Wedges under can lids

Yesterday's work was a struggle to fit together the theoretical framework from Napahiet & Ghoshal along with the literature on engagement. Eventually, I came up with a framework based on the engagement literature, and think I'm getting somewhere, though it still needs more work. I feel as if I've shoved a wedge under a can lid, and with just a little more effort will be able to open it, but sometimes those wedges fall out and you have to start again.

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.

Scoping the literature

Before starting a systematic review you have to scope the field. The areas of interest to me include:

• consultancy
• public sector
• engagement

Then I have to check the literature, not in the whole of the field but in the overlaps (I think). I worked through literature on engagement last summer and have found it quite useful because there's so little written on engagement, but on similar concepts such as participation or cooperation or involvement or collaboration, none of which are quite the same as engagement.

I suspect the tricky bit will be writing about the overlaps. If there's little literature on engagement then there'll be even less on engagement and social capital, let alone engagement AND social capital AND consultancy AND information technology.

Systematic supervisors

Yesterday's session on a systematic review of the literature must be useful to more than just the PhD students. Our erst-while director of studies uses the approach - says it saves him much time. I hear of supervisors who send students off to look at a whole area of literature that is not relevant to the study, and am grateful that my supervisors do not make those demands on me, but insist that I not be distracted and keep on track.

After yesterday, I think that had I had done that session right at the start of the PhD, or even of the MRes, then I would be very likely to finish on time.

Systematic review workshop

Nine of us OUBS PhD students have spent an engrossing and exciting day working on how to review literature. Dave Denyer from Cranfield led the day. He comes across as a practitioner, not just someone who says "you should do it this systematic way", but someone who does review systematically.

The approach

• stimulates thoughts
• stimulates creativity
• is systematic
• distinguishes between literature review as a scoping exercise and a literature review of the relevant literature

It gives you a structure, a logic and an audit for tackling the literature. Dave left us with files, overheads and templates for mapping, documenting and analysing.

One student was so impressed that half way through the day was cross that we hadn't had the training a year ago, and suggested this session should be compulsory for first year PhD students, it is so worth doing. Two of our third years came along considering it worth repeating for revision.

Supervision

Today's supervision meeting has brought things together - good, because we haven't met for a couple of months. Things were in my mind, like getting the interview questions together and the ethics approval, and now we've discussed them together I feel that this is the time to write them. So I have three things to write:

1. set of interview questions
2. ethics proposal
3. a draft to the head of a consultancy firm to get that perspective on my research.

I'd written on engagement, I'd written three drafts, and presented the last one to my supervisors at the last minute. (Sup #2 likes the structure and that's a first! :)) Sup #2 knows now where I'm going with engagement and why. He suggests I read the collaborative literature, and he's right, but I just wouldn't have got round to it for ages if he hadn't said it. So I've reading to do too.

And dates to negotiate for cases.

BTW, I took along a table of the search terms and databases I had used for engagement. Supervisor #1 was happy with this approach, evidence that could fit in an appendix for my PhD eventually. Why did I have such a table? Because I'd been to that systematic review of the literature at the BAM conference, where I felt encouraged to record and tabulate what literature I'd searched for and found. Supervisor also kept looking at the table I'd done of a thematic analysis of the literature - something I'd seen in a couple of the Cranfield papers that I mentioned here, here and here.

Perhaps I have reviewed something systematically.

NVivo difficulties

I'm trying to find out how to use this NVivo to record and code my thoughts on the literature review. It should be a good tool. After all, a literature review is a qualitative analysis, isn't it? But I can't work out the best way to use externals, create memos, link to the Word documents I already have written for reviews.

And there isn't an NVivo course till September, which is one I can't go on because it's the day after the BAM conference. So I have to wait longer to get the training, and carry on self-training - no problem because I've taught myself lots of technical programs for years.

Project management skills

I'd remarked to my supervisors that a project manager doesn't need technical skills, but they have queried it.

Gray says that a project manager needs "only rudimentary technical skills" {Gray, 2008} but goes on to remark that he/she also needs orchestrating skills to get people to make the right decisions at the right time. I want to find some public sector literature that remarks on the skills that a project manager needs. There is probably something on the OGC site and probably something in PRINCE2. The OGC site on project manager gives responsibilities, skills and attributes. It also has a concise diagram of where the PM fits in.

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Gray, C. F. and Larson, E. W. (2008) Project management: the managerial process, (4 Edn), McGraw-Hill, NY. 798

PhD Issues

The OUBS PG students have just had a meeting between themselves. We started with an introductory activity - say what issue you are dealing with now, and your neighbour will offer some advice.

Issues included:

• literature - being stuck on something interesting
• procrastination
• time management
• the more you read the more you're scared by what you don't know!
• waiting for a confidentiality agreement for access to clients
• access to get data
• too small a return rate on samples
• writing to persuade access

Advice included:

• work 8 hours a day
• write anything
• schedule to read x articles per day
• use mnemonic SOSTS to guide your writing

SOSTS =

• Situation
• Objective
• Strategy
• Tactics
• Solution

I think the first two give the background and the later ones are what you want to get to. I'm working on those to write one paragraph that will persuade someone a) that I can write in non-academic terms, b) that I understood what was going on in the meeting, c) that the OU is a competent organisation, including having real research ability d) to introduce me to others of interest in my area e) to provide the access he offered f) to provide any other relevant support.