3.5.2.2 Limitations in the data collection and data analysis method employed for the development of the Stratford PLCIC case study

Nevertheless, the development of the case study regarding the selected Stratford PLCIC, could accommodate only in part the consistent application of the qualitative techniques applied in other case studies.1 In particular, the most significant burden to the full realisation and operationalisation of the qualitative methods applied and replicated in previous case studies was the young maturity of Stratford PLCIC which did not grow in the course of the time. The Stratford PLCIC initiated its activities early in 2016 and had no organisational structure as of April 2017.

Accordingly, Stratford’s PLCIC limited organisational structure did not allow for the collection of data from semi-structured interviews with various respondents from different organisational layers. For example, Stratford PLCIC was yet to have no employees in its organisational structure other than three directors. Moreover, there were no different organisational levels capable of being examined in a hierarchy in which decisions may flow. The only persons employed by Stratford PLCIC were three active directors in the board, all of whom represented the sole shareholder, i.e. the company group of which Stratford PLCIC was part. The active directors who made up Stratford’s PLCIC board of directors, were full-time directors of many other subsidiary companies of the company group of which Stratford PLCIC was part. By way of example, one appointed director of Stratford PLCIC was appointed as a director in 22 other subsidiary companies, which were part of the company group of which Stratford PLCIC was part.2

Hence, if interviews were to be conducted with the only available respondents from Stratford PLCIC, i.e. the directors, there would be no plurality or variety of responses collected by persons from different and various organisational layers, such as shareholders (or shareholders’ representatives), directors and/or employees. Furthermore, due to the young and incomplete character of the organisational structure of Stratford PLCIC, communication with the objective of obtaining data through interviews, as was the case in the replicated method and research design, was challenging. The efforts to communicate directly with the CIC’s directors remained fruitless. Likewise, the identification of the CIC’s community stakeholders that could potentially participate to interviews also proved to be a challenging task. For instance, there was no way of identifying individuals or organisations that could be considered as benefitting from the selected CIC without having access to the CIC’s company data, i.e. data concerning the individuals or organisations from the community, which received community energy produced by the Stratford PLCIC. Nor was there a means of identifying the Stratford’s PLCIC community investors, i.e. persons who traded Stratford’s PLCIC issued bonds online using a crowdfunding platform.

The preliminary development of the case study was mainly based on information and data collected through publicly accessible and relevant documents, such as the CIC’s constitutional documents, i.e. the AoA, the CIC statements, reports and annual accounts made to the CIC Regulator and the UK Companies House. Although a proper investigation into the participatory governance of the CIC could not be executed entirely through examining the CIC reports and relevant documents only, such engagement was not feasible in this casestudy. 3

Other publications and reports used for this study were administrative decisions, consultation documents and reports regarding the grant of permission to develop a solar panel farm, which were produced by the local authorities in the region where Stratford PLCIC operated. Only limited information could be collected from the website of the company group, i.e. Anesco group where the Stratford PLCIC actually belongs. The limited information related to the CIC’s development and progress of its activities. However, this information could not be compared in terms of depth and quality with the extensive information provided by interviews. Because of the constrained opportunities for the conduct of in-depth interviews, there were no observations from the visits to the examined organisation and the interview processes. Nevertheless, desk research and an individual visit to the location of the selected CIC uncovered that the company did not maintain its own facilities yet, but it was fully operated and hosted by the parent company in the company group’s headquarters.

As such, it was understood that the selected CIC had not developed its organisational structure as of April 2017 to such an extent that it resembled the maturity level of other organisations previously examined in other case studies. Accordingly, the selected CIC was not going to be added to the research scope of the case study broader research if it were not for its unique characteristics. Due to the unique characteristics: (i) the only public limited CIC registered in England; (ii) the growing character of the organisational structure; and (iii) its important role in theory development regarding community-owned and community- managed CICs, this case study was accommodated in the research design because it exhibits preliminary but substantial findings. The findings can be elaborated on to a greater extent in future research when Stratford PLCIC will have realised in full its community objectives and will have materialised its organisational structure. Accordingly, in the following Sub-sections, the realisation of participatory governance was examined using the data collected in the relevant documents. The discussion has been expanded to an extent that it contains elaborations regarding the Stratford’s PLCIC realisation of community objectives to transfer the ownership of the organisation to community.

Due to the lack of data from in-depth and semi structured interviews, the method of coding was applied to the collected data obtained from the relevant documents. Accordingly, and following the replicated research method employed in previous studies, the data from the relevant documents were coded using a template with ‘a priori’ codes deductively originating from the theoretical analysis (Table 3.12). The a priori codes were eventually refined with codes emerging from the examined data retrieved from the relevant documents (Table 3.12). Subsequently, template analysis was used to contrast pre-existing legal concepts with emerging concepts that emerged from the data, and which were integrated into emerging themes that were later matched with the themes identified in the theoretical discussion.

Table 3.12: Codes and themes in the UK single case study