Discussion for supervisors

I have a couple of issues to discuss with supervisors:
1. ways of analysing and interpreting
2. anonymity of design

Tomorrow the draft dissertation must be in. The new chapters are:
Chapter 4 - data collection and analysis
Chapter 5 - interpreting the data
Chapter 6 - findings

I have chapter 4 and some attempt at chapter 5, but would like to add more to it. I've structured it round answering the research questions, but am also thinking of an alternative structure that works round the concepts of power, autonomy and collectivity that came out of the analysis.

That is something to discuss with my supervisors.

The second issue to discuss is the one of anonymity. I now realise that having just one case study, and a small case study, although I can anonymise the source, because I'm looking at relationships, the participants can recognise each other. That makes it difficult to use all the data. For instance, if one participant, as a consequence of his or her relationship, perceives something that might be a critique from the perspective of another participant, then, there could be repercussions in the organisation if they read what I write. So I have limited my publishable data. Interesting, and something that I just hadn't worked out before the research, or hadn't worked out far enough. That was partly lack of experience, partly lack of forethought, but also I couldn't have told how many participants I was going have until I found the project. Obviously, there would be only one CEO, but I might have expected more directors, and more managers and more assistants, in which case there would have been anonymity in numbers.

An alternative design would be to have had a number of cases either within this organisation or in more than one organisation. The unit of analysis would still be the project and the relationships in it.

Supportive family

Isn't it wonderful what questions your children can ask? At lunch table my 17 year old asked me how I was analysing the data and I was explaining that I'd transcribed the interviews and then had devised some codes to put against chunks of speech, but that when I came to apply them they didn't work so I created other codes of climate, process and structure and subdivided those when I came across ideas that reminded me of something in the literature, like conflict suggesting political elements. I didn't know I could verbalise what I was doing.

Then the 17-Y-O, who is a mathematician was saying something about "but that's only opinion, not facts" and 19-year-old scientist got into debate of researching opinions and facts.

I'm so glad they're interested. They are going to have three more years of me doing this, and someone has to read my work before I give it to my supervisors.

Analysing vs interpreting

The instructions say that chapter 4 should be about analysing the data, and chapter 5 interpreting the data. Well, some might say that those words are a bit similar in meaning, so I have to work out where they separate. I'm taking the analysis to be a description in the light of the codes that I've applied. The interpretation is more about explaining what the data reveals, and I'm structuring that interpretation against the roles and what they suggest in answer to the research questions.

Nerves

Our Director of Research Studies tells me that I did really badly at the PhD interview and he had to dig me out of it. I'm not surprised because I have often have done badly at interviews despite having an excellent CV, appropriate for the position and a suitable covering letter written well enough to get on the short list. So what am I doing wrong?

DoRS suggests I'm answering too quickly without first working out what the question is getting at. He gave some suggestions:

1. take a few deep breaths - well I used to do that when gliding and ended up hyperventilating at the top of a launch and about to faint, so no, that won't work for me.
   
2. ask the questioner to repeat the question
   
3. write it down. I like that suggestion, so I was thinking about, when I had gone there prepared mentally to write down questions, why I didn't. It was because there was so much stuff in front of me, the laptop, my notes and a mug of water, that I would have had to move, but I couldn't move them because I would have knocked over the water.

Which brings me to a physical problem - why would I have knocked over the water? Because my hands shake when I'm nervous. I probably couldn't have read my handwriting if I had written the questions, because my hands would have shaken too much! My mother has trembling hands, only noticeable when she pours the tea, and tells me it is a familial tremor. Well, it hits me when I have emotional stress. In order to take up the DoRS's advice, I'm first going to have to deal with the tremor, so no caffeine, nor ginseng which also makes me shake. I do like the comment that apparently alcohol reduces the tremor, but at interview perhaps no glass of wine.

The DoRS's fourth suggestion was that I practise over the next year, that my supervisors get me to offer seminars on my research. That way I'll reduce the stress through familiarity with the process of discussing and defending it.

Writing the draft dissertation

The draft dissertation is due 1st August. I have heaps of issues to discuss in it:

• the scapegoating or buck-passing that Harmon mentions, in a public environment where risk taking is avoided, and perhaps I have an example that manifests the avoidance or the fear of blame. I must look for alternative interpretations of the data.
• reflect on limitations, what I would do differently and what I would do if I had more time
• write on the unit of analysis for this project as sets of relationships around any one issue of accountability and multiple cases of relationships - I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here.
• the psychological contract might be another perspective to emphasis
• the principal-agent relationship is informal between the parties
• reflect on the difficulties of anonymising in a single case study
• debate the term transparency - what did it mean to those participants who used it, but I didn't follow up.
• delimitation on the consulting project - when was the work completed (Werr, 2002:63)

Analysing

I thought I might analyse the discourse from interviews against Werr et al's [1] two types of discourse: bureaucratic and network. I started out with a table:

Role	Management of Consultants	Example of discourse
CEO	talked about process & strategy & outcomes	"It's the funding which is something usually discussed with the individual and the cabinet member" and "there are contractual agreements"

Then I checked Miles and Huberman [2] had a role-ordered matrix, which in 15 minutes gave me a useful one page table of roles in the job, as primary,ultimate, intermediate clients. I've still to work out anything useful about recognising the types of discourse though.

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[1]Werr, A, Styhre, A. 2002, Management Consultants – Friend or Foe? Understanding the ambiguous client-consultant relationship, International studies of Management and Organization, vol. 32, no. 4, winter 2002-3 pp43-66
[2] Miles, Huberman, 1994. Qualitative Data Analysis: an expanded source book, 2nd edition, Sage

Doing the Masters in Research

If a reader is interested in following this full time course, there's a document at
http://intranet.open.ac.uk/studentservices/publications/documents/research-degrees/MRes.doc
that gives the details.

Ingredients collected

It seems as if I have a set of ingredients, the data I've collected from interviews, and a recipe book, the Miles & Huberman [1], but how I put them together is up to me, both in what I choose to do with the ingredients and how I mix them, so I come out with, not definitive results, but what I want to present, or rather, not necessarily what I want to present but what I'm able to present, depending on how I analyse and write.

I remember when I was little how I would have paints and paper, and want to represent a wonderful picture through my painting, but my paint would be too watery and I'd produce something horrid, not what I meant at all. I was disappointed because I couldn't show and share with other people what was in my mind.

So I must hone skills to use the tools and to communicate what I find.

Son's just been reading something from this week's New Scientist[2] on finding a mathematical proof after 7 years. Once a useful alternative view of the problem revealed a solution, it took days, hours to compress the proof to a few lines. Son said that he too could see this at his lower level of maths, where having realised the answer he wanted, he could say, "irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant" and strike out much, leaving the last succinct and correct two lines.

That's what I want to do too with this analysis - must be my mathematical background, but it's going through all the irrelevancies first before finding the points that you want and need.

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[1] Miles, Huberman, 1994. Qualitative Data Analysis: an expanded source book, 2nd edition, Sage
[2] New Scientist, Proof and Beauty, page 48, 21 July 2007

Draft analysis

Coding is impossible. I started with codes on accountability, relationships and client types, but when I introduced structure, processes and climate I had a table of nine cells, each with six or more codes. I turned for Miles and Huberman for help, and ended up doing

• contact summary forms
• a role ordered matrix
• rich pictures

Metaphors

Whilst analysing what people have told me, I'm enjoying the metaphors they use. Personally I cope better with visual metaphors, such as "walking through treacle", though some people use metaphors of taste such as "palatable promises". On reflection, I see the walk through the treacle, but perhaps someone else would feel the viscosity, and someone else would taste the treacle.

My colleague has just asked me if I'm transcribing everything, including the "erms" and "ers". But the ums and ers, and the "you knows" tell me something about the speaker in the same way as the metaphors do. One person used a lot of visual metaphors, another used only a few metaphors but more mechanistic, or I can't see the metaphors. One person used a lot of ums and ers whilst thinking about what the next word would be, or how to express something, whereas another had so many 'you knows' that I had to think there was an expectation that I understood, would agree, could encourage a somewhat perhaps shy or diffident character.

Literature

Supervisors' comments on my literature review for the last submission were that it was still a bit sparse. They suggested that I used references to methodological literature to help pad it out a bit; so I'll use such as Miles & Huberman and Gummersson and Yin.

However, I have been reading more on agency theory, pyschological contracts and clients, so may refer also to Eisenhardt, Conway & Briner as well as Rousseau and Miller.

Yeah. I know - that's just a list of stuff, but they are relevant in that they have theories that apply to what I'm doing.

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Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Agency Theory: An Assessment and Review The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 14, No. 1. Jan., 1989), pp. 57-74.

Gummesson E, 2000, Qualitative methods in management research, 2nd ed, Sage

Harmon, M. M. (1995). Responsibility as Paradox: a critique of rational discourse on government, Sage

Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative Data analysis: an expanded sourcebook, Sage.

Miller, E. (1993). From dependency to autonomy: studies in organization and change, Free Association Books.

Rousseau, D. M, 2005, Developing psychological contract theory, in Great Minds in Management: The process of theory development, Eds. Smith & Hitt, Oxford.

Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: design and methods, Sage.

Data access

How odd! From waiting for weeks for the first interview that would set me off on this project, I suddenly get two more, with no or almost no notice.

I'd emailed someone on Friday, having found the email address through Google, so I didn't know if it would get through, but could find no other contact details. On Monday morning I delayed reading my email till 10.25, when I found a reply saying to ring at 10.30, or wait for two weeks. I was rushing round the office - fortunately had the digital recorder with me - looking for a phone with a loud speaker, in privacy. Our research degrees secretary was, as usual, helpful and I was suitably ensconced within 10 minutes, and able to do the interview.

Similarly, I'd sent an email to someone that was obviously waiting to speak to me and rang me at home the next day. Again, I was rushing around, trying to make sensible conversation, find my questions and switch on the recorder. Again, though it was a useful interview.

Now I'm still waiting, still negotiating via a secretary for access to another interviewee whose perspective is really important, and people keep telling me that interviewee will be pleased, delighted and eager to talk to me, but I don't know when.

Then there's a final interviewee who is someone I know already. I think I'll try to make contact there later in the summer, after the draft dissertation is in, so I don't distracted from the writing by the interview and the time that transcribing takes.

Practical progress

Collecting data from real interviews is much more interesting than reading the literature. Now I've got to make sense of it.

I'm in

I've just had an email suggesting that I

"might be pleased to know that we will be making you an offer to stay with us for another 3 years."

Might!
I can't think of anything else I want to do.

No news

Despite feeling quite positive about my research question, and having an enthusiastic supervisor #2, and a calm supervisor #1, there is still no news about my acceptance or rejectance on to the doctorate programme.

Dispirited

It wasn't too good a week last week, waiting to hear the results of the interview as well as hoping to collect data from interviews, but with no interviews planned for another two weeks yet.

However, maybe things will fall into place this week. My contact has emailed me in reply to a query about contacting two more people, and is supportive. :)

Supervisors think we should still meet despite no data.

May be July will be good.

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.