Three data-collection methods were used:
Archival sources (about 2000 pages of company official documents ] were analyzed)
Extensive semi-structured interviews (the authors carried out more than 60 h of
interviews, both to explore and to get a deeper understanding of particular issues
these interviews involved the head of the vehicle department, the head of project
management for vehicle department, the vehicle development function manager,
the head of human resources, the chief engineer of ‘packaging’ , one ‘packaging’
team leader, three ‘packaging’ team members and the head of ‘project SUV’
(3) One researcher spent 10 months working at the research center during this time,
he regularly took part in meetings, participated in some of the tasks, provided
support, and so on. In order to increase the consistency of our data, we decided
to focus our interviews and direct observations on one project. For confidentiality,
we cannot use the real acronym of the project, so we have named it ‘project SUV’.
The project was the most important one the research center was carrying out
during the observation.