Supervisor change

I'm quite sad. My supervisor #1 says that I'm moving away from his area of expertise (public sector) and he thinks he shouldn't go on supervising me. This is partly because he and supervisor #2 have encouraged me to look at the use of IT consultancy, and he doesn't feel that he knows much about that area. However, there is another professor in the OUBS who might be interested in supervising me, and we have already met and discussed a month or so ago. This professor got involved when I got a chance to talk over my proposed research with a CEO of big consultancy. So things should work out well.

Adrift without an anchor

Supervisors have read my latest attempts at avoiding focusing, finding a research question or reviewing the literature. Sup #2 says I need an anchor.

• the focus should now be on IT consultancy
• show where the research questions come from, and then prune them
• write with detail
• appraise the literature - critically - what are the strengths and limitations of the studies.

Sup #2 has been useful in providing verbal suggestions for future six weeks, and sup#1 has given me detailed comments on written stuff.

First supervisory

First supervisory meeting of the PhD is due tomorrow. I need to think in the light of the MRes experience, what to do next:

• is this still the topic I want to pursue?
• what is the research question?
• what further reading do I need to do?

I think it is still what I want to pursue. Accountability is so important - public accountability is especially demanded in a social state that provides care such as the NHS. See for example the outcry over the dirty hospital.

What light does the MRes cast? That there are different ways of accounting for use of consultants depending on what sort of client relationship you have with the consultants, but also what your relationship with the public is, and what sort of job you have. Relationships are complex.

What's the research question? For the MRes, it was about how the client-consultant relationship influenced accountability. But perhaps there's further to go on this question. Perhaps develop the question further to examine types of clients, types of consultants types of relationships and different types of accountability. There's more research to do on just the question as it stands, using other organisations, or a different project in the same organisation.

What further reading do I need to do? But, if I read further, then I might find new questions. What should I read? Do I read quantitative or qualitative papers? Both I think, as both shed light on what research is already done. What areas? Accountability relates to ethics, and to finance. I think it's more ethics that interests me. What else does accountability relate to - psychology, such as personal construct theory? When starting a systematic review of the literature last week, there were questions:

What is the size of the literature?
How do I measure size of literature? There is a body of literature on accountability, a sub division on public accountability. Similarly, there is academic literature on consultants, written either from the consultant’s perspective, or from the client’s.

Are there any cross-disciplinary perspectives that need to be taken into account?
Could be, such as psychology, social science, maths if it gets complex, IT if concentrate on one of the large sectors for consulting. Use economics for agency theory. Perhaps social network theory is relevant.

What are the major issues and debates about the topic?
Issues about client types, about the discourse of accountability, and about the discourses between clients and consultants.

I have a year for the literature review, so there must be a lot of reading.