ABSTRACT
After presenting the conceptual framework and research hypotheses in Chapter 3, this chapter serves to connect the conceptual framework with the empirical research cases and to describe more thoroughly how the formulated hypotheses will be tested in practice. On the one hand, this chapter contains an operationalization of the key concepts underlying the framework plus the way they will be monitored and measured. On the other hand, it contains a description of the case study reporting structure, which also provides an indepth account of how the longitudinal case studies has been carried out. Together, it offers a description of the way the collection, processing and analysis of our primary data has been executed.
