Monthly Archives: March 2013

Conceptual Framework (2)

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The conceptual framework that I outlined in my last posting referred to:

The conceptual framework and some questions I have now decided on are:

A case study exploring organizational behaviour and the diffusion of innovations: What factors enhance the likelihood of successful implementation and routinization?

  • How do we know when an innovation has been implemented and how successful the implementation has been?
  • What accounts for successful implementation
  • Why some organizational innovations fail to survive in organizations?

I have amended it as follows (in the light of further reading and thinking):

A case study exploring organizational behaviour and the diffusion of innovations: An investigation into the factors that enhance the likelihood of successful innovation implementation and routinization.

Some (potential) research questions:

  • What organizational factors are likely to lead to the successful implementation of organizational innovations?
  • Why do innovations fail or fail to survive in organizations?
  • What measures can be used to determine the success of an implementation?
  • What are the critical roles needed to ensure successful implementation?
  • How do organizational social networks affect the implementation of innovations?
  • How do innovations become routinized into everyday work?

The next stage is to work up the aims and objectives.

 

Research question revisited (3)

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I have been following up on the previous post by reading a number of papers relating to the issues in hand. I have had a series of ideas but not been able to Crystallize these into a clear statement and research question. This afternoon however I have been looking at some related searches using Emerald. Using the search term: Content = All content, (management innovation index in All fields)

I found the following journal reference:

  • INNOVATION IMPLEMENTATION: CONCEPTUALIZATION AND MEASUREMENT IN ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH. Author(s): Kevin Real, Marshall Scott Poole, Source: Research in Organizational Change and Development, Volume: 15, 2005.
  • 15 ISBN: 978-0-76231-167-5 eISBN: 978-1-84950-319-8.
  • Abstract: Developing a framework for classifying approaches to conceptualizing and measuring implementation of innovations. It first develops a typology that distinguishes rollout, modification, programmatic and transformation conceptualizations of implementation. The implications of each conceptualization for measurement of implementation are discussed. Following this a classification scheme for implementation measures is presented that distinguishes measures on the basis of their: (a) criterion for success of the implementation; (b) innovation unit; (c) source of data; (d) measurement scale; and (e) level of analysis. Issues related to various measurement choices are discussed along with recommendations for future research and development in the measurement of implementation.

The critical issue for innovations in organizations is not the design and development but implementation and subsequently routinization.

The conceptual framework and some questions I have now decided on are:

A case study exploring organizational behaviour and the diffusion of innovations: What factors enhance the likelihood of successful implementation and routinization?

  • How do we know when an innovation has been implemented and how successful the implementation has been?
  • What accounts for successful implementation
  • Why some organizational innovations fail to survive in organizations?

“Implementation is the critical followup to adoption that ultimately determines the success of the innovation.”

Real and Poole (2005).

This is precisely what I have been feeling about the issue of innovation i.e. not the development but the implementation ere is the problem. It turns out that there is limited research into this area therefore there is a potential gap in knowledge. There are some associated theories for example:

(Max Weber called “routinization”—the stage that comes after a movement’s creative beginnings).

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/930531/routinization

I have also just come across the topic Organizational Ecology, the discipline that looks at organizational mortality.

Organizational Innovation Mortality: From the Population Ecology and Institutional Perspectives

“Increasing attention should be paid to organizational innovation mortality so that there will be more understanding about this phenomenon”

http://202.44.73.6/upload/file/File_teacher/Tippawan_article/2008_Article_Organizational_Innovation_Mortality_tippawan.pdf

Institutional theory: http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/org_theory/Scott_articles/rs_insti_theory.html

Is also relevant to innovation adoption and implementation.

Research Question Re-visited (2)

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In my last post I proposed the following research question: “What are the critical organisational factors that play a part part in determining the success or failure of an inter-organizational innovation?”

After reading some journal papers on theory and organizations and innovation I have changed the question to:

“What are the critical organisational factors that play a part part in determining the success or failure of organizational innovation?

Some factors that impact on innovation adoption include:

  • Organization
  • Innovation
  • Change
  • Management
  • Networks
  • Teams
  • Communities of Practice
  • Business Case
  • Leadership

The aim is to sift through the issues and develop a form of words that best represents the problem domain.

Research Question Re-visited

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After the taught session this last weekend, I reflected on my possible research topic. The discussion on objectives and the process of considering a relevant set, made me think of alternative ways of looking at the problem domain. For one, I considered some collections of issues that cause concern and then considered possible groups of people of organisational areas that might be affected or might have an effect on the issues. From an innovation of technology perspective I considered the following implementations as issues that have been partially successful or not successful (with success based on the adoption of the solution):

  • QLS
  • CAT
  • Moodle
  • SAM
  • SPOC
  • Payroll online
  • Student Tracker
  • MIS reporting suites
  • Blackboard
  • Pre-enrolment online
  • Oracle HR

Areas impacted or have an impact include:

  • Organisational leadership and management
  • Business case design
  • Communication of innovations as ideas (generation of ideas)
  • Staff development and training
  • The culture of the organisation
  • Sources of innovation – the process by which ideas are allowed to proceed to the business case stage
  • Enterprise and business development – NPV/ROI etc.
  • Estates innovations
  • Curriculum innovation – methods for implementing new curricula (e.g. A case study of the fidelity approach in an educational innovation, 10.1108/09513540410512154 )
  • E-learning development for students and staff – adoption and success
  • Innovation in procurement
  • Project management – leading on from the business case, stakeholder engagement, development and delivery
  • Innovation in marketing and internal PR

After the session and considering the factors above I decided to change direction and look at why innovations fail – or:

“What are the critical organisational factors that play a part part in determining the success or failure of an inter-organizational innovation?”

The paper “Lin, Chien-Chiang C., Internal impediments of organizational innovation: An exploratory study, 18-22 July 2010, Technology Management for Global Economic Growth (PICMET), 2010 Proceedings of PICMET, E-ISBN: ’10:, 978-1-890843-21-2” IEEE [Accessed 18/03/2013]. Might be useful

Developing a Research Statement

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I’ve been reading Christina Quinlan’s Business Research Methods book. I’m going to try developing a few research statements.

The broad area in which I want to situate my research project is:

An exploration of the role of managers in the diffusion of innovative technologies in higher education institutions.

Possible conceptual frameworks:

1. This research project is a mixed methods (archival research & action research) study examining the role of managers on the effectiveness of implementation of five technology based business improvement projects in London South Bank University.

2. This research project is a mixed methods (archival research & action research) study examining the role that managers have on the diffusion of innovative technologies. The study covers the period 2008 to 2012 and is carried out in a higher education institution.

The BBC and Archival & Phenomenological Research

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At the present time and for the past few months the BBC has been going through a period of difficulty due to the revelations relating to the disgraced former DJ Jimmy Savile. The police, the BBC Governors, BBC managers, social services, social workers and many others are now involved in uncovering the extent of Mr Savile’s activities covering the period from about 1962 to just before he died in 2006.

Listening this morning to a discussion on the case on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, it struck me that if one was undertaking a DBA at the BBC at the moment (and in the right job with a supportive team and manager), the Jimmy Savile case could be an excellent topic for carrying out an Archival Research project as part of one’s thesis.

There is now a vast amount of published data on the case including official reports, police reports, witness testimony, news reports from the BBC and other sources consisting of printed materials and a vast amount of other media. The Daily Mail1 (February 22nd 2013) reported that “3,000 pages of emails, interviews and submissions released online“.

There would also be the possibility of including Phenomenological Research2. It might be possible to interview existing staff and other relevant people about the case to bring in some personal view points.

The outcome of the thesis would definitely be one or more policy recommendations related to some relevant management theory. It would be interesting to see over time what support the BBC would lend someone carrying out this research as it would likely be deemed to be a risky piece of work. As Stan Lester3 (1999) points out:

“Phenomenological approaches are good at surfacing deep issues and making voices heard. This is not always comfortable for clients or funders, particularly when the research exposes taken for-granted assumptions or challenges a comfortable status-quo.”

Finding a research  project with such a high level of richness in one’s own workplace is clearly a challenge. The search is on.

(1) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2282667/Jimmy-Savile-scandal-90-pages-BBCs-report-blacked-DG-goes-ground–blamed-fiasco.html

(2)  Epistemologically, phenomenological approaches are based in a paradigm of personal knowledge and subjectivity, and emphasise the importance of personal perspective and interpretation. As such they are powerful for understanding subjective experience, gaining insights into people’s motivations and actions, and cutting through the clutter of taken-for-granted assumptions and conventional wisdom. (Lester, 1999).

(3) Lester, S (1999) ‘An introduction to phenomenological research,’ Taunton UK, Stan Lester Developments [Online] (www.sld.demon.co.uk/resmethy.pdf, accessed March 12, 2013).

Thinking in the gym

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There is a saying, a healthy mind in a healthy body (Mens sana in corpore sano). The phrase is derived from Satire X of the Roman poet Juvenal.

English translation:

You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body.
Ask for a stout heart that has no fear of death,
and deems length of days the least of Nature’s gifts
that can endure anykind of toil,
that knows neither wrath nor desire and thinks
the woes and hard labors of Hercules better than
the loves and banquets and downy cushions of Sardanapalus.
What I commend to you, you can give to yourself;
For assuredly, the only road to a life of peace is virtue.
In Original Latin:

orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.
fortem posce animum mortis terrore carentem,
qui spatium uitae extremum inter munera ponat
naturae, qui ferre queat quoscumque labores,
nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil et potiores
Herculis aerumnas credat saeuosque labores
et uenere et cenis et pluma Sardanapalli.
monstro quod ipse tibi possis dare; semita certe
tranquillae per uirtutem patet unica uitae.
–Roman poet Juvenal (10.356-64)

This afternoon I was in the gym and completed a 12K cross training session. Afterwards in the shower I was pondering whether the use of case study is really appropriate for the project I’m considering. After the taught sessions on Friday and Saturday last week I had thought possibly a combination of case study and action research would be appropriate but I suddenly realized that these might actually not be the most relevant methods. Why?

Well, the way I had been thinking was along the lines of an examination of the implementation of  a sociotechnical systems in a higher education environment with regards improving innovation diffusion (or words to that effect). What I have been concerned about is there being an appropriate project around at the time of my research project that would have the depth, complexity, wide implementation and time bound enough to last long enough for me to do the research.

What I realized in the shower was that what I actually need to do is examine a number of COMPLETED projects looking at them from the perspective of an Archival Review. This would allow me to look at some existing theories on diffusion of innovation and also to possibly to make use of Actor-Network Theory. I had been wondering how I might fit ANT into my thesis and of course, suddenly it makes sense that ANT is used to look at completed works so that lessons can be learned and policies contributing to improvements made.

Suddenly Bruno Latour‘s writings on ANT make sense. Latour discusses HISTORICAL sociotechnical systems. There is of course the possibility that case study or action research could still be used but only if something relevant comes up at the right time. In the mean time I’ll be looking at archival research and ANT in more detail.

 

Research diary 03/03/2013

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I’ve been reading Christina Quinlan’s book Business Research Methods (2011) over the past few days. It’s a very readable book. I have been thinking about what Quinlan writes about theory and what we were taught in class by Ken on theory. According to Quinlan theory stems from the literature review. The literature review stems from the conceptual framework which itself leads to the research statement and the research question. From the question stems the aims and objectives.  Theory according to Quinlan that stems from the literature review is the theoretical underpinnings that are in the journals, books and other literature sources. Theories are then tested through data collection and analysis and then extended or new theories developed. In the class notes  there was discussion about theoretically linked discovery. Theory explains (accounts for) something. It was not clear from the class discussions that theory derives from the literature review. I will raise this at the next class meeting.