Theoretical framework

Choosing a methodology for a research project involves choosing appropriate methods, depending on what access is possible and how the researcher is thinking. The research process is informed by the researcher’s theoretical perspective, which is a philosophical stance. The theoretical perspective is itself informed by the epistemology and ontology. So the research process has four elements that inform one another: epistemology, theoretical perspective, methodology and methods (Crotty, 1998).

What the constructionist approach is
Constructionism is the idea that there is no objective truth but that we all construct our own reality, meaning is constructed and different people construct meaning in different ways. People need to have mechanisms for understanding what each of them is doing and need rich forms of conversations that are adequate to dealing with the complexity of social relationships so it’s sense making.

(Guba & Lincoln refer to the constructivist paradigm (Guba and Lincoln, 1989))

Why use the constructionist approach here
Clients and consultants can construct each others roles and clients are actors or agents who shape each others standing of what they do. Schein categorises those roles and so does Bovens.

Disadvantages of the constructionist approach
Czarniawska warns of the difficulties of employing the constructionist stance because the logic of representation is conventionally used between researchers but the medium of everyday organisational life is the logic of practice so there can be difficulties of communication between researchers and managers (Czarniawska, 2001).

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Crotty, M. (1998) 'Introduction: the research process'. The foundations of social research: meaning and perspective in the research process, Sage, London.
Czarniawska, B. (2001) 'Is it Possible to Be a Constructionist Consultant?' Management Learning, 32 (2), pp. 253.
Guba, E. G. and Lincoln, Y. S. (1989) Fourth Generation Evaluation, Sage.

Frameworks of controls

Civil servants, and presumably other public servants, have policies and procedures though which they are meant to exercise their accountability. These include:

• Gateway reviews
• OGC framework contracts

I think I can work out these frameworks from the secondary sources that government bodies provide, such as:

• NAO, 2006 Delivering successful IT-enabled business change and its companion on case studies,
• NAO, 2004 Improving IT procurement: The impact of the Office of Government Commerce’s initiatives on departments and suppliers in the delivery of major IT-enabled projects
  
• POST, 2003 Government IT projects - analysis of the problem Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology

The OGC web site has heaps of information. It includes responsibilities for project board executives. That site indicates what the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) is responsible for and includes tasks like appointing, signing off, agreeing, authorising, communication, resolving, so lots of good verbs. Skills include ability to understand, broker relationships, provide delegated authority and being aware. The skills that interest me are:

• providing delegated authority what authority? from what? to whom?
• being aware of the broader perspective - that must include aware of technological progress
  

The SRO gets to chair the project board, and appoints the project manager, so needs to know how to manage people and what projects are about. It all sounds great, under control, and controllable. So I shouldn't have a research topic....