Born the son of Yemeni immigrant port workers, Mohammed moved away from home initially to undertake his undergraduate studies. As the first in his family to go to university, he aspires to be a role model for his much younger siblings who are still at school and other young people in his community. Mohammed is working with three students on an International Consultancy Project within an engaged scholarship context, which is a part of his master’s degree in International Business Management. Such research projects are usually undertaken using qualitative research design (Piekkari and Welch 2017) with a case study research strategy (Yin 2018).
Mohammed knows engaged scholarship involves him and the other group members engaging with practitioners throughout the entire research process (Van de Ven 2007) from developing the research objectives to final execution. Thus, according to Van de Ven’s (2007) ‘diamond model’, engagement should occur during all four phases of the research project: (1) problem formulation;
(2) theory building; (3) research design; and (4) problem-solving.

Problem formulation and theory building The student group hold a meeting with Jamala, the managing director (MD) of a small familyrun manufacturing firm. This is also attended by the students’ academic supervisor, Tristram, who is a practitioner with 20 years’ industry experience. In this meeting, Jamala outlines a critical and strategic business issue which she wants to research collaboratively.
The aim of their research project is to explore the internationalization strategy of Jamala’s firm and propose how to improve it. Jamala recently took over as MD of the family business following the sudden death of the founder, her father, who died after contracting Covid-19.
Coincidentally, her father emigrated from Saan’a in the Yemen in the 1960s to work in a local foundry and started the family business following his redundancy in 1985. The company has been experiencing a year-on-year decline in international sales because of overseas competitors entering its core domestic market. Recently, the company has diversified and introduced some ground-breaking innovative products that can be appealing to international markets. If they proceed with these suggestions, Jamala plans to open a new local ‘onshore’ manufacturing site and recruit up to 200 new employees, thus contributing to the development of the local economy – a community with high unemployment levels. These employees will assemble their innovative new products for potential new export markets. Jamala is particularly interested in exploring internationalisation opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region as they have been dependent on the United Kingdom (UK) market (85% by value), the Middle East (10%)
and continental Europe (5%). Jamala needs convincing evidence before making this strategic and major investment decision.
As engaged scholars, Mohammed and his group engage with Jamala in their initial meetings to formulate the above problem and thus develop the objectives of the study. The main theory that the group select is the Uppsala model (Johanson and Vahlne 1977) in which firms acquire, integrate and use knowledge sequentially (in ‘small steps . . . exporting to a country via an agent, later establish a sales subsidiary, and eventually, in some cases, begin production in the host country’ to gain both market knowledge and commitment’ (see also a chapter in their course textbook: Scott, 2020). This project, hence, can built on and contribute to the development of theory on internationalisation in small family businesses.

Research design and problem solving The research design has to enable the group to justify the method to investigate the research question. Working closely with Jamala, Mohammed discusses the research strategy. They adopt a case study to research how a specific small firm (i.e. Jamala’s family business) expands its international markets and, therefore, provides employment opportunities in a disadvantaged local community as well as increasing sales. In line with Piekarri and Welch (2012), the company will be their focal case study and they will build theories from the case (Welch et al., 2011) and make proposals regarding the internationalization strategy inductively.
After reviewing the literature on internationalization strategy and small firms, Mohammed and the students develop a questionnaire using the Qualtrics online survey platform to collect data and test three hypotheses: (1) International market knowledge is influential in selecting the market entry strategy of a small firm; (2) Networking in the target market has a positive relationship with selecting the market entry strategy of a small firm; and (3) The small firm’s capability and knowhow enables it to enter new markets successfully.
Mohammed obtains a list of export-oriented small firms operating in the region from the local Chamber of Commerce, and from UK Trade and Investment (UKTI). Mohammed aims to distribute the questionnaire online to these small firms’ senior executives as his research participants.
He also plans to use the SPSS software package to undertake quantitative data analysis.

Questions
1 To what extent do you consider Mohammed’s chosen research strategy (case study) is appropriate to this engaged scholarship research project? Give reasons for your answer.
2 Mohammed and the other students have made various mistakes in formulating their research design. What are these mistakes and how could they be resolved?
3 In designing their research project, do you think that Mohammed and these students can satisfactorily answer their research question and achieve the aim of this research project with only one case study and is the data representative, valid and reliable enough?
4 Is this research project actually “engaged scholarship”?