The framework was developed by a rigorous methodology:
1. After an exhaustive literature review, we asked
researchers to name factors that they knew to be
prerequisites to successful VMI usage.
2. We boiled down this long list into 15 key factors.
3. To capture how important these factors were in
predicting the success of VMI usage by a firm,
academic experts assigned relative weights to
each one.
4. Industry experts were asked to assign weights
to each factor as well.
5. The weights from steps three and four were found
to be consistent with one another. The scores were
averaged to obtain the final weights of relative
importance of the factors, and then expressed in
percentages for easy computation.
6. The questionnaire has a five-point Likert scale
response from zero to four. Therefore, the maximum
possible score is four multiplied by 100, or
400, while the minimum possible score is zero
multiplied by 100, or zero, where 100 is the total
weight of all factors expressed in a percentage.
7. Ten carefully selected case studies yielded
insight into how the list of factors translated
into practice. For this, the questionnaire was
administered to the 10 companies to validate
the framework with quantitative and qualitative
results. Different managers were used for the
detailed qualitative case study and quantitative
part (the questionnaire responses) to increase
objectivity and validity.