Paul's Dissertation : Activity

Interviews done, some documentary evidence in. Now the hard part!

Thu, 14 May 2009 17:43:15 GMT

Earlier today I was able to conduct my final one to one interview for my dissertation.

This was the 6th(??) interviewee. All have had some involvement in the decision making processes that resulted in Emerald's new presence in Dubai.

It's been a learning experience. I'm not sure the first interview was a good one. I think I spent too much time trying to stick to a script, I didn't introduce the thing as well as I could have and I didn't listen as actively as I should have.

That being said, and after only a brief review of the interviews and my notes, there is a lot of consistency in the topics covered and the overall stories that emerge. I think I have to be happy with how it's gone so far.

The documentary evidence that I need to corrobarate and triangulate these interviews is a little more difficult. I believe this mostly due to the fact that there is not much evidence there in the first place; much of the process and conversations and final decisions don't seem to be auditable in the form of meeting agendas, minutes, emails or much else. I don't know how much of a problem this is yet.

The very act of going through the interviews has been enormously useful though, and very enlightening. There have been some side tracks that I'll follow through that I think will really add some depth, texture and balance to the research.

The shape and structure of the dissertation is a little clearer to me now.

Overall pleased with how things have proceeded in May. My plan calls for data and evidence and interviews to have concluded by the end of May so we're ok there. June is analysis/interpretation. Don't have a clue how that might pan out - check back in a month.

Final?? Research Proposal...

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:13:05 GMT

After Pete's most recent visit he advised all of us to stick a feasibility section into the Final Research Proposal. I have done. I added it in the form of a risk register so I hope this is acceptable.

I have also included the Nahapiet & Goshal definition of Social Capital, since this was thought to be missing by the Emerald board. I'm not usre why this wasn't in already - I removed it but can't recall why...

For completeness the definition is this,

I am drawing on Nahapiet and Goshal’s (1998, p. 243) frequently cited deﬁnition of social capital, i.e. ‘‘the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, and derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit […] social capital comprises both the network and the assets that may be mobilized through the network’’. Consequently, my definition of social capital includes the network of relationships, which is a structural dimension, as well as the usefulness of the network of relationships, which is an economic dimension. Both of these dimensions will be explored.

It 's a good guide for the subsequent paper I think and makes it possible to deliver a 90 second 'elevator pitch' I think.

I don't really want to do any more on the Proposal. I pretty comfortable with it as it stands and itching to just get on with it now.

Data collection design is hard than you'd think

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:30:21 GMT

Although the proposal have submitted has yet to be formally approved I'm not anticipating an substantial pushback. Therefore it makes sense I think to crack on with what I think the next phase is - designing the data collection of this project. Basically, what data do I need to answer the questions posed in the Research Proposal.

As a reminder the questions posed in the proposal:

“In opening an office in Dubai to what extent does Emerald’s use of Social Capital validate the findings of Agndal, Chetty & Wilson that predict Emerald’s Social Capital wil l be direct in nature and closely associated with an efficacy role? ”
“Has Emerald’s Social Capital network influenced the final choice of Foreign Market Entry Mode into the UAE?”

I've already stated that my design will be based around the Critical Incident Technique. There's some nice guidance, which I've included on the project website (data collection methods.doc)

Still, after all the guidance on offer it still feels kinda woolly. I hope that as with the proposal some clarity will emerge in the coming weeks.

I spent some time designing a project schedule so I hope that clarity will emerge soon; I should be interviewing and doing data collection throughout April according to the Plan!!

My first stab at a semi-structured interview template has been posted but as I say, it needs work - it's hard than you'd think.

Day to Day work is beginning to pile up now; and it's only going to get worse. And that's before I begin the Book chapter I've committed to!

Project Planning

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:11:39 GMT

Today I spent a Happy(?!!) hour or so drafting a projetc plan for this dissertation.

As with prohects the chances of it actualyl guiding the activitty seems remote but the exercise is worthwhile in sketching out the tasks and teasing out a likely chronology.

The awful fact of the matter is that as February comes to an end September doens't seem very far away at all!

Hoping that it feels less daunting once I begin in earnest.

USING THE CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:03:10 GMT

The Critical Incident Technique is best described by Flanagan in his initial article in the
July 1954 Psychological Bulletin. The critical Incident Method was used in more than a
thousand government, business, industrial and educational research projects, and in
dissertations, professional papers, etc.

The technique involves collection of brief, written, factual reports of actions taken in
response to explicit situations or problems in defined fields. "Incident reports" may be
written by people who took action in needed situations, by qualified observers, or both. An
incident is defined as "critical" when the action taken contributed to an effective
outcome (helped to solve a problem or resolve a situation; or led to development of a
unique, creative project) .An incident may also qualify as "critical" when the action taken
resulted in an ineffective outcome (e.g., a case when a partially resolved problem
created new problems or the need for further action).

A critical incident report should describe a situation, an action that was important,
significant "critical" in determining the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the
outcome.

Flanagan emphasized that "the critical incident technique... should be thought of as a
flexible set of principles which must be modified and adapted to meet the specific situation
at hand." Proposals must include a clear, concise statement of the purpose or aim of the
study; specifications for the types of data to be collected; plans for selecting the
population; guidelines for observing, interpreting and classifying the critical incidents;
plans for analyzing data and interpreting and reporting results.

Because critical incident data may be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively, results
tend to be more precise, more explicit, and more usable than opinion poll data to study
issues related to education, business, industry, health care, and professional and working
life.

The critical Incident Technique has been used to identify "what people do" in a variety
of professions; e.g. : to identify factors important in defining criteria for "acceptable
performance" in many fields. Analysis of incident reports from participants and qualified
observers have helped to describe "critical requirements" in fields as diverse as piloting
and navigating aircraft, improving operation of complex devices, designing and
manufacturing safer automotive equipment, performing surgery, providing safe/effective
nursing care, and improving performance in many other fields.

Critical Incident Techniques - some guide notes

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:02:22 GMT

Generalised note from a variety of web sources/handbooks

Critical Incident Technique

The Critical Incident Technique (or CIT) is a set of procedures used for collecting direct observations of human behavior that have critical significance and meet methodically defined criteria. These observations are then kept track of as incidents, which are then used to solve practical problems and develop broad psychological principles. A critical incident can be described as one that makes a significant contribution - either positively or negatively - to an activity or phenomenon. Clinical incidents can be gathered in various ways, but typically respondents are asked to tell a story about an experience they have had.

CIT is a flexible method that usually relies on five major areas. The first is determining and reviewing the incident, then fact-finding, which involves collecting the details of the incident from the participants. When all of the facts are collected, the next step is to identify the issues. Afterwards a decision can be made on how to resolve the issues based on various possible solutions. The final and most important aspect is the evaluation, which will determine if the solution that was selected will solve the root cause of the situation and will cause no further problems.
Contents

History

The studies of Sir Francis Galton (circa 1930) are said to have laid the foundation for the Clinical Incident Technique, but it is the work of Colonel John C. Flanagan, Director of the Division of Aviation Psychology, that resulted in the present form of CIT (described in Psychological Bulletin, Vol.51, No. 4, July 1954). Flanagan’s work was carried out as part of the Aviation Psychology Program of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, where Flanagan conducted a series of studies focused on differentiating effective and ineffective work behaviours. From then CIT has spread as a method to identify job requirements, develop recommendations for effective practices, and determine competencies for a vast number of professionals in various disciplines. In particular, it has been used in service research.

Principal Uses

CIT can be used in a wide variety of areas. In general it is most useful in the early stages of development of large scale tasks and activity analysis within existing projects. This is mainly due to the method's ability to quickly separate out major problem areas that reside in a system.

CIT is also widely used in organizational development as a research technique for identification of organizational problems. CIT is used as an interview technique, where the informants are encouraged to talk about unusual organizational incidents instead of answering direct questions. Using CIT deemphasizes the inclusion of general opinions about management and working procedures, instead focusing on specific incidents.

In market research, CIT has been used more frequently in the last 10 years. Although the CIT method first appeared in the marketing literature thirty years ago, the major catalyst for use of the CIT method in service research appears to have been a Journal of Marketing study conducted by Bitner, Booms, and Tetreault (1990) that investigated sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction in service encounters. Since the Bitner et al article, nearly two hundred CIT studies have appeared in marketing-related literature. For a useful overview, see Gremler’s article in Journal of Service Research, Vol. 7, No. 1, August 2004.

CIT has also been used in studies of information seeking behavior. See e.g. “How senior managers acquire and use information in environmental scanning” by Ethel Auster and Chun Wei Choo (1996), “Information sources used by lawyers in problem-solving: An empirical exploration” by Margaret Ann Wilkinson (2001), or “When Is 'Enough' Enough? Modeling the Information-Seeking and Stopping Behavior of Senior Arts Administrators” by Lisl Zach (2004).

The employment of CIT may also allow constructing typical scenarios of user behavior when they interact with various technologies including information systems. For this, researchers should solicit: 1) the cause, description and outcome of a critical incident, 2) users' feelings and perceptions of the situation, 3) actions taken during the incident, and 4) changes (if any) in their future behavior. The typical scenarios may be presented visually as a diagram or a causal model. E.g., see the study "The use of interface agents for email notification in critical incidents" by Serenko 2006 published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 64 (11), pp. 1084–1098.

Advantages & Disadvantages

By identifying possible problems associated with major user-system or product complications, CIT recommendations try to ensure that the same type of situations do not result in a similar loss. There are both advantages and disadvantages to using this method, as shown below. In all, however, CIT has been demonstrated to be a sound method since first presented in 1954. Relatively few modifications have been suggested to the method in the more than 50 years since it was introduced, and only minor changes have been made to Flanagan’s original approach. This indicates a certain robustness.

Advantages

* Flexible method that can be used to improve multi-user systems.
* Data is collected from the respondent’s perspective and in his or her own words.
* Does not force the respondents into any given framework.
* Identifies even rare events that might be missed by other methods which only focus on common and everyday events.
* Useful when problems occur but the cause and severity are not known.
* Inexpensive and provides rich information.
* Emphasizes the features that will make a system particularly vulnerable and can bring major benefits (e.g. safety).
* Can be applied using questionnaires or interviews.

Disadvantages

* A first problem comes from the type of the reported incidents. The critical incident technique will rely on events being remembered by users and will also require the accurate and truthful reporting of them. Since critical incidents often rely on memory, incidents may be imprecise or may even go unreported.
* The method has a built-in bias towards incidents that happened recently, since these are easier to recall.
* It will emphasize only rare events; more common events will be missed.
* Respondents may not be accustomed to or willing to take the time to tell (or write) a complete story when describing a critical incident.

Examples in Informatics / Case studies

* Providing Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) to Individuals & Communities in Situational Crisis, Joseph A. Davis, Ph.D., LL.D.(hon), B.C.E.T.S., F.A.A.E.T.S. 1998 by The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, Inc.
* Use of the critical incident technique in primary care in the audit of deaths by suicide, Redpath, A Stacey, E Pugh and E Holmes County Durham Health Authority, UK
* Audit of deaths in general practice: pilot study of the critical incident technique, Berlin A, Spencer JA, Bhopal RS, van Zwanenberg TD. Medical School, University of Newcastle upon Tyne

Sources

* http://www.apa.org/psycINFO/cit-article.pdf
* http://www.tiu.edu/psychology/Twelker/critical_incident_te
* http://www.ncchta.org/fullmono/mon919.pdf
* http://www.usabilitybok.org/methods/p2052?section=basic-description
* http://www.ul.ie/~infopolis/methods/incident.html
* http://www.aaets.org/arts/art54.htm
* http://www.criticalincidents.net
* http://www.viktoria.se/~dixi/BISON/resources/gremler2004.pdf

Research Proposal accepted? Time to start the real work?

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:55:40 GMT

The Research proposal phase of this MA has consumed a lot more of my time than I believed it would. It's been quite a journey alreayd and frankly the exercise has underlined exaclyl how much work lies ahead! It's daunting stuff and there's no point in pretending otherwise.

Saying that I am pleased with the proposal as it stands. I think it is a focussed and achievable piece of work that is academically sound and rooted in our practice. I think I'm going to draw a line under it all now and say enough - get on with! I think my supervisor feels the same way and if I don't get on with he's going to push me over the side and in head first, so I guess that means I must be ready to start.

I think my next big task is figure out exactly the kind of data I need to answer my questions. I think I know what that looks like in terms of questions to ask and processes to explore, it's working out how it all fits together, where the dependencies are and figuring out how each piece potentially fits together in the final narrative.

The proposal has gone into the board but I don't expect any pushback. I believe it's a pretty robust proposal so I'm going to proceed on the basis that it has been accepted and that in Thesis terms today is March 26th (Proposal submission deadline) - this gives me 130 days to my deadline!!

Research Proposal development

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 12:53:40 GMT

The Research Proposal is due March 29th. Before that a draft version is to be submitted to the Emerald board by Feb 20th.

The last meeting with Peter assured me to some degree that I was on track with my area and overall proposal. That being the case I've ploughed on a produced my Proposal and hope to have it approved by the end of Feb.

Initially I believed that the proposal was expected to be around 3000 words; that's been revised to 1500 -2000 words. Actually, once I got into this fitting it into 2000 words has been difficult. I was surpised by this since I had little idea about what the proposal should look like and what it would accomplish and so I believed blagging and filling the proposal with guff for 3000 words would be the hardest part.

The advice I've received about keeping this focussed, tight and achievable might sound like so much obvious hot air but it really is true.

My proposal is at first draft and stands at about 1800 words. I think it's focussed and achievable and outlines a strategy and a method that answers the research questions. The research questions are derived from the literature (Agndal, Chetty and wilsons indicators). Only by working through the proposal was I able to refine and refine and refine again the broad ideas I had only a couple of weeks ago, so it's been worthwhile and I'm comforable about the rest of the exercise (even though I'm getting a real sense of the scale and commitments required to get through this!).

More later.

Getting there?

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:00:05 GMT

Pete was here today for what proved to be a useful session.

I'm pleased to learn that he considers my dissertation topic and the specificity of it a very good start. Equally happy to learn that my approach is supported.

Useful advice from Pete regarding the Research Proposal includes:

an evaluation of the Social capital and IP frameworks proposed by Chetty, Wilson and Agndal and Ojala.
relate it to'other' theories'of SC and IP
contextualise the work into the UAE geography - cultural considerations

This will then provide the basis for my summary which will as an outcome, produce my "analytical framework factors", or the criteria upon which I will judge Emerald's Social Capital with respect to entry and commitment to the UAE.

From these factors I should be able to propose a hypothesis - that based on the analytical factors Emerald should possess Social Capital of type 'x' with properties "a,b and c". Moreover, based on the analytical factors and Emerald's determined Social Capital the outcome of Emerald's use of it's network is 'y'.

The analysis phase will test the truth of the hypothesis. Proposing the hypothesis and the criteria by which it will be judged should lead me to the types of data needed to test the claims. Knowing the kind of data (as determined by the factors) will suggest appropriate research methods and design. Rather than a comparative case study, as originally proposed, it should be possible to conduct a semi -structured interview, triangulated with documentary evidence to determine if Emerald's Social Capital network is consistent with the findings of earlier works and whether or not the geographical context has had an impact on the generalisability of the earlier research.

Stills sounds alike a lot of work but kinda do-able now I think.

Pete left me with the objective of crafting the basis for my 'Analytical framework factors" or criteria for his next visit, Feb 13th.

Supervisor meeting Jan20th

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:38:45 GMT

Peter is coming into the office this afternoon.

Now that the assignments are out of the way I guess it's time to pay a little more attention to this dissertation. I think I'm a ways down the road but who knows.

on the plus side - Have a reasonably good idea about what I'd like to explore - Social Capital and the Internationalising SME. I think that this provokes a number of other questions - types of social capital, the roles they play, sustainability, acocuntability their influence on the choice of foreign market entry and the mode that selected. I think this is the basis for a solid Lit. Review section. Coming out of that may be a framework that fixes Emerald's Social Capital along a particular set of dimensions relative to other SMEs. The hypothesis may be that Emerald's use of it's Social Capital will be more important in entering a market such as the UAE than it is for the US.

Subseqent Qual and Qant analysis will compare UK SME's entering UAE (n=4) in a comparative case-study methodology to provide/disprove this Hypothesis.

the tools and techniques used to evaluate Emerald's Social Capital networks in foreign market entry and mode choice may become useful artefacts in subsequent FME exercises.

That's, broadly speaking, the proposal I think.

I wonder if a more refined version of this would be acceptable as a proposal to the board for Feb 20th and the actual Research Proposal (March 9th)?

One for Peter I think.