Where am I positioning my research in the literature?

Someone asked me:

Where are you positioning this research in the literature?

I stuttered. So he suggested:

In HR? or in organisational behaviour?

Feeling really thick, I can't answer this question, but have in my mind a memory of a Venn diagram I had had on my wall, but removed. Perhaps it was just the wording of the question that threw me, but if the examiner asks me at the viva, I'll have to think of diagrams and answer with those in my mind. The answer would have been about scoping the literature,

There's advice here: http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/hdr/write/5.7.3.html on positioning yourself in relation to the existing literature. If you can tell the examiner where your work fits in, then you get the PhD.

Drawing software

What diagramming software is good for drawing the FSP? I've used Inspiration for other diagrams and for structuring my notes. I really like it, but it won't draw boundaries. I'd draw it now if I had the right software. A fellow student's recommended yEd Graph Editor. But I've yet to find out how to draw systems within systems, i.e. how to draw boundaries.

Formal Systems Paradigm

I'm convinced that what my supervisor #1 has drawn matches the formal systems paradigm (FSP) [1].

A system has four aspects to it:

1. a purpose
2. an interest from someone who perceives it as a system
3. components that interact and do something
   
4. if any one component is removed or added then the system behaves in a different way
   

The FSP has components:

• a purpose
• sub-systems that are systems themselves and do things
  
• a decision making process
• a performance management process
• an environment
• a boundary
  

What sup#1 has drawn includes

• a decision-making system that consists of client civil servants and politicians (possibly as a separate system),
• a consultant system again with possible subsystems
• a system for effective consultancy with notes against it about how consultants add value, how it's measured, and contribution to project - so it must be a performance management system

Then she's drawn a boundary round these three components and put stuff in the environment, like:

• other projects or across projects or programmes
• nature of projects in public sector
• life cycle
• nature of consultant engagement
• more effective project outcomes influenced by market shift and clear outcomes.

So where do I go with this? She doesn't like systems, so I can't go there without explaining a lot. However, I think I could write up each of the components in turn, citing the literature to arrive at a similar diagram. Then each component of the diagram brings aspects of my research question. Erm.

What is my research question?

How do clients engage with consultants in order to ensure effectiveness of the consultancy contribution to the overall project?

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Fortune, J., Peters, G. and NetLibrary Inc. (1995) Learning from failure: the systems approach, Wiley, Chichester ; New York. 773

Supervision meeting - new supervisor #1

That was fun but a bit exhausting today! It was the longest supervision yet at over two hours.

Supervisor #1 is quite different from previous. And the relationship with supervisor #2 is interesting because he was or used to be the one who seemed to talk as much or more. New supervisor #1 not only talked lots, but also drew diagrams. I like that. I thought that one diagram was a system diagram, but she said that she didn't like systems. Well, I expect I'll use some systems theory to analyse whatever comes up eventually so I'll just have to explain it right so that she does like systems.

We talked a lot about a set of research questions, like one big question from which I could draw a number of other questions, but also phrase it to avoid having a big chunk of literature to read like accountability or value. I have heaps of notes, my usual recording and diagrams.

Now I have to work out where to go from here.