Many students have difficulties in conducting literature review in dissertation work. Very often, the dissertation report chapter on literature review reads like lecture notes, being mainly explanatory and descriptive in nature. Literature review is about reviewing (e.g. discussing, evaluating, contrasting, and synthesizing) literature (e.g. academic journal articles, textbooks, and professional journal articles, etc). [For this discussion, I have in mind mainly literature reviews on theories rather than background literature on specific markets or companies.] Such an effort is a "means" to an end (i.e. meeting dissertation project objectives). This "means" is also critical as it drives research design and, subsequently, the analysis exercise. I identify the following 4 elements as constituting the critical success factors in literature review. I call them STEM in literature review:
(S) stands for a competent academic supervisor. Some supervisors only request students to clone academic articles, including the literature review exercise and they have little knowlege of research methods, other than a few primitive positivist approaches.
(T) stands for time management. Try to read around the subject areas before you enroll for the degree programme. Try to develop a genuine interest in the subject matter and do the reading as a hobby. It also takes time to polish your writing skill.
(E) stands for e-library. You need to access a e-library that provides a wide choice of academic journals.
(M) stands for an intellectually curious mindset. You can only write a dissertation report that has good academic value and practical value if you are genuinely interested in the topic area and sincere with your learning attitude. This is mainly due to the requirement of literature review to be conceptual, critical, evaluative and goal-directed.
Most of the difficulties of doing literature review arise from the absence of STEM; this is my personal observation as a dissertation supervisor.
Sunday 31 July 2011
Saturday 30 July 2011
A CATWOE analysis on dissertation work
In assessing the appropriateness of a dissertation proposal (and subsequently the finished dissertation report), I think it is useful to adopt a CATWOE analysis. CATWOE analysis is a technique from Peter Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology. Specifically, CATWOE stand for:
a. customers (C): who are the beneficiaries of your dissertation work, e.g. target readers of the dissertation works? What specific benefits will they obtain from reading your dissertation work? These determine the practical and academic values of your study.
b. actors (A): Who are involved in carrying out which parts of the dissertation work? It is possible that, in a student's dissertation work, other people are also involved in various tasks, e.g. survey form processing, and in various roles, e.g. as participating members in an action research. This should be made clear in your proposal.
c. transformation (T): What inputs (and in what state) are processed in the dissertation process? What are the processed state of the inputs (in this case, treated outputs)? Inputs can be entities such as certain people, certain organizations.
d. worldview (W): what are the main hypotheses, viewpoints, values and ethical stances underlying the dissertation work? What is the guarantor which ensure that the chosen research methods are able to produce valid and relevant knowledge?
e. owner(s) (O): who are in a position to approve or stop the dissertation work?
f: environmental constraints (E): what are the resource, technical, ethical, cultural and legal constraints of the dissertation work?
Before conducting a CATWOE analysis, it is vital to capture the main ideas of a dissertation proposal in the form of a root definition (which is also a concept in soft systems methodology), such as: "An action-research-based research process carried by an MBA student to implement a Business Intelligence (BI) system in ABC Ltd successfully while yielding valid and useful knowledge in BI system implementation for small-and-medium-sized companies, subject to the regulation constraints of XYZ University on dissertation work". With a root definition formulated, a CATWOE analysis can now be conducted on it.
Reviewing a dissertation proposal (and dissertation report) with these questions derived from CATWOE analysis should prompt you (the disseration student) to come up with a more appropriate proposal; after all, dissertation work is a kind of human activity system in soft systems term with CATWOE considerations.
References
a. customers (C): who are the beneficiaries of your dissertation work, e.g. target readers of the dissertation works? What specific benefits will they obtain from reading your dissertation work? These determine the practical and academic values of your study.
b. actors (A): Who are involved in carrying out which parts of the dissertation work? It is possible that, in a student's dissertation work, other people are also involved in various tasks, e.g. survey form processing, and in various roles, e.g. as participating members in an action research. This should be made clear in your proposal.
c. transformation (T): What inputs (and in what state) are processed in the dissertation process? What are the processed state of the inputs (in this case, treated outputs)? Inputs can be entities such as certain people, certain organizations.
d. worldview (W): what are the main hypotheses, viewpoints, values and ethical stances underlying the dissertation work? What is the guarantor which ensure that the chosen research methods are able to produce valid and relevant knowledge?
e. owner(s) (O): who are in a position to approve or stop the dissertation work?
f: environmental constraints (E): what are the resource, technical, ethical, cultural and legal constraints of the dissertation work?
Before conducting a CATWOE analysis, it is vital to capture the main ideas of a dissertation proposal in the form of a root definition (which is also a concept in soft systems methodology), such as: "An action-research-based research process carried by an MBA student to implement a Business Intelligence (BI) system in ABC Ltd successfully while yielding valid and useful knowledge in BI system implementation for small-and-medium-sized companies, subject to the regulation constraints of XYZ University on dissertation work". With a root definition formulated, a CATWOE analysis can now be conducted on it.
Reviewing a dissertation proposal (and dissertation report) with these questions derived from CATWOE analysis should prompt you (the disseration student) to come up with a more appropriate proposal; after all, dissertation work is a kind of human activity system in soft systems term with CATWOE considerations.
References
- Hints on disseration proposal writing: http://www.soc.napier.ac.uk/~hazelh/diss/diss_outline.htm
- On disseratation proposal writing: http://www.online-dissertation-help.com/dissertation_proposal.htm
- On CATWOE analysis: http://www.articlesbase.com/human-resources-articles/root-definition-catwoe-model-1517634.html
Hypercompetition and business ecosystem: a comparison
Based on my review of D'Aveni's work on hypercompetition and Moor's work on business ecosystem, I made the following observations:
a. Hypercompetition takes up a more competitve strategy mode of thinking while business ecosystem adopts a more collaborative strategy mode of thinking
b. Both hypercompetition and business ecosystem provide advice on how to cope with constant market disruptions, especially arising from innovation efforts made by competitors.
c. Hypercompetition thinking focuses on the extended enterprise level while business ecosystem thinking covers a broader set of stakeholder in strategy management.
d. When applying business ecosystem theory in case study, it is possible to also consider certain aspects of hypercompetition tactics when evaluating as well as formulating competitive strategy of a specific business ecosystem vis-a-vis a competing business ecosystem.
The following 2 diagram depict these ideas further:
For details on these two theories, pls refer to the relevant literature:
a. Hypercompetition takes up a more competitve strategy mode of thinking while business ecosystem adopts a more collaborative strategy mode of thinking
b. Both hypercompetition and business ecosystem provide advice on how to cope with constant market disruptions, especially arising from innovation efforts made by competitors.
c. Hypercompetition thinking focuses on the extended enterprise level while business ecosystem thinking covers a broader set of stakeholder in strategy management.
d. When applying business ecosystem theory in case study, it is possible to also consider certain aspects of hypercompetition tactics when evaluating as well as formulating competitive strategy of a specific business ecosystem vis-a-vis a competing business ecosystem.
The following 2 diagram depict these ideas further:
For details on these two theories, pls refer to the relevant literature:
- D'Aveni (1995) "Coping with hypercompetition: Utilizing the new 7S's framework", Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 9(3), pp. 45-60.
- Moore, J.F. (1996) The Death of Competition, HarperBusiness
Multi-perspective, Systems-based (MPSB) Research and facebook
Multi-perspective, Systems-based (MPSB) Research was launched by me in 1992 as my PhD thesis work in HK University. The basic idea is to make use of critical systems thinking to review various manageement subjects, e.g. management accounting, logistics and information systems management to develop knowledge structures that enable us to improve our professional development process as well as to make further advancement in systems thinking. Since 2009, I have been exploring the usage of facebook in providing e-learning support to my students as well as in making advancement in MPSB research via such usage of facebook. The current form of practice is based on facebook as the main social media platform. 16 academic forums are established in facebook, such as:
This is now complemented with additional published articles in my personal blog, which are linked to the various notes in facebook. The key initiative, though, is the continuous e-learning support by me to students, that is theoretically driven by MPSB thinking. Probably, a better expression is co-evolution of e-learning and MPSB thinking in the facebook-based virtual ecosystem.
Useful readings:
- Accounting and Finance: https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=285637757376
- Company secretaryship and admin: https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=101268536591624
- Engineering management and Engineering Economics: https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=108145759233377
- Hospitality and tourism management: https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=108145759233377
- Social sciences: https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=125235494183216
- Systems thinking in management: https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=272833847547
- Strategic management: https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=274828358631
- Project, innovation, change and entrepreneurship: https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=275915824054
- Research methods for business: https://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=275915824054
This is now complemented with additional published articles in my personal blog, which are linked to the various notes in facebook. The key initiative, though, is the continuous e-learning support by me to students, that is theoretically driven by MPSB thinking. Probably, a better expression is co-evolution of e-learning and MPSB thinking in the facebook-based virtual ecosystem.
Useful readings:
- Ho, J.K.K. (1995) "An Example of the Operation of the MPSB Filter: Research Paper", Systems Research Vol. 12(4), pp. 297-308.
- Ho, J.K.K. (1996). "MPSB Research Explained", Journal of the Operational Research Society, 47, pp. 843-852.
How to formulate issues in Business Management for dissertation work
When formulating dissertation topics in business study, most students are able to identify a topic area but have difficulties to formulate a specific issue in dissertation proposals. My question is: how to formulate a specific issue so that it can be used to derive corresponding dissertation objectives and questions that are considered as meeting dissertation work requirements?
To start with, students should start with a concern or an issue that catches their attention. Students could of course choose a topic area, such as human resource management or logistics management. But this is not enough. Students need to come up with a concern or an issue; if they cannot think of a concern or issue, they do not have the basic mindset to do dissertation work at all. They can browse through some business journals, academic journals or internet portals to get some stimulation from these sources. Students can also refer to their subjects' textbooks and take a look at the "questions for discussion" sections various chapters of these textbooks.
The issue must be complicated, controversial and must be of concern to specific stakeholders. The issue should be formulated in such a way that it is related to certain management theories and/or concerns being examined in the academic world. If the issue is trivial, it does not require much research effort. Naturally, it is not a good issue to study. Once this view on what kind of issue is worth studying in dissertation work is formed, I can further point out that 5 management notions are highly relevant for formulating the issue in the initial phase of dissertation proposal preparation, namely, (i) the notion of "wicked problem", (ii) the notion of "rich picture" in Checkland's soft systems thinking; (iii) the notion of "a mess" in Ackoff's interactive planning, (iv) the notion of "strategic issue" in strategic management and, finally, (v) the topic of "crisis management" in business study. All these notions in systems thinking and business studies deal with issues that are complicated, controversial and significant. Here I am not suggesting that students should use all these notions at the same time to examine the nature of the issue, though it is a good idea to study these concepts to strengthen our skills in comprehending business problems.
Without going into details, it should be obvious that these 5 notions are also related to specific management approaches and practices that guide us to study these notions, e.g. Checkland's soft systems methodology, cognitive mapping, strategic issue management and crisis management, etc. At this point, students should also conduct preliminary literature review so that their formulation of dissertation issues, objectives and questions can be related to certain management theories other than the 5 notions mentioned. These literatures can be related to supply chain management, human resource management, and organizational learning, etc..
Finally, I suggest that students should read around these topic areas early on so as to make the best preparation to take up dissertation work. I highly encourage students to develop a genuine interest in learning these topic areas via reading these writings as leisure reading. When students are genuinely interested in a topic area, they can easily come up with interesting topics and research questions. Such mode of learning is conducive to effective professional development.
Some dissertation supervisors ask students to adopt academic article cloning in dissertation work, ie to imitate a specific academic article in dissertation proposal formulation. I think this is a feasible approach to do dissertation work but such kind of effort is not about research work. It has very low value in professional skill development. It is also clear that academic article cloning is mainly about efficiently getting a pass in dissertation work. I will not ask my students to do that, and I have no interest to supervise dissertation work of this kind.
To start with, students should start with a concern or an issue that catches their attention. Students could of course choose a topic area, such as human resource management or logistics management. But this is not enough. Students need to come up with a concern or an issue; if they cannot think of a concern or issue, they do not have the basic mindset to do dissertation work at all. They can browse through some business journals, academic journals or internet portals to get some stimulation from these sources. Students can also refer to their subjects' textbooks and take a look at the "questions for discussion" sections various chapters of these textbooks.
The issue must be complicated, controversial and must be of concern to specific stakeholders. The issue should be formulated in such a way that it is related to certain management theories and/or concerns being examined in the academic world. If the issue is trivial, it does not require much research effort. Naturally, it is not a good issue to study. Once this view on what kind of issue is worth studying in dissertation work is formed, I can further point out that 5 management notions are highly relevant for formulating the issue in the initial phase of dissertation proposal preparation, namely, (i) the notion of "wicked problem", (ii) the notion of "rich picture" in Checkland's soft systems thinking; (iii) the notion of "a mess" in Ackoff's interactive planning, (iv) the notion of "strategic issue" in strategic management and, finally, (v) the topic of "crisis management" in business study. All these notions in systems thinking and business studies deal with issues that are complicated, controversial and significant. Here I am not suggesting that students should use all these notions at the same time to examine the nature of the issue, though it is a good idea to study these concepts to strengthen our skills in comprehending business problems.
Without going into details, it should be obvious that these 5 notions are also related to specific management approaches and practices that guide us to study these notions, e.g. Checkland's soft systems methodology, cognitive mapping, strategic issue management and crisis management, etc. At this point, students should also conduct preliminary literature review so that their formulation of dissertation issues, objectives and questions can be related to certain management theories other than the 5 notions mentioned. These literatures can be related to supply chain management, human resource management, and organizational learning, etc..
Finally, I suggest that students should read around these topic areas early on so as to make the best preparation to take up dissertation work. I highly encourage students to develop a genuine interest in learning these topic areas via reading these writings as leisure reading. When students are genuinely interested in a topic area, they can easily come up with interesting topics and research questions. Such mode of learning is conducive to effective professional development.
Some dissertation supervisors ask students to adopt academic article cloning in dissertation work, ie to imitate a specific academic article in dissertation proposal formulation. I think this is a feasible approach to do dissertation work but such kind of effort is not about research work. It has very low value in professional skill development. It is also clear that academic article cloning is mainly about efficiently getting a pass in dissertation work. I will not ask my students to do that, and I have no interest to supervise dissertation work of this kind.
Applying 5-Force Model and Value Chain Analysis
Michael Porter's 5-Force Model and Value Chain Analysis have been much taught in business programmes; students learn them in strategic management, in marketing strategy and strategic management accounting, for example. Nevertheless, the quality of their application is very often quite poor. What is the main deficiency in students' application of these two models?
A good starting point to understand the problem is that students do not have time to study the original work of Porter. When students only spare time to study Porter's models in summary form in standard textbooks or from some Internet websites, their knowledge of these two models are necessarily shallow. Even if students take time to study these two models in Porter's original works, they will find that the line of reasoning in Porter's work not easy to follow, especially when students' English is not good at the same time.
Learning Porter's work requires time and a sincere attitude toward professional development in management. When Porter's models are applied in assignment works, students should pay attention to the following point:
Applying 5-Force model is not just to provide examples as related to the 5 forces or to provide examples as related to the various value activities in Value Chain analysis. In the case of 5-Force model, students need to come up with an assessment of how the various forces interact to influence the intensity of competition in an industry now and in the future. The intensity of competition will affect the profitability, thus attractiveness of the industry. In the case of Value Chain analysis, the review of various value activities need to come up with an assessment of the cost structure of the value chain and the cost-effectiveness of the value chain to support the business's strategy under review. In the discussion with value chain application, students should also make some explicit efforts to carry out linkage analysis and cost-driver analysis to support their assessement view of the company's cost structure under review.
As a result of using Porter's models in the analysis, students should be explicit about their assessment view of the company under review on its strategic positioning with justifications that are theory-driven (in this case, in terms of 5-Force Model or Value chain analysis). Subsequently, students need to clearly endorse their recommendations with their assessment views so derived. Recommendations could, for example, discuss how companies should influence the 5-forces to their advantages or how companies should further exploit value chain linkages and value activity cost drivers to further improve the cost structure of their value chains.
This leads us to a more fundamental question: how to do that? My answer is relatively simple: via sincere study of Porter's work and other writers' work. There is no short-cut for improving theory-driven analysis skill. Lastly, I would like to point out that students could also watch Porter's lectures on strategic management, including his discussion of 5-Force model in youtube.
A good starting point to understand the problem is that students do not have time to study the original work of Porter. When students only spare time to study Porter's models in summary form in standard textbooks or from some Internet websites, their knowledge of these two models are necessarily shallow. Even if students take time to study these two models in Porter's original works, they will find that the line of reasoning in Porter's work not easy to follow, especially when students' English is not good at the same time.
Learning Porter's work requires time and a sincere attitude toward professional development in management. When Porter's models are applied in assignment works, students should pay attention to the following point:
Applying 5-Force model is not just to provide examples as related to the 5 forces or to provide examples as related to the various value activities in Value Chain analysis. In the case of 5-Force model, students need to come up with an assessment of how the various forces interact to influence the intensity of competition in an industry now and in the future. The intensity of competition will affect the profitability, thus attractiveness of the industry. In the case of Value Chain analysis, the review of various value activities need to come up with an assessment of the cost structure of the value chain and the cost-effectiveness of the value chain to support the business's strategy under review. In the discussion with value chain application, students should also make some explicit efforts to carry out linkage analysis and cost-driver analysis to support their assessement view of the company's cost structure under review.
As a result of using Porter's models in the analysis, students should be explicit about their assessment view of the company under review on its strategic positioning with justifications that are theory-driven (in this case, in terms of 5-Force Model or Value chain analysis). Subsequently, students need to clearly endorse their recommendations with their assessment views so derived. Recommendations could, for example, discuss how companies should influence the 5-forces to their advantages or how companies should further exploit value chain linkages and value activity cost drivers to further improve the cost structure of their value chains.
This leads us to a more fundamental question: how to do that? My answer is relatively simple: via sincere study of Porter's work and other writers' work. There is no short-cut for improving theory-driven analysis skill. Lastly, I would like to point out that students could also watch Porter's lectures on strategic management, including his discussion of 5-Force model in youtube.
Holistic thinking in management
To think holistically means to consider the system being studied as a whole; the system could be an organization or a organization concern to be addressed. When we pay attention to the whole system performance in problem-solving, we assess our actions in problem-solving in terms of their impacts on the total systems performance while avoiding suboptimization consequences, which very often when reductionist thinking is adopted in lieu of holistic thinking.
Holistic thinking is based on systems thinking which draws our attention to the systemic nature of a system; such systemic nature arises from both the no. of elements involved and their linkages. Ignoring the linkages of the elements in problem-solving will reduce the effectiveness of problem-solving in those cases where these linkages of elements are important. In the case of human systems, the elements of the system are human beings, thus, the holistic nature of the system exhibits soft complexity. In terms of the linkages of elements, these could refer to the task dependencies in project management or linkages in value activities in value chain analysis, for examples. When human beings are the elements of the system under review, the soft aspects of such a system could be exhibited in psyschological, cultural, ethical as well as political terms.
Therefore, holistic thinking in management is practised mainly with processes and methodologies that are soft and critical in theoretical stance. Prominent systems methodologies are Ackoff's interactive planning, Checkland's soft systems methodology as well as Flood and Jackson's Critical Systems Thinking.
A question: are conventional business disciplines, such as supply chain management and human resource management capable of promoting holistic thinking in management? I think so, as these business disciplines are quite prepared to adopt soft and critical systems thinking in their practices; the main limitation of these business disciplines is that they are backed up by their respective professional bodies, which, in their effort to establish their distinctive bodies of knowledge, tend to exclude certain elements of business aspects and concerns as not closely related to their bodies of knowledge. As a consequence, their approaches and business technologies are less holistic than those that are formulated by the systems community.
Finally, if the problem under review is simple and straigtforward, there is no benefit gained from adopting a holistic stance in problem-solving.
Holistic thinking is based on systems thinking which draws our attention to the systemic nature of a system; such systemic nature arises from both the no. of elements involved and their linkages. Ignoring the linkages of the elements in problem-solving will reduce the effectiveness of problem-solving in those cases where these linkages of elements are important. In the case of human systems, the elements of the system are human beings, thus, the holistic nature of the system exhibits soft complexity. In terms of the linkages of elements, these could refer to the task dependencies in project management or linkages in value activities in value chain analysis, for examples. When human beings are the elements of the system under review, the soft aspects of such a system could be exhibited in psyschological, cultural, ethical as well as political terms.
Therefore, holistic thinking in management is practised mainly with processes and methodologies that are soft and critical in theoretical stance. Prominent systems methodologies are Ackoff's interactive planning, Checkland's soft systems methodology as well as Flood and Jackson's Critical Systems Thinking.
A question: are conventional business disciplines, such as supply chain management and human resource management capable of promoting holistic thinking in management? I think so, as these business disciplines are quite prepared to adopt soft and critical systems thinking in their practices; the main limitation of these business disciplines is that they are backed up by their respective professional bodies, which, in their effort to establish their distinctive bodies of knowledge, tend to exclude certain elements of business aspects and concerns as not closely related to their bodies of knowledge. As a consequence, their approaches and business technologies are less holistic than those that are formulated by the systems community.
Finally, if the problem under review is simple and straigtforward, there is no benefit gained from adopting a holistic stance in problem-solving.
Friday 29 July 2011
Professional development - cost-effectiveness consideration
Recently, problem of inflation in education and professional development has worsened: re-exam and assignment re-submission fees have increased. Membership fees of professional bodies and course fees are all rising much faster than the consumer price index. At the same time, I do not feel that, just because students pay more fees, they learn faster.
Quite a no of education centres in Hong Kong offer degree programmes that emphasize "reasonably short duration of study to obtain a good academic qualification". It is not difficult to comprehend their effectiveness on students' learning.
For quite some time, I encourage students, especially those who have already graduated with academic degrees, to enroll for certain professional bodies' self study programmes because they are affordable and are useful instruments for cost-effective professional development. The following professional bodies offer such exam-based facilities and they are available in Hong Kong:
a. http://www.cips.org/ (for Purchasing and Supply)
b. http://www.abeuk.com/ (for Business Mgt, Human Resource Mgt, Marketing, and Hospitality & Tourism).
There are conventional programmes with self-study mode in accounting and company secretaryship; these more conventional professional progammes tend to steer students to study past exam papers so as to "respond" fast in exam. Due to that, I personally do not have a favourable impression.
Finally, I think students could also consider employing private tutors to coach them to prepare for these external, exam-based study. The key consideration is to find a good tutor; the tutor fee should be affordable; it is also a good idea to form a small study group to be support by private tutors - to make the whole exercise more cost-effective.
Spending too much money on education is a bad idea; spending more does not necessarily means learning more; study for a shorter degree programme programme does not mean learning is thus faster. Most often, it just means that the process of learning is more stressful.
Quite a no of education centres in Hong Kong offer degree programmes that emphasize "reasonably short duration of study to obtain a good academic qualification". It is not difficult to comprehend their effectiveness on students' learning.
For quite some time, I encourage students, especially those who have already graduated with academic degrees, to enroll for certain professional bodies' self study programmes because they are affordable and are useful instruments for cost-effective professional development. The following professional bodies offer such exam-based facilities and they are available in Hong Kong:
a. http://www.cips.org/ (for Purchasing and Supply)
b. http://www.abeuk.com/ (for Business Mgt, Human Resource Mgt, Marketing, and Hospitality & Tourism).
There are conventional programmes with self-study mode in accounting and company secretaryship; these more conventional professional progammes tend to steer students to study past exam papers so as to "respond" fast in exam. Due to that, I personally do not have a favourable impression.
Finally, I think students could also consider employing private tutors to coach them to prepare for these external, exam-based study. The key consideration is to find a good tutor; the tutor fee should be affordable; it is also a good idea to form a small study group to be support by private tutors - to make the whole exercise more cost-effective.
Spending too much money on education is a bad idea; spending more does not necessarily means learning more; study for a shorter degree programme programme does not mean learning is thus faster. Most often, it just means that the process of learning is more stressful.
Start to blog
I am now learning to blog. Hope to write more in the near future about my research and teaching work.
Photo of Joseph Ho doing reading while travelling:
Photo of Joseph Ho doing reading while travelling:
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