Reviewing a conceptual paper

How do you review a conceptual paper? Our training is good on reviewing papers about research. For example, here's the first part of an assignment question from B852:

Critically review some journal article:
(a) Explain the purpose of the research, any research questions or propositions, and how it relates to existing theory and/or practice.
(b) Describe and discuss the appropriateness of the research methodology employed, highlighting any particular strengths or limitations.
(c) Summarise and critically assess the findings of the research and any conclusions drawn from them.

There are an awful lot of conceptual papers, and not so many research papers but I've got hold of an interesting and relevant paper that's about to be published. I'd like to share it with my supervisors, so need to prepare something in mind to tell them. If I write it, they'll read it because they're good like that. So how do I structure a review of a conceptual paper?

Detective novels and writing social science

I've been reading stuff relating to qualitative methods, especially social constructionist and enjoying reading this small book from Czarniawska. She writes about other than the traditional interview, stuff like shadowing (both people and objects), doing diary studies and observant participation. She has written heaps and heaps of stuff - look at this list. No wonder she's an honorary academic at Copenhagen and Gothenburg.

She's interested in:

• organisational studies
• constructionism
• narratology

In Shadowing (2001), she describes her embarrassment when following an FD in Warsaw she is told that the FD is busy or "these matters are not intended for the ear of strangers". So she knows the practical difficulties of research.

The last section of the book is about writing up research and it is here that she compares writing about research with detective fiction. I hadn't seen the genres as similar, but I enjoy detective novels, like Dexter's Morse, and P.D James' Dalgleish, or Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski. Czarniawska compares approaches:

• inductive
• deductive
• abductive

which were mentioned in the doctoral training workshop last autumn, and on the B852 business research methods in a paper by Thorpe & Moscarola. Different detectives have different approaches, as do researchers. When it comes to reporting findings convention might be flouted and she gives an example of chapter headings, some taking a dramaturgical approach and others framing activity as cyclical in character. She illustrates the influence on her own reports.

She also writes about people using multimedia, like cameras and videos. I want to use a camera to record where people meet and work, but think video will be too much intrusion, especially in the public sector. What clues will photos add that other methods would miss?

And then, wouldn't it be fun to be able write a detective story from the research data!

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Czarniawska, B. (2001) Shadowing: and other techniques for doing field work in modern societies. 815