.

if you do not   mind please give me your dependent and independent variables

I think that you need to go on as follows:

Section 1: Explanation: Finding the model through Expert's opinion

You should firstly arrange the variables which are in your study 3x3 or 5x5 in which you can produce your question as follows:

Set the questionnaire by making any communication between the variables.

After all you can set up the Opinion Matrix for any Expert dominated in your research.All opinion should be changed into unique answer through G-AHP.

As far as you mentioned that "In the questionnaire I have close-ended questions, like have you ever heard about this model (yes/no) and has it been used in your organization (yes/no)" ,the group matrix resulted from G-AHP can be processed through ELECTRE method and Shannon's Entropy.

Finally, the matrix achieved by ELECTRE will show you how is the relations and their impacts between the variables and this is your legalized model of the study.

Section 2: Verification: Proving the model in practice

After achievment of the conceptual model of your study you need to extract the second type questionnaire for the statistical society which is difference with Experts' society mentioned in the section 1. You can choose any industry or nation for your purpose as the new society. So you can start the study questionnaire involving the explained conceptual model the study.

Trusting these with your approval and should you have any further question please do not hesitate to contact me accordingly. Good Luck.

Dear Camilla,

Looking at the nature of your research, I suggest that relying solely on the semi-structured questionnaire may not yield the rich data you seek. Therefore, I suggest you add little in-depth interviews by preparing an interview guide that espouses the very important and probing questions that directly answers your research questions. The interviews must be organized for few purposively sampled respondents who have used the business model for a longer period. Thus, the qualitative data would validate the findings from the questionnaire which together with the document analysis of literature would triangulate the findings, making it richer.

Therefore, I would recommend that you use the explanatory mixed method design. It involves the use of qualitative methods to explain earlier quantitative findings. Specifically, quantitative data are collected and analyzed prior to the collection and analysis of qualitative data.

All the best.

                                                                                                       Dickson Adom

It seems that you MUST do some interviews, no quantitative data would compensate for that. You need to get over the practical problems. The insights that you would glean from the interviews is invaluable. 

Dear Carmella

you seem to suggest a cross sectional  design employing  mixed methods( qualitative and quantitative)  of data collection and using a semi structured  questionnaire as a tool for data collection.

Hello, 

I used "Fuzzy Cognitive Map" in one of my studies. It worth taking a look at other studies using this method and there are some online tools to do the analytic part such as http://www.mentalmodeler.org/

Since you have both qualitative and quantitative data, it is a fit case for the mixed method design.

Phase 1 - Conceptualisation based on qualitative data, which can be developed into a hierarchical structure using methods like ISM?TISM.

Phase 2 - Empirical validation based on quantitative data

Phase 3 - Cross validation to examine Business model in case situation