Bad or worse? Applying critical theory to explore the impacts of Payatas dumpsite closure on the former waste pickers

Abstract

Numerous garbage dumpsites worldwide have been closed down to address the safety, health and environmental hazards facing waste pickers, such as potential landsides, diseases and pollution. As a result, the environment surrounding the (former) waste pickers may have been safer and cleaner. While the closure of garbage dumpsites may be an act of social justice to protect waste pickers, however, in some cases, the incomes and living standards of former waste pickers who continue to reside at these sites have been aggravated. Drawing on critical theory, and using observations and interviews, this case study examined the post-dumpsite-closure situation of Payatas in the Philippines. This study augments previous research on critical urban and regional studies through the presentation of a meta-critical theory by expanding, critiquing and reconceptualizing critical theory to address the problematic post-dumpsite situation created through the closure of the dumpsite.

Introduction

Rapid urban growth in developing countries has resulted in the formation of many garbage dumpsites or sanitary landfills, which low-income residents often inhabit (Jahanfar et al., 2017). Many of these residents work informally as waste pickers to collect and recycle solid waste. These garbage collecting and recycling activities are socioeconomically valuable, as they help to reprocess waste into raw materials as well as provide a livelihood to urban population (Velis et al., 2012). However, these waste pickers may be exposed to various safety, health and environmental hazards, such as potential landslides, serious illness and air and water pollution (Papeleras et al., 2012; Ross & Pons, 2013). Consequently, waste picking in dumpsites has been increasingly banned in many places, and many dumpsites have been closed down (Dermatas, 2017). Consequently, waste problems have been tackled by technological advancements (Jiménez-Martínez, 2018).

With this context in mind, the present case study examined the current conditions of former waste pickers who previously occupied a dumpsite in Payatas, Philippines that was closed down in 2017 (Peña, 2017). We use the term ‘dumpsite’ to refer to this place because this was in reality a dumpsite despite officially being called a sanitary landfill. The case of the Payatas dumpsite with rampant poverty and environmental insecurity can be applied to analyze other post-dumpsite situations where dumpsites have been closed, especially in the context of developing countries. Using critical theory (CT), this case study addresses socioeconomic issues faced by local residents, many of whom were former waste pickers. In particular, this article makes theoretical contributions to existing literature. While a number of previous studies have employed CT in urban contexts to analyze problematic situations (e.g. Whitehead, 2013), the present case study further explores this topic by critiquing a CT intervention (i.e. the dumpsite closure), or what Marcuse calls a ‘critical practice’, and developing a new CT through this meta-theoretical exercise. A critique of CT can provide insights and theoretical advancement through analyzing the mismatch between normative CT and empirical examples of urban conflict (Webb, 2017). The article is structured as follows: First, we describe the study area. Next, we explain CT as the theoretical basis for this study. We then present our research methodology, followed by the research results, and a discussion of the theoretical implications drawn from the findings. Finally, we report our conclusions.

Contexts of the study: Payatas

Until its closure, Payatas was the largest dumpsite in the Philippines (Chua, 2017). It was established in Quezon City in the Metro Manila region in 1976. Quezon City ‘contains 60 percent of the slum areas in Metro Manila and 40 percent of its informal settler population’ (Garrido, 2019: 76). After the 1995 closure of Smokey Mountain, a large dumpsite built in 1954 in Tondo, Manila, a number of waste pickers migrated to the Payatas dumpsite. Payatas had thus been known as the second Smokey Mountain (Leon-Guerrero, 2010).

In the Philippines, dumpsites or landfills became the most acceptable option as a means for final waste disposal when incineration got banned under the Republic Act 9003 (also known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act that mandates solid waste segregation at source) (Sapuay, 2016). Prior to its closure, the Payatas dumpsite provided both a home and a livelihood to about 4000 waste-picking families (Pagalilauan et al., 2018). Here, some residents made a living, relying on the waste of others, such as plastic cans, empty bottles, papers or cardboards, metals and so forth (Pilario, 2014). However, there existed a number of hazards in waste picking and living in the site – the toxic waste from industrial plants, the infectious trash from hospitals, broken bottles and sharp objects all presented serious safety, health and environmental dangers (Pilario, 2014). For instance, the river and brooks nearby were known to be polluted by the Payatas dumpsite leachate (Chounlamany et al., 2018). Also, there was always a risk of landslides, as the garbage was incessantly piled up.

In 2000, for example, a landslide at the Payatas dumpsite killed almost 300 local residents (Blight, 2008). After a temporary closure, the dumpsite was reopened that same year. Afterwards, garbage was piled up again and the site remained a filthy and dangerous place for waste pickers and local inhabitants (Ezeah et al., 2013). In order to address these issues, the Payatas dumpsite was closed by the national government’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (Pelayo, 2017). While the environment has now become cleaner and safer after the closure, former waste pickers have also suffered from lost or reduced income. Previously, a waste picker could earn as much as USD 20 a day, but now one can only earn one-third of that on average (Chua, 2017; Pilario, 2014).

Critical theory and associated theories

To explore the post-dumpsite situation in Payatas, we adopted CT as a theoretical basis for this study because it is instrumental in examining social phenomena involving injustice, such as the case at Payatas (Erman, 2017). CT is a humanistic, anti-positivist, and anti-capitalist approach and a normative theory about what ought to be (Rexhepi & Torres, 2011). CT provides analytical, conceptual and theoretical frameworks to identify and understand social injustice through normative orientations (Marcuse, 2009a; Woelders & Abma, 2015). That is, CT is a theory to help make sense of situations of social injustice through reflective assessment to identify what is wrong in reality and what ought to be done to address it in the future. Social justice is considered to be among the central components of CT (Strunk & Betties, 2019) and its comprehensive basis (Bohman, 2007). CT also facilitates the investigation of the forms of social injustice associated with modern capitalism and exploration of emancipatory possibilities, with regard to oppression within the capitalist system (Brenner, 2009; Surak, 2016). Any approach can be employed to achieve these purposes.

In a progressively urbanized world, critical urban theory (CUT) – CT in the urban context – has become increasingly important. To conceptualize the urban, Roy (2015) uses the concept of the ‘constitutive outside’ (of the urban), along with the concepts of historical/physical geography and governmental/political categorization (e.g. the urban as a state designation). The constitutive outside provokes a (re)consideration of what is urban about CUT by reconceptualizing capitalist urbanization (Roy, 2015), which CUT critiques as a geographically uneven social formation (Gidwani & Maringanti, 2016). By considering the ‘non-urban’ (or ‘others’ relative to the urban), for example, the constitutive outside helps analyze what or who is excluded (Hillier, 2002) or marginalized (Derickson, 2017) from and in the urban.

Brenner and Schmid (2014, 2015) claim that there is no clear-cut boundary between the urban and non-urban because the non-urban has been largely internalized in planetary urbanization processes. For instance, the rural is no longer considered the constitutive outside or non-urban (Roy, 2015) because, as Schmid (2018) argues, even seemingly rural areas, at present, can be urbanized landscapes. Leitner and Sheppard (2015) also note that in some cases, the boundaries between rural and urban may not even exist; ‘rural households interact with cities through processes of circular and periodic migration’ (Leitner & Sheppard, 2015: 232). This may mean that the divide between rural and urban is based on social interactions. In the case of Payatas, the former waste pickers came from provinces and other regions of Metropolitan Manila (including Smokey Mountain after its closure in 1995) to deal with their deteriorating economic situations. After the closure of the Payatas dumpsite, to address their income loss, some of the former waste pickers relocated to Montalban, Rizal Province, and other regions of the country.

Urban theories become ‘critical’ because the ‘urban’ and ‘urbanization’ are the unevenly woven fabric of social relations, struggles and experiences, and CT can be applied to address issues related to urban injustice (Brenner, 2009; Brenner & Schmid, 2014; Roy, 2015). Whereas mainstream urban theories typically suggest technocratic or neoliberal forms of urbanization (Iveson, 2010), CUT argues for ‘democratic, socially just, and sustainable forms of urbanization, with the reflective critique of capitalist urbanization’ (Brenner, 2009: 204). That is, CUT is a form of activism that strives for certain principles within urban setting as well as is a social theory to understand the situations of social injustice.

Brenner (2009) notes that CT is now CUT, characterized by globalized capitalist urbanization. As is the case with CT, CUT aims to help illustrate why urban injustice occurs and to ‘develop the principles around which the deprived and the alienated—those whose work injures their health, those whose income is below subsistence’ (Marcuse, 2009a: 39) – pursue ‘the right to the city’ (e.g. access to indispensable social resources), a concept introduced by Henri Lefebvre in 1968.

We aimed to use CT and CUT rather than relying solely on concepts such as social injustice and human rights, while we embrace these concepts, partly because, as Bohman (2007) and Woodham (2020) argue, these concepts often focus on distributive outcomes, ignoring the systemic causes of injustices that bring about those unjust distributive outcomes. For instance, Pulido (2016) argues that environmental justice, a form of social justice that focuses on the just distribution of environmental positives and negatives, often criticizes the state without considering wider political and economic structural causes of injustice (i.e. capitalism and consumerism; Woodham, 2020). CT calls for systemic change of the underlying structures rather than the immediate consequences of injustice (Pulido, 2016).

According to Woodham (2020), waste management issues can be attributed to capitalism and consumerism. For instance, Gidwani and Maringanti (2016) argue that the dumpsites where waste pickers live tend to be in toxic environments, which have resulted from capitalist production and consumption practices (Surak, 2016). In this context, waste, and consequently dumpsites, are managed to maintain the capitalist system (Lepawsky & Mather, 2013). Given that CT is a critique of the capitalist system (Brenner, 2009; Marcuse, 2009a), the closure of the dumpsite can be considered a critical practice, as it resulted in creating safer, cleaner and healthier environments. CT establishes waste pickers as a potentially marginalized group within solid waste management and society as a whole, revealing connections to capitalism (Woodham, 2020). As Navarrete-Hernández and Navarrete-Hernández (2018) explain, waste picking forms an integral part of the capitalist system, for example, by obtaining low-cost recycled materials. Thus, companies can reduce costs while increasing their profits, a relationship characterized as exploitative (Navarrete-Hernández & Navarrete-Hernández, 2018).

The use of CT/CUT is suitable here because the creation and management of the dumpsite are attributed to a capitalist system that can be critiqued by CT. Furthermore, the situation of the former waste pickers in the Payatas dumpsite involves dehumanization, injustice and exploitation, which have often been addressed and understood through CT, while also seeking alternative systems that humanize and ensure justice and equality. The application of CT can help address these issues by strategically politicizing ‘more progressive, socially just, emancipatory, and sustainable formations of urban life’ (Brenner, 2009: 179). A more detailed explanation of CT will be provided later in the context of the post-dumpsite situation in Payatas because CT is ‘intrinsically, endemically contextual’ (Brenner, 2009: 202).

Methodology

We employed a qualitative case study, as case studies are ‘at the heart of a number of research strategies that have been central to critical theory’ (Morrow 1994: 251). As Morrow (1994: 253) notes, ‘[n]onstatistical case studies for the purposes of analytical generalization and intensive explication involved with models of social and cultural reproduction are most compatible with the research problems identified by CT and its concern with intensive research designs’. Yin (2018) also states that the objective of qualitative case studies is not statistical but, rather, the analytical generalization of findings using theories and the existing literature. Yin continues to argue that an important strategy of case studies is to identify and address rival explanations and theories – the closure of the dumpsite was an act of justice, partially supported by CT. Using rival explanations and theories help construct internal and external validity of the case study (Yin, 2018). We used a qualitative case study approach because it is considered compatible with the research problems identified by CT and it is associated with intensive research designs because of their anti-positivist, humanistic tendencies. In this context, the primary focus of analysis is civil society as well as the local government and former waste pickers. One of the central issues in CT has been the changing character of civil society for the social actors within it and the implications they experience from changes (Morrow, 1994).

Methods

We used observations and interviews for this case study. Observation provides the opportunity to collect live data from social situations (Cohen et al., 2011). Interviews enable respondents to discuss their interpretations of the social situations and to express how they consider them from their perspectives (Cohen et al., 2011). Four assistant researchers were employed and trained to undertake a pilot study. They recorded observations and conducted interviews with local people to examine working hypotheses drawn from reviewing the existing literature – the closure of the Payatas garbage dumpsite was an act of social justice to protect waste pickers from safety, health and environmental hazards. The assistant researchers acted as observers-as-participant by homestaying with local families in Payatas. They were not members of the family but were able to observe and peripherally participate in some activities. The assistant researchers also interviewed local people in Payatas during their stay. The pilot study took place in August 2019.

The authors then made observations and conducted interviews with six local residents, two local government officials, and seven managers of civil society organizations (i.e. the Salt Payatas, the Fairplay for All Foundation, and the Payatas Orione Foundation) for a more comprehensive interview study that further examined findings from the pilot study. We asked respondents the following questions: (1) Would they agree with the findings from our pilot study that many of the local residents were against or dissatisfied with the closure of the dumpsite? (2) Do they think that local residents’ lives are better or worse now than before the closure? This interview study took place from August 2020 to March 2021.

Data analysis

We employed narrative analysis to analyze qualitative data in interview scripts. Narratives are stories regarding specific events that ‘are selected, organized, connected, and evaluated as meaningful for a particular audience’ (Riessman, 2005: 1). The narrative analysis takes stories as the unit of analysis and examines the stories that individuals construct to make sense of their experiences (Weston et al., 2015).

Esin (2011) suggests that the following steps should be taken in conducting narrative analysis: (1) Situating the epistemological approach; (2) Selecting the analytical model; (3) Selecting narratives to be analyzed and (4) Analyzing narratives.

We first take a constructivist approach that focuses on understanding the production of the social world rather than a naturalist approach that seeks an external reality to be observed and described by a third party. We then employ thematic analysis. This model focuses on the content of a narrative focusing on what is said rather than how it is said. This means seeking patterns and meanings out of the data to establish themes in connection with the theoretical framework of the research. We selected narratives that were closely relevant to our research question about the closure of the garbage dumpsites, analyzing the positive and negative opinions of local residents about the closure.

Results from the pilot study

Although the Payatas dumpsite was closed in 2017, during our visit to Payatas in August 2019, many people, most of whom had been waste pickers, still lived in the site. Findings from the pilot study were somewhat contradictory to arguments in existing literature. Prior to their arrival at Payatas, the assistant researchers believed that the closure of the dumpsite was an act of social justice to protect waste pickers from potential safety, environmental and health hazards, such as landslides, diseases and pollution, as indicated in the literature. Indeed, during the observation period in August 2019, there appeared to be no notable safety, environmental or health hazards in the (former) dumpsite. We assumed that the closure of the landfill was an act of social justice, because it relieved the waste pickers of the need to rely on such an unhealthy and dangerous environment for their livelihood. However, the majority of former waste pickers interviewed reported that although they were aware of the dangers of the dumpsite, they were better off when it was open. This is because they could gather recyclable materials at the dumpsite to sell when they were financially strained. The former waste pickers claimed that the closure of the dumpsite had adverse economic effects on their livelihood, and they wished the dumpsites would reopen.

Results from the main interview study

Findings from the main interview study indicated that there are various opinions about the closure of the dumpsite among the local residents, local government officials and managers of civil society organizations; about half of the local residents supported the closure of the dumpsite, while the other half opposed it.

One manager of a local civil society mentioned that right after the dumpsite closure, most of the local residents appeared to be in favour of closing it and seemed happy that their place of residence became cleaner and safer. A manager from another civil society organization reported, ‘Back in around 2010, I already heard the rumor of the closure of the dumpsite because the garbage pile had grown to be too big to sustain and it seemed impossible to prevent the garbage pile from collapsing. The dumpsite got closed just on time’.

A program officer of a civil society organization, who was also a local resident of Payatas, reported some positive aspects of the closure as well: ‘There have been an improvement in sanitary conditions, cleaner environment, and no bad smell. Traffic has also gotten better and the area has been less polluted’. One local resident (a leader of the community) reported that he used to be a waste picker. Although he had previously appreciated the existence of the dumpsite while making a living, after the landslide tragedy in 2000, he changed his mind. He initiated campaigns to close the dumpsite, fighting for the human right to protect waste pickers from safety, health and environmental hazards. After the 2000 tragedy, the Quezon City Government temporarily closed the dumpsite and then later reopened it. He and his community decided to support demolishing it and the dumpsite was closed in 2017.

However, according to some respondents, after the dumpsite closure, there has been an increasing number of local people who came to think that having the dumpsite open provided a source of income. One local resident, a former waste picker, affirmed the findings of our pilot study interviews: ‘I see no positive side to the closure. Most people in Payatas only know how to pick wastes. Even though we apply for other jobs, we are not qualified. There is nothing else we can do’. Another resident echoed: ‘After the closure, I tried different jobs, such as selling food and working at junkshops. However, I could not earn as much money to support my family as I did when I worked at the dumpsite’.

A director of a civil society organization noted: ‘As time went by, there have been an increasing number of local people who came to realize that there was always a source of income when the dumpsite was open. Before the closure of the dumpsite, some Payatas residents formed community organizations and started junk shops to sort out the garbage to sell. Yet, they could not accommodate all the former waste pickers to work. Consequently, the scale of economy in Payatas has been diminished’. One manager from a civil society organization made a similar statement: ‘Even after the closure of the Payatas dumpsite, there has been some work left to separate the garbage at junk shops. However, compared to when the dumpsite was open, the scale of economy has been reduced drastically so that both work and income have decreased. More and more local people started feeling dissatisfied with it [a lack of the economic means]’. An executive director of a civil society said, ‘Now that the dumpsite is closed down, many former waste pickers have been unable to find alternatives to go garbage picking and their incomes have reduced. You know, they don’t have any qualifications or skills to find a better job’.

The findings from the interviews with the respondents suggested their mixed feelings about the closures of the Payatas dumpsite. Whereas some respondents reported that the dumpsite closure was positive as an act of social justice to relieve the suffering of waste pickers from unhealthy and dangerous environments and the public’s prejudice against them, many others, including local government officials, regarded the closure as a negative event, as the former waste pickers were unable to find alternative jobs and subsequently struggled financially.

Discussion

The former Payatas waste pickers, having had to work in unsafe and unhygienic conditions, were in a situation of oppression, dehumanization and exploitation. From the perspective of CT, the closure of the Payatas dumpsite was an act of social justice to emancipate the waste pickers from this dire situation: the residents could now live in a cleaner and safer living environment. However, it also created another, possibly worse situation in leaving the residents with no jobs or income. Thus, the question arises: Should this ‘new’ problematic situation be critiqued? If so, according to which theory?

In the context of rethinking CT, Rexhepi and Torres (2011: 691) noted that ‘knowledge creation is always the negation of the previous negation, the criticism of previous knowledge, which in and by itself, is a criticism of previous knowledge’. According to this logic, criticism of CT may result in creating another CT. Furthermore, Kozlarek (2001) draws on the concept of meta-theory, which is theory about theory, where ‘meta’ refers to what is beyond the theory or the substance behind the theory’s presuppositions. Creating a meta-theory requires critical analysis of an extant theory, as meta-theory aims to construct a conceptual framework to test, understand and develop the extant theory (Glasmeier & Farrigan, 2005).

To realize the meta-theoretical objectives of CT, we can embrace ‘a theoretical attitude of openness for the contingency of concrete social realities and consequently the contingency of normative orientations’ (Kozlarek, 2001: 619) and critique CT and critical practice by iteratively considering the social phenomena in question and continuing to reconceptualize and reinvent CT. Leitner and Sheppard (2015) describe that critical engagement and self-assessment are essential in CT/CUT for constructing its own knowledge. This type of ‘a meta-theoretical exercise, which employs a multiplicity of reflexive approaches to CUT, is required by any rigorously reflexive account of the urban’ (Brenner & Schmid, 2015: 163).

Since the dumpsite closure, as mentioned in the interview study, an increasing number of former waste pickers have migrated to the dumpsite in Montalban, Rizal Province, just as many people moved from Smokey Mountain to Payatas after the closure of Smokey Mountain in 1995, because they could not find alternative economic means there. In a way, Montalban has been becoming another Payatas, or a third Smokey Mountain, where waste pickers may again face the situation of social injustice and find themselves oppressed, dehumanized and exploited (though the dumpsite in Montalban is more sophisticated than the one in Payatas) without employability skills. Thus, there might be a need for another critical practice.

One common measure is provision of the livelihood or skills development programs. There exist various examples of such programs around the world. One such example is micro-business training programs in Zimbabwe, which involve secondhand clothing, poultry-keeping and so on (Mutenje et al., 2010). Another example is a skill development program for youth in Ghana that address their unemployment issues and developing employability skills (Darvas & Palmer, 2014).

Some respondents from civil society in this study reported that their organizations undertook similar livelihood and skills development activities, which help improve the former waste pickers’ well-being. These efforts should be scaled up with the support of governments and international organizations.

Another possible measure to address these perennial processes in the context of Payatas (and now Montalban) is adopting a management system for the landfill. For example, the city government could establish factories to properly segregate the trash, which could provide waste pickers with stable jobs, proper salaries, insurance and training to work in these factories without placing them in a situation of social injustice, although this solution might merely create or identify additional problems (e.g. scarce financial resources to establish and/or manage the factories) to be addressed by new interventions.

As seen thus far, critical practice (e.g. the dumpsite closure) addresses the situation of social injustice (e.g. waste pickers living in unhealthy and dangerous environments), in which the situation that is addressed may create another situation of injustice (e.g. aggravation of the issues of income and living standards), which will need to be addressed by a new critical practice. This perennial process might be endless as long as the dumpsite provides waste pickers with jobs and incomes. As Mendieta (2010) notes, CUT is always a work in progress. In a sense, CT coexists with the situation of social injustice; without social injustice, CT would lose its raison d’être (Marcuse, 2009b).

As CT/CUT critiques the prevailing capitalist system, capitalism is often considered a cause of social injustice in the CT framework (Marcuse, 2009a; Surak, 2016; Woodham, 2020). Nonetheless, Marcuse (2009a: 194) raises a question, ‘Can an alternative to capitalism really be accomplished, given the proven power of the established system? Not only is the end-product difficult to imagine, but the steps leading there are hard to see’. Harvey and Wachsmuth (2009) state that the costs of not saving capitalism may be too high: the people who would really be affected by this would be the marginalized like waste pickers. These discussions drawn from Harvey and Wachsmuth and Marcuse can be accommodated under the so-called social democratic capitalism or critical social capitalism – a capitalist system that considers, at least partially, equality and justice as well as capital (Gamarnikow & Green, 2007). Also, these discussions fit with Gago’s (2017) argument for ‘neoliberalism from below’ – the reconstruction of neoliberalism with rational and popular subjectivities for survival and beyond. While these scholars criticize the technocratic and exploitative aspects of capitalism, they acknowledge, at least partially, its essentiality for society as well.

Because CT cannot exist without social injustice caused by capitalism and consumerism, in practice, CT is unable to be established based solely on democracy and other relevant concepts, such as social justice and human rights (Leitner & Sheppard, 2015). Yiftachel (2009) argues that a rights-based approach, which may include the closure of the Payatas dumpsite, should be underpinned by more materialistic and political notions, in order to respond to the deprivation and exclusion that a solely rights-based approach may not be able to address effectively. In addressing this issue, Peck (2015) states that CUT requires reformation, re-evaluation and critical reconstruction. Brenner (2018) argues for analytical insights from diverse experiences and geographies of urban transformation around the world. Although there are ongoing debates about the revision of CT in Europe and North America (Storper & Scott, 2016), these debates do not consider the scenarios in other regions of the world such as Africa and Asia (Kozlarek, 2001). Applying critical views of CT and meta-CT in the context of Payatas may help to diversify the revision of CT.

Conclusion

This article has argued for the resilience of CT/CUT through a meta-theoretical exercise while critiquing CT: critical practice (i.e. the dumpsite closure in Payatas) addressed a situation of social injustice (i.e. the residents living in a very unhealthy environment). However, addressing the situation may have created another situation of injustice (i.e. loss of income sources and related issues), which may then need to be addressed by new interventions.

Through this case study, we observed that although the closure of the Payatas dumpsite was justified to emancipate the former waste pickers from oppression, dehumanization and exploitation by providing a safer and cleaner living environment, the dumpsite closure may have actually worsened the former waste pickers’ economic conditions, which may require additional CT interventions or critical practice. We argue that this perennial process exists in CT through meta-theoretical exercises – the critical re-assessment and reconceptualization of CTs to generate meta-CTs – in analyzing and addressing complex situations such as that in Payatas. Beyond theoretical implications drawn from the current study, we also presented some practical suggestions to address the socioeconomic complications of Payatas. This is because CT terminates with social change and ‘its theoretical orientation continuously shaped and reshaped through ongoing social and political transformations’ (Brenner, 2009: 18).

The present study has several limitations. Because the study is qualitative and relied on in-depth interviews, the sample size was small. Notably, however, the purpose of the current case study was not to provide quantitative generalized results, but to relate the findings to theories and previous investigations for analytic generalization. To triangulate our research data and findings, in future research, a large-scale questionnaire survey should be conducted with various stakeholders for statistical analysis.