Positive bias

The type of case studies I have show a positive bias. People and organisations that are interested enough to agree to be case studies tend to engage with each other on their IT projects, and to perceive their projects and their relationships with their consultants and suppliers as successful. Those that don't engage, or don't perceive their projects or consultant-client relationships as successful, have not participated.

Writing up

"Are you writing up now?"

is a typical question asked of a third year PhD student. The term "writing up" implies the research is done, collected, analysed and the student now knows the findings and needs only communicate them in writing.

But I don't know what the findings are until I write them. I don't know what I think until I write it. Writing itself is a form of analysing and finding what the findings are. I am therefore grateful to Laurel Richardson for pointing out:

"Writing is a way of 'knowing' - a method of discovery and analysis. By writing in different ways, we discover new aspects of our topic and our relationship to it.".

She argues that the "writing up" approach where you don't write until you know what you want to say is a static writing model that

1. "coheres with mechanistic scientism and quantitative research" and
2. is a " sociohistorical invention that reifies the static social world imagined by our nineteenth century fore parents".

There are some difficult long words in there - I had to read it twice - but it sounds wonderful when you read it aloud.

Writing about qualitative research is a method of discovery so must itself be research and therefore fun. Like research is fun, writing is fun.

Oh er! Until I wrote down my thoughts on Richardson's paper, I hadn't ever realised that writing is fun, let alone found an argument for it. thus does writing release discovery.

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Richardson, L. 2005. Writing: a method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, Vol. 1370: 923-949. London: Sage Publications

Difference between 'techniques', 'methods' and 'methodology'

The OU PhD skills web site points to a comprehensive list, which for skill A4: asks Can you articulate the difference between 'techniques', 'methods' and 'methodology'? so I'm revising what I had learnt in B852: management research.

Techniques

• Reading documents, searching for and retrieving them, filing them, taking notes from them.
• Contacting people, recording contacts

Perhaps this is the how of the research

Methods

Procedures for collecting and analysing data – like what you are going to do to get the data

Methodology

Strategy, and design behind choice of methods to reach outcome – like why are you doing it this way

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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. 816

See Crotty (1998) in the ‘Introduction’ to his book, The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process

Research on contracts

Dicke & Ott's research to my mind is good in that it doesn't start by taking accountability for granted but uses Romzek & Dubnick's 1994 model of accountability to work from.

It is the only research so far that looks remotely worth emulating. Having identified ten methods of demonstrating accountability, Dicke and Ott then examined contracts for human services to see if any of those methods appeared in the contracts. Findings were that some methods were explicitly mentioned in the contracts, especially audits, monitoring, courts and contracts.

They concluded that accountability has both positive and negative implications. Overdependence on controls means other dimensions of accountability may be neglected. The need for flexibility must be balanced with responsibility for maintaining all 5 dimensions of accountability in upholding the public interest. There’s a need not to overlook the moral dimension.

This is about how the contractor accounts for work, not how the principal accounts to the public for using the contractor, unless, you count ability to account by referring to the techniques that the principal uses to monitor and control the consultant-agent. I could use this approach for my work too, if I could get access to the contracts.

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Dicke, L. A., & Ott, J. S. 1999. Public Agency Accountability in Human Services Contracting. Public Productivity & Management Review, 22(4): 502-516.
Romzek, B. S., & Dubnick, M. J. (1994). Issues of accountability in flexible personnel systems. In P. W. Ingraham & B. S. Romzek (Eds.), New paradigms, for government (pp. 263-294). San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

Dimensions of accountability

Romzek & Dubnick's 1994 model is a book that I haven't managed to get hold of, so I can only go by what Dicke & Ott say. They indicated that accountability has at least four competing dimensions: bureaucratic or hierarchical, legal, professional and political. To that they add a moral or ethical accountability quoting Dwivedi & Jabbra.

I'd guess that there'd be a match to Bovens types of accountability. For instance, his social accountability might match moral accountability.

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• Bovens, M. 2007. Analysing and Assessing Accountability: A Conceptual Framework. European Law Journal, 13(4): 447-468.
• Dicke, L. A., & Ott, J. S. 1999. Public Agency Accountability in Human Services Contracting. Public Productivity & Management Review, 22(4): 502-516.
• Dwivedi, 0 . P., & Jabbra, J. G. (1988). Public service responsibility and accountability. In J. G. Jabbra & O . P. Dwivedi (Eds.), Public service accountability (pp. 1-16). West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.
• Romzek, B. S., & Dubnick, M. J. (1994). Issues of accountability in flexible personnel systems. In P. W. Ingraham & B. S. Romzek (Eds.), New paradigms, for government (pp. 263-294). San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.