DDBA 8300 Week 10 Design Alternatives Appendix Example

Four Designs Considered and Refused: An Alternatives Appendix for an Interview Study of How Independent Insurance Agencies Respond When Carriers Sell Policies Directly Online, Each Entry With What It Would Have Shown, Why It Lost and What Would Revive It

Student Name

Walden University

DDBA 8300: Qualitative and Quantitative Methodology for Applied Business Research

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Four Designs Considered and Refused: An Alternatives Appendix for an Interview Study of How Independent Insurance Agencies Respond When Carriers Sell Policies Directly Online, Each Entry With What It Would Have Shown, Why It Lost and What Would Revive It

Purpose of This Appendix

This appendix accompanies my proposal for a qualitative interview study asking: "What strategies do owners of independent property and casualty insurance agencies use to retain personal lines customers when the carriers they represent begin selling policies directly to consumers online?" The study will interview about 14 agency owners in three Midwestern states whose carriers launched direct online sales in the past three years. Designs considered and refused usually vanish from a proposal, leaving the committee to wonder whether they were considered. Each entry below states what the refused design would have shown, why it lost to the interview study and what would make it the right choice in a later study.

Alternative 1: A Survey of Agency Owners

What it would have shown: how common particular retention strategies are among the roughly 4,000 independent agencies in the three states, and whether strategies relate to retention rates, using agencies' self-reported figures.

Why it lost: the question asks what strategies owners use, and the strategies are not yet well described in research. A survey requires knowing which strategies to list. Edmondson and McManus (2007) argue that when knowledge of a phenomenon is at an early stage, open-ended methods that can surface new constructs fit better than instruments that assume them.

What would revive it: once the interviews identify the main strategies, a survey could measure how widespread each is. That would be a natural second study.

Alternative 2: A Comparison of Agencies Before and After Carriers Went Direct

What it would have shown: whether agencies' personal lines retention fell after their carriers began selling direct, compared with agencies whose carriers did not, using a quasi-experimental design. Shadish et al. (2002) describe how a comparison group can help separate an event's effect from general trends.

Why it lost: retention data would come from agencies' own management systems, which vary widely in what they record, and from carriers, who are unlikely to share data that might show harm to agents. The design would also answer a different question, whether going direct reduced retention, rather than how owners respond.

What would revive it: an industry association or a carrier willing to provide comparable retention data across many agencies.

Alternative 3: A Multiple-Case Study of Four Agencies

What it would have shown: how strategies unfold over time inside a few agencies, with documents, observation of staff and interviews with owners, producers and customer service staff. Yin (2018) describes this design as suited to understanding how processes unfold within their real settings.

Why it lost: access. Owners agreed to interviews of an hour but not to observation or staff interviews, partly because retention strategies involve pricing and carrier relationships they consider confidential. A case study with limited access to each case would offer little more than interviews with more owners.

What would revive it: a partnership with an agency network whose members agree in advance to fuller access.

Alternative 4: A Mixed Design Combining Interviews and a Customer Survey

What it would have shown: owners' strategies alongside customers' reasons for staying or leaving, connecting the two.

Why it lost: customer contact information belongs to agencies and carriers and could not be shared for research without consent processes the agencies were unwilling to run. The customer survey would also need its own sample and review, roughly doubling the timeline.

What would revive it: a study funded or sponsored by an agency network able to contact its own customers.

How the Alternatives Were Identified

The four alternatives were not chosen to make the interview study look good. They came from three sources: designs used in published studies of insurance distribution, suggestions my chair made at the topic approval stage and options two agency owners raised when I described the study to them. One owner suggested the customer survey; another suggested following a few agencies closely, which became the case study entry. Listing where each alternative came from shows the committee that the comparison was not built around a conclusion reached in advance.

What the Appendix Shows

The interview study was chosen because it fits a question about strategies not yet well understood and because it is feasible with the access available. Creswell and Creswell (2018) recommend that a proposal justify its design partly by showing that alternatives were weighed; each refused design here remains a reasonable choice for a different question or with different access, and the appendix records what would make each one right.

References

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Edmondson, A. C., & McManus, S. E. (2007). Methodological fit in management field research. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1246-1264. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2007.26586086

Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Houghton Mifflin.

Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). SAGE Publications.