Unit of analysis

I'm rethinking my unit of analysis in view of:

1. the questions that the interviewing board asked
2. reading Eisenhardt [1]

Eisenhardt points out that both the positivist and the principal-agent streams share a unit of analysis that is the contract between the principal and the agent. Now if this unit governs the relationship between the principal and the agent, and I'm looking at how the relationship between the client and the consultant influences accountability, then my unit of analysis is the contract between the client/principal and the consultant/agent.

I had thought my unit of analysis was the project, and thought that we'd discussed that at a supervisory meeting, that the Master's would then extend into the doctorate by investigating other projects, but now I'm rethinking.

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[1] Eisenhardt, K.M., 1989, Agency Theory: An assessment and Review, The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 14, No. 1. pp 57-74

Interview debrief

Some of the Phd application interview went okay, and some didn't. I don't know which bits were which and what will count to get me a funded place in the OUBS.

The presentation went as I planned it, so I'll not complain; it's the questions that were hard to anticipate, and indeed none were questions that I had thought they'd ask.

The four interviewers, 2 men, 2 women were all people I've met before.

Questions included:

• What's your unit of analysis? (Female interviewer#1)
• How are you going to theorise this?(FI#1)
• Have you thought about value - I can't remember the exact question.(MI#1)
• How are you going to get access? I'd have thought it would be fraught with ethical problems? (MI#1)

After the question on unit of analysis there was something else, I can't remember what but her response to whatever I said, was "but that's just descriptive" so I inferred that description wasn't good enough. Yes, okay. But if you compare descriptions you'll have a better idea of what's going on - she used the term 'cause and effect'. Yes.

The question on theory is phrased in a manner that means I don't immediately know what she wants and in fact, nearly freeze, thinking that I haven't got any theory, till I remember that although I haven't expected this question, I've anticipated it and jotted notes on structuration, complexity theory, Foucault and actor-network systems. I just don't know which way to go yet. From what she said, I'm afraid that not knowing might be a fault and that I should already know.

What was a success was that the research question is interesting, relevant and topical.

MI#2 asked me to describe my journey over the last year - he wanted reflection, so I said something about at least being able to be here and that I couldn't have coped with this interview last year, and that my marks initially were low, but have got better all year, and that I've learned to write, made contacts in the DTWs and in PACE sessions, and that I can now find research papers on the Internet. FI#1 said something about the 'tools'. Was that good or bad? I don't know.

I think that FI#1 & FI#2 said quite a lot, and I felt I just had to nod and say yes. Does that augur well? Or should I have said more?

There are five or 6 places, and at least six interviewees, though I thought ten had been invited to interview. We won't know the decision for a few days...

Adverse effects of Accountability

Lerner & Tetlock [1] wrote about experimental work that indicated accountability could produce inefficient decision outcomes. Under resource scarcity, decision makers would be inefficient but fair. I wonder if that works in the public sector, where people often suggest there is a scarcity of resources.

Later Siegel-Jacobs & Yates [2] distinguish between procedural and outcome accountability, and I wonder which is of greater relevance to using consultants in the public sector. I suspect, especially after having just read the 31st report of the Commons Public Accounts Commitee, that outcome accountability is what the media and MPs ask for, but if the procedural accountability exists, assuming that means a need to justify one's actions, then the project stages that use consultants will each be accounted for. Perhaps procedural accountability is less visible than outcome accountability. Perhaps there are more gaps in procedural accountability than the MPs and media realise.

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[1] Lerner, J.S., Tetlock, P.E., 1999, Accounting for the Effects of Accountability, Psychological Bulletin, Vol 123 no 2 pp 255-275
[2] Siegel-Jacobs, K, Yates, J.F., 1996, Effects of Procedural and Outcome Accountability on Judgment Quality, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol 65, No 1 pp 1-17

31st report : Central Government's Use of Consultants

There's this report that criticises the public expenditure on consultancy. The one that the Public Accounts Committee published this week is a critique of the report on the Government's Use of Consultants that was published in November 2006. The committee took evidence from Mr John Oughton, Chief Exec of the Office of Government Commerce. He mentions accountability and some of what he says indicates the gaps that exist in accounting for consultants, so is pertinent to my research. For example,

• Q49 Annette Brooke: Can you just tell us a bit more about applying lessons across departments?.. What is it that is the barrier to sharing good practice and making progress on all fronts, as it were?


• Mr Oughton: The Chairman invited me to a reflective session at some stage before the end of March. One reflection now, if I may? There is still quite a strong resistance to ideas that come from elsewhere and this is not just a public sector issue, it is a private sector issue as well. Other people’s ideas are never treated as warmly as one’s own; that is just human nature. Breaking through those barriers and encouraging the sharing of good practice and the adoption of good practice is a big issue. It is slightly reinforced by the system of, and this is very much a personal view, accountability that we have here, where each department is accountable for its own delivery and feels, rightly, very strongly that it must do the best job it can. That rather discourages them from looking at other people’s ideas and other ways of undertaking business. ..

So this civil servant is talking about the public servant's accountability, yet the report says that:

"clients need consultants to show ownership and accountability to implement their work"

It seems to me again, that the MPs and media take away the requirement to account from the public servant client of the consultant and put the requirement on the consultant, despite the evidence that the public servant should account.

At Q127, Mr Oughton again refers to accountability of the accounting officers, not the consultant:

• My own view however is that the sense of accountability that accounting officers and those who report to them have actually means that it is really not in our style, it is not in our fashion to be putting the blame elsewhere. You may not believe this but the sense of accountability that we have, both in responding to the work that the NAO do and to the work of this Committee, is a real one. I do not try to push that off on others by saying I have taken advice from someone and I am going to disown that advice. If I have paid money to secure advice, then I stick by that.
  

Accountability came up again from Mr Williams in Q136. Government departments had been asked for progress reports, but two did not respond to the request. Mr Williams remarked:

• It would be interesting to know which the departments were, when it was and at what level there was any accountability in relation to this.

And although a footnote identifies the culprits, there is no explanation of accountability.

Finally, at Q142 from Mr Bacon compares the situation in the UK with the USA.

• What is wrong with and what is contrary to greater openness and accountability—and I accept the points you make about accountability—in having a more statutory Clinger-Cohen type approach? Why can you not go down that route?

I don't know about this Clinger-Cohen approach so must find out.

Reviewing qualitative readings

I wish I'd found this blog that reviews the qualitative readings earlier. It's really useful. It is written by an OU student who was studying E835.

Consultant interview questions

It would seem sensible to interview the consultants in the relationship too, to get their perspective on the relationship and how they see the client's accountability for using consultants. But what questions should I ask in order to elicit this?

Client interview questions

To find out where each interviewee fits into the organisation, ask about job title.

To find out about the project ask about:

• Original intention of the project
• Name of consultancy
• Type of consultancy
• Money – cost and expected savings
• Days
• Number of people – client side & consultants
• Reasons for use
• Outcomes expected
• Outcomes delivered
• What worked well?
• What was problematic?

To find out about client-consultant relationships ask:

1. At what stage(s) of the project did you work with consultants, (thus identifying client type in Schein’s suggested type: contact, intermediate, primary, unwitting, indirect, and ultimate.)
2. How did you work with consultants?
   What did they do and what did you do? What are your positive and negative experiences of the use of consultants on this project? (cf Werr et al, 2002, image 1)
3. What has been successful in the management of consultancy on this project? (cf Werr et al, 2002, image 2) and what has been difficult or problematic?
4. Do you think in general the problems to which consultants are called to solve are the really important ones? Why do you think that? Who should account for consultants that are called to solve these problems? How should their use be accounted for? (From Gattiker & Larwood’s 10^th question)

To find out about accountability as perceived by the interviewee ask:

5. What is your understanding of accountability with respect to consultants?
6. Who do you render account of yourself to, with respect to the consultancy, and about what, or in which terms?
7. How was accountability put into practice and monitored?
8. What impact do the mechanisms of accountability have on: a) quality of the consultancy work done b) outcome of the consultancy work (See Ezzamel et al, 2007) Did they have any other impacts or effects from your perspective?
9. Can you recall a particular incident in which you were aware of accountability? Describe it. Explain it.
10. Who do you regard as having the main accountability for the effective use of consultancies in general? And also with respect to this particular project?

Finally:

11. Who else could or should I talk to?
12. Do you have any other advice or comments for me?

Planning data collection

What's an interview schedule? Supervisor #2 wants one. I guess it must include times and names of interviewees, but I can't do that yet. I can describe the project, guess some interviewees, have two contacts and have some thoughts for questions.

He can't have seen the appendices that I added to the proposal, which is where I wrote some people and some questions.

Latest literature

I have been reading something very recently published on accountability as discursively constructed in the field of education.

Positive progress

"General direction and focus is encouraging"
wrote Supervisor #2 on my recent proposal. He even thought that I could get some papers from the research. So I feel a lot happier than I did when he returned my last B852 TMA. He and S#1 were extremely helpful yesterday showing me how to tighten up wording, pointing out and rewriting bad research questions, avoiding the wrong arguments or stands. I have to:

1. revise the draft proposal
2. start collecting data
3. read Miller [1] on the different versions of clients
4. and write S#2 a couple of pages on the project, people and accountability that I'm asking about, together with an interview schedule.

I must remember that a constructionist view is, I think, that of a single person, rather than the social constructivist perspective that builds together.

They pointed out my research questions were ontologically social constructionist, and therefore a wording 'to what extent..?' was wrong because it implied a quantitative approach, and they should read 'How', and be descriptive.

Then, when I asked if they thought I should apply for the doctorate they even looked slightly surprised that I was considering asking, as if it had been an expectation, rather than the nightmare I was suffering.

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Miller, Eric, 1993 From Dependency to Autonomy: studies in organization and change, Free Association Books, London

Collecting data

I've managed to record two interviews, one only 20 minutes on the phone and awful sound quality and the other face-to-face. The short one should lead, I hope, to a case study, and I'm already finding documents to go with it and some interesting relationships between consultants, clients and accountability. The longer interview was more about getting practical background but led to some themes. For example:

1. there's a mass of written or electronic evidence available for public projects.
2. more projects work in teams rather than hierarchical now than some years ago, so accountability might be a team duty rather than pass up the hierarchy.
3. but OTH, some public organisations will still be hierarchical.
4. therefore, although I might expect to find network discourse expressing accountability in a team context, I might find hierarchies in the public sector, a concern with control and consequently the discourse on accountability will be bureaucratic.

Data collection

I need some data. I need someone who has used, tasked, managed, selected, worked with consultants in the public sector to talk to me and let me record what they say.

Research questions from the literature

I'm pleased, and slightly surprised to find that my initial questions, months ago, have developed into something researchable. I had thought those initial questions were researchable but perhaps they weren't and anyhow, I had a less clear idea of how I'd research them than I do now. From the literature I have evidence that both accountability and relationships are discursive constructions, which means that research needs a constructionist perspective, a qualitative approach to data collection and either grounded analysis or discourse analysis. I think the questions are:

• To what extent do public sector managers account for their use of consultants?
• What do different public sector managers do to demonstrate their accountability for managing consultants?
• To what extent does the kind of client-consultant relationship, influence the expression of accountability in a public sector organisation?
• Are there gaps in public accountability?

It's the third one that is researchable and most interests me.