Global Journal of Management and Business Research, A: Administration and Management, Volume 23 Issue 2

framework established and reflects on the methodology for the research where theory is used to support data analysis. The literature review also feds into the discussion, while the last arrow represents the link between the findings and the research. The methodology section of the framework is discussed and justified next. Specifically, the section is divided into three main topics presenting information on the research philosophy, methodological approach, research design, data collection methods, and sampling strategy. Within these sections, the research approach, research choices and strategy, and time horizon of the research are presented and justified. The delivery process determines the time and convenience factors, all of which affect the consumers. The e-commerce market has considered delivery and the last-mile strategies as part of the critical functions of the business models (de Souza et al., 2014). Although utilising the last-mile delivery approach has been a common venture for online ventures, Covid-19 may have created new dynamics in the market. Therefore, the theory would focus on the issues or requirements for companies in the LMD market, examining how their operations may have changed considering the surge in during and after the pandemic. Through grounded theory, the researcher has better chances of collecting data from the various stakeholders in the market. The scientific and research approach integrated into the guide theory creates several benefits. The first one is the ability to create new questions to create new knowledge and clarify the current research (Bratianu, 2020). While studying the various attributes within research, it is important to have a comprehensive approach, making grounded theory an important baseline for the entire research (Bryman and Bell, 2018). The research creates insights on the scope of knowledge and contingent practice attributes from the questions and the methodologies involved (Timonen et al., 2018). However, there are disadvantages to using a Grounded Theory approach. The main issue come from the challenge of collecting large amounts of data that may affect the analytical processes and may affect research objectivity and from a practical perspective, this means this approach is also is time consuming, reflective, and intensive (Ketchen and Craighead, 2020). Additionally, the interactions in the research affect the structuring of the research, which may create inconsistencies in the research sources (Ketchen and Craighead, 2020). c) Methodological Approach For this research, a qualitative approach is used to help in obtaining the quality evidence as the research questions to gain insights regarding trends in the LMD market in Saudi Arabia. Finally, the information gathered can be transformed into rich data analysis that allows credible and convincing results to the research questions to be created. Additionally, a cross-sectional timeframe was used in the research, meaning that a ‘snapshot’ of the issues related to the LMD market in Saudi Arabia are assessed (Saunders et al., 2019). The research was conducted is between April to November 2022. The interview was designed to cover the gaps identified from the literature review. The set of questions were created by adopting the markets trends identified from secondary data in order to discover the company’s responses of such trends. This sets would cover the market trends pre-, during-, and post-Covid-19. Also, it addresses some of the major market challenges, change in consumer behaviour, innovation, demands, and benefits. Specifically, these focused on: An Assessment of the Last Mile Delivery Market in Saudi Arabia during and Post COVID-19 75 Global Journal of Management and Business Research Volume XXIII Issue II Version I Year 2023 ( ) A © 2023 Global Journals b) Research Philosophy Research problems can be examined from many different perspectives and in this research, an interpretivist framework was used in which the focus was on people’s perceptions and experiences of the world (Saunders et al., 2019). This creates the baseline for comparisons in Grounded Theory (Timonen et al., 2018). The qualitative basis of Grounded Theory provides room for conditioning the study to collect actual data. Since Grounded Theory embraces sociological aspects of the phenomena being studied, it creates room for integrating the changes in the behavioural aspects and appreciating the diversities in data sources (Ketchenand Craighead, 2020). The current research focuses on identifying the factors and processes that lead to changes in demand for the last- mile delivery in Saudi Arabia which identifies the steps involved in the product’s journey from the warehouses to the final consumer (Timonen et al., 2018). d) Data Collection & Sampling The data collection method remains a critical determinant of the data collected and its utilisation in the research. Grounded Theory is a qualitative approach and uses data collection methods such as participant observation and interviewing (Vakulenko et al., 2019). The current research utilised the interviewing method to collect data, which involves engaging the participants or the samples considered in the research is based on an expert sampling technique (Blumberg et al., 2014). Specifically, qualitative data was collected using semi- structured interviews. This method was used for qualitative data as it will give the flexibility for the interviewees to adapt the questions and change the flow as needed during the interview in order to dig deeper in the answer. These are used to obtain primary data as the main method of data collection. Figure 9 outlines the process of data collection and how this fed into the data analysis process described later in this paper.