Company c became a wholly owned subsidiary of ahi as

Company C became a wholly owned subsidiary of AHI as a result.
3.3.1 Criteria for the Sample Selection
These case studies were purposely selected (Bryman and Bell, 2003) because
they fitted specific criteria. In particular:
a) They were small-sized SMEs as they employed fewer than 50 people
(Rhodes, 2015; House of Lords, 2013).
b) They were located in the North West of England - a recognised
geographical cluster in the UK clothing industry.
c) They had or were exploring international market/goals.

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d) They were engaged in the production and/or distribution of clothing as a
principal activity.
e) They were able and willing to participate in the study.
3.4 Case Study Research
A case study approach was an ideal investigatory tool as it provided opportunities
for in-depth studies into one area (Bell, 2010; Blaxter et al., 2010) and captured
individual human characteristics that were used to create the case studies from
which patterns emerged (Sturman, 1997). A multi-case study approach was
adopted to fulfil the aim through a concurrent mix of methods and because the
value of a single case challenged validity particularly in crosschecking the
information (Bell, 2010; Gomm, 2009). Furthermore, a single case study is often
classified as an idiographic and hazardous generalisation of the area of research
conducted (Gomm, 2009; Bryman, 2008), however, this does not mean that the
context of a singular case study should be ignored (Blaxter et al. , 2010). The
intention here was to provide insights into practices adopted by the cases studied
so that it would be possible to theorise and make knowledge claims from a small
number of cases (Flyvbjerg, 2006).
This multi-case studies research approach consisted of non-standardised, one-
to-one, semi-structured interviews conducted with industry practitioners as well
as informal conversational interviews on the telephone with some of the
European distributors who previously worked with the companies and who knew
the researcher. Informal conversational telephone interviews provided a
snapshot of experiences (Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2009) from an intermediary
perspective and a rich vein of data useful for the analysis of the case studies.
This was the only way to obtain their views as they lived abroad and would not
agree to lengthy, formal face-to-face interviews. Furthermore, they no longer
worked with the companies participating in the case studies. Therefore, the
telephone conversations were informal and relaxed and questions occurred in the
natural course of the conversation (Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2009) enabling the
data obtained to be used to strengthen the case rather than support it.

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Case studies were flexible and helped to draw broad generalisations in that they
“tested contextual conditions that were pertinent to the phenomenon of the study”
(Yin, 2003:13). In this instance, a multi-case studies approach was adopted and
three UK clothing SMEs provided the context while the phenomenon tested
related to the evaluation of the EFQM BEM as a theoretical and practical
framework tool for SMEs in the clothing sector.