An example on a Level 1 theoretical framework diagram

This note examines the construction and usage of a Level 1 theoretical framework diagram. The starting point is the availability of a Level 0 theoretical framework, such as Diagram 1


Diagram 1: An overall Level 0 theoretical framework on staff retention and team leadership for the study of ABC Ltd.

With the Level 0 Theoretical Framework, the researcher could conduct preliminary literature review and produce studies on the key academic topics identified in the framework (re: Diagram 1). These topics include staff retention and team leadership, among others. After doing some preliminary literature review on "staff retention" (re: component 3 in Diagram 1) and producing a study note  on staff retention, the researcher notices that the academic literature on "staff retention" utilizes the following academic ideas, namely, organizational commitment, motivation and stay interview. The researcher finds it relevant for his/her research work. As a result, the researcher populates the component 3 of the theoretical framework with these three academic ideas to come up with a Level 1 theoretical framework diagram on Component 3 "Evaluate staff retention of ABC Ltd" (re: Diagram 1). The output is shown in Diagram 2 as follows:

Diagram 2: A level 1 theoretical framework diagram on component 3 "Evaluate staff retention of ABC Ltd"

The three academic ideas of organizational commitment, motivation and stay interview are labelled as ideas 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 in Diagram 2. They are expressed as "to do" statements to make explicit the researcher's intellectual interest to conduct research exercises using these academic ideas (which can be traced back to the academic literature in the study note on it). The three ideas are thus:

Idea 3.1: to evaluate employees' "organizational commitment"'s influence on staff retention status in ABC Ltd.
Idea 3.2: "to evaluate employees' "motivation"'s influence on staff retention status in ABC Ltd.
Idea 3.3: "to evaluate ABC"s "stay interview" and related/similar practice's influence on staff retention status in ABC Ltd.


It is now up to the researcher to think about using suitable research methods, e.g. interview, survey questionnaire, focus group, document study, etc., so as to enable the conduct of the evaluation using these academic ideas, see Diagram 3

Diagram 3: mapping research methods onto a level 1 theoretical framework diagram: an illustration on Diagram 2

The primary data gathered via these research methods can then be analysed with certain qualitative and quantitative data analysis methods, e.g., multiple regression analysis, multidimensional data analysis with Excel pivot table and coding/ thematic analysis.  In this respect, level 1 theoretical framework diagrams (re: Diagram 2 as an example) are vital for the working out of the overall research method game-plan for the researcher's dissertation project. Referring to Diagram 3, Research Method 1 (interview employees) is mapped onto ideas 3.1 and 3.2 while Research Method 2 (focus group) is mapped onto idea 3.3.

Another topic: the ideas of 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3, when expressed in the form of a  "to-do" statement, can be conceived as research questions of the dissertation projects. In this case, the three research questions are:

Research question 1 (re: idea 3.1): How does the existing employees' "organizational commitment" condition influence the present staff retention status in ABC Ltd?

Research question 2 (re: idea 3.2): How does the existing employees' "motivation" condition influence the present staff retention status in ABC Ltd?

Research question 3 (re: idea 3.3): How do the existing "stay interview" and similar practices influence the present staff retention status in ABC Ltd?


Lastly, other potential research questions can deal with how component 3 and its specific academic ideas are affected as well as affect other components and ingredient academic ideas as identified in the Level 0 theoretical framework (re: Diagram 1). 



Reference
A FB group on the agile literature review approach (ALRA)