Deriving research objectives from the theoretical framework in the ALRA: an illustration

Deriving research objectives from the theoretical framework in the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA) is illustrated in the following example. First of all, the researcher should have a properly formulated Level 0 theoretical framework, such as:

The theoretical framework has 3 zones with 6 components. Zone 1 is  Influencing factors. Zone 2 is Core-focus domain. Finally, Zone 3 is Outcome factors. In this regard, Zone 1 and 3 constitute the non-core-focus domain of the dissertation project. The six components of the theoretical framework are:

Component 1: strategic human resource management practices of ABC Ltd. [Some descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]
Component 2: strategic management activities of ABC Ltd. [Some descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]
Component 3: Evaluate staff retention of ABC Ltd. [Serious descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]
Component 4: Evaluate team leadership of ABC Ltd. [Serious descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]
Component 5: Evaluate business impacts [Some descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]
Component 6: Evaluate existing improvement efforts on staff retention and team leadership [Some descriptive and evaluative efforts should be made on them with academic ideas]


With the core focus of the study on Evaluate staff retention of ABC Ltd (component 3) and Evaluate team leadership of ABC Ltd (component 4), the research objectives can now be derived as follows:


Research objective 1: To evaluate staff retention status of ABC Ltd and its business impacts on ABC Ltd.
Research objective 2: To evaluate team leadership status of ABC Ltd and its business impacts on ABC Ltd.
Research objective 3: To evaluate existing  improvement efforts on staff retention and team leadership by ABC Ltd and make further improvement recommendations on them, based on research findings on Research objectives 1 and 2.


In total, there are three research objectives, which are derived from the Level 0 theoretical framework. Note that Theoretical framework components 1 and 2 are not explicitly mentioned in the three research objectives as they will be covered when research objectives 1 and 2 are examined.


As a side topic, the report title in this case could be:  

An investigation on staff retention/ turnover and team leadership at ABC Ltd: a cases study

Newly added concepts in the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA)

With more experience gained from the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA) application, five additional ALRA concepts gain more understanding in their practice, i.e., they become more established concepts. The five concepts are:

Concept 1: Resolution level of systems models: There are two levels. The higher level is Level 0 and the lower level is Level 1. They can be adopted in the construction of management-concerns diagram (MCD) and the associated theoretical framework (TF). [Reading 1; Reading 2; Reading 3]

Concept 2: Diagram-pairing: The ALRA user is now highly recommended to produce a management-concern diagram (MCD) and an associated theoretical framework (TF). The TF represents the ALRA user's chosen way to intellectually respond to the management concerns of a client system under investigation. The set of related management concerns is portrayed in the MCD. Each dissertation report should have 1 pair of Level 0 MCD and TF at the outset of the research project. [Reading 1; Reading 2]

Concept 3: Boundary setting for core-focus domain and non-core-focus domain in the MCD and, more importantly, in the TF. [Reading 1; Reading 2]

Concept 4: Linkage analysis: Both the MCD and the associated TF comprise a set of components with linkages. Thus, the ALRA user needs to describe and study not only the components of the MCD and the TF, but also the linkages of the MCD and TF components. The linkage can be unidirectional or bidirectional; it can be between two components at Level 0 or between ideas at Level 1. [Reading 1]

Concept 5: Dissertation report template (for the ALRA): The dissertation report template (for the ALRA) works as a checklist on what the ALRA user is expected to work and, subsequently, to write up about in their dissertation reports that are guided by the ALRA. [Reading 1; Reading 2]


These five newly added concepts have been vaguely conceived at the outset of launching the ALRA intellectual venture; they become clearer and more established with illustrative examples. For further information of these five newly added ALRA concepts, readers need to refer to the Facebook page / group on the ALRA and the theoretical framework.

The research background of the Agile Literature Review Approach

The Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA) was postulated by the writer in 2017, based on reflection on his experience of teaching and supervising part-time MBA students on Applied Business Research projects. The development of the approach also draws on the writer's research ventures in ManagerialIntellectual Learning (MIL) and the Multi-perspective, Systems-based (MPSB) Research. Briefly, MIL is about intellectual learning on management subjects with contemporary systems thinking while the MPSB Research primarily focuses on literature review of management subjects via the lens of critical systems thinking.  The pressing intellectual concerns that prompts the formulation of the ALRA are three. They are how to support students to cope with:

Student concern 1: More often than not, part-time MBA students in Hong Kong are busy people; thus, it is imperative to offer an agile and usable way to guide them doing their final year dissertation projects, which are applied business research in nature;

Student concern 2: Many of the part-time MBA students of the writer are still not quite capable nor used to think intellectually using academic concepts in the management fields to examine real-world management concerns in a holistic and critical way.

Student concern 3: These part-time MBA students also have no experience in writing up a dissertation report in 15,000 words, which requires research methods and literature review skills, among others and within a relatively tight time-constraint.

It stands to reason that, in spite of these key student concerns, these students expect to get a pass for their dissertation projects with the exertion of "reasonable efforts" by them on their dissertation projects.

From the pedagogical standpoint, the writer recognizes two major academic literature problems with the existing academic literature in the management field:

Academic literature problem 1: Many of the ideas and findings in the academic literature in management disciplines have not developed and expressed in a way that has high relevance, e.g., suggestive of actionable value, to practitioners in the management field.

Academic literature problem 2: Many of the ideas, approaches and findings in the management research literature endorse comprehensive and vigorous research and literature review practices that can only be afforded by researchers with a high level of time and academic contribution commitment.

A major consequence arising from these two academic literature problems is that they present tremendous hardship for study and application by the part-time MBA students doing applied business research projects. Evidently, these applied business research projects place much more importance on the generation of knowledge with high actionable value in a real-world business setting that is often complex, dynamic, idiosyncratic, value-full and turbulent. The research aim of applied business research projects to produce findings with academic value via vigorous research and literature review steps, in this case, is lower than that of the mainstream academic research works as reported in academic journals.

This discussion on the student concerns and academic literature problems clarifies the intellectual setting for the development of the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA). 

References

1.   Ho, J.K.K. 2017. “A systems thinking-based review of the topic on an applied business research project background (ABB)” European Academic Research 5(8) November: 4021-4040.

2.   Ho, J.K.K. 2018a. "On the Agile Literature Review Approach for Practising Managers: A Proposal" Systems Research and Behavioral Science (Published in Wiley Online Library)

3.    Ho, J.K.K. 2018b. “Some further conceptual clarification of the recently proposed agile literature review approach (ALRA)” European Academic Research 5(12) March: 6313-6328.

Quotation practices in independent study & dissertation report writing

The concern of avoiding plagiarism and reducing similarity score in Turnitin report leads students to make lots of quotations, sometimes of quite large size, in the Independent Study and Dissertation reports. However, there could be problems with the students' quotation practices:

1. Quotation without referencing. For example: "............. (Ho, 2018)"  [In this case, the referencing is within the quotation marks; there is still no referencing]. It should be, for example:  "............. (Ho, 2018)" (Wong, 2018).

2. Lots of quotations in the reports spoil the quality of the report. There are cases where the actual writing of the student in the report is less than 15% of the whole report. Sometimes, the actual writing of the student in the literature review section is less than 15%.

A link on further information on quotation practice.

Lastly, over-reliance on quotations might have something to do with time management, writing skill and literature review problems. They are not to be discussed here.

Explaining research design with the theoretical framework in applied business research

When using the agile literature review approach  (ALRA) , the researcher draws a theoretical framework at level 0. This is illustrated in the following diagram:

Diagram 1

Referring to Diagram 1, the theoretical framework expresses the researcher's intellectual response to the management concerns of a client system (which are captured in the form of a management-concerns diagram). The theoretical framework comprises a set related of theoretical concepts that are to be employed to comprehend, evaluate, explain, predict and, subsequently, to make well-informed recommendations to address the management concerns as identified in the management-concerns diagram. In order to guide the researcher's literature review efforts, the components of the theoretical framework are expressed in academic jargon. The academic key words used in the theoretical framework are to be used by the researcher to do literature search and literature review. It should also be pointed out that, to provide a sharper research focus, the researcher identifies 1 to 2 components in Diagram 1 as making up the core-focus domain, leaving the other components as belonging to the non-core focus domain. The decision by the researcher on where to draw the boundary of the core-focus domain is based on the researcher's evaluation on his/her own intellectual interest as well as on his/her view of the problem-situation facing the client system, including resource and feasibility constraints on research work to be done. Nevertheless, the overall theoretical framework constructed by the researcher should exhibit an overall conceptual cohesiveness and holistic property.

After the construction of the level 0 theoretical framework (re: Diagram 1), the researcher conducts literature review and populate the level 0 components (1-5) with academic ideas. This leads to the construction of individual level 1 diagrams for each of the level 0 components (re: Diagram 1). As a result, the researcher could produce a comprehensive level 1 diagram to locate all the research methods to be employed in his/her research project. This is illustrated in Diagram 2.

Diagram 2

Diagram 2 is the same as Diagram 1, except that each component now includes a few academic ideas selected by the researcher via literature review. The academic ideas and their sources from specific academic references could be stored in separate documents, e.g., as study notes.

With Diagram 2, the researcher is committed to employing (i) the covered ideas (i.e., academic ideas) as well as (ii) the linkages between these ideas in his/ her mapped research methods. For example, for research method 1, the chosen ideas are those from components 2 and 3 while, for research method 3, the chosen ideas are from components 1 and 2. By doing so, the researcher is able to subsequently make use of these chosen academic ideas to analyze the primary data from the respective research methods. For example, for research method 4, the researcher will employ ideas 4.1 to 4.3 to examine the data collected with research method 4. These research methods could be unstructured interview, questionnaire survey, field observation and focused group interview, etc.

Referring to Diagram 1, since components 1 and 2 constitute the core-focus domain of the theoretical framework, the researcher is expected much more research efforts on them than those in the non-core-focus domain. Also, in analyzing primary data, the researcher will not only evaluate contents associated with specific academic ideas (e.g., ideas 1.1, 1,2, etc... but also the linkages between specific ideas, e.g., linkage between idea 1.1 and idea 2.2, and linkage between idea 4.1 and idea 1.2).

The concern that multiple regression analysis results appear strange and unreliable

The concern that multiple regression analysis results appear strange and unreliable - How to handle the matter:


There are several ways to interpret the multiple regression analysis results when they appear unreliable (e.g. R squared figure is approaching zero) and the b-values of x variables differ from that of the academic literature:

Response 1: they are different from that of the academic literature because the time (of the study; e.g. your study is done in 2018; the studies reported in the literature were done many years ago; we need to recognize that phenomena (such as correlation patterns) change over time), place (of the study; e.g., your study is done in HK while the studies reported in the literature were done in USA and Europe; the social and economic conditions are different) and samples (i.e. company profiles; e.g., your study is on the service sector while the studies reported in the academic literature are on the manufacturing sector) used by you are different from that of the existing academic literature.

Response 2: The number of x variables considered in the multiple regression formula is very few; the multiple regression model is not sophisticated nor comprehensive to start with.

Response 3: Multiple regression analysis on correlation is based on the assumption of of a linear best-fit line for calculation. It is possible that the empirical data do have a much closer but non-linear correlation (e.g. curvilinear), see Diagram 1

Another potential problem of correlation analysis, including the multiple regression analysis is known as the Simpson's Paradox. Also see diagram 2 for further illustration of the idea:

Diagram 2

Lastly, I need to point out that findings of regression results with no strong correlation can still be useful findings.

The purposes of the ALRA report structure checklists

Two agile literature review approach (ALRA) report structure checklists have recently been produced for students doing dissertation projects, one for the part-time MBA students and one for the part-time Housing Studies students. An ALRA report structure checklist serves the following purposes:

Purpose 1:  As a reference table of content template, to be adapted by students to come up with their specific dissertation report table of content.
Purpose 2: As a generic product breakdown structure of a dissertation project.

By having better understanding of what are expected to be produced (purpose 1) and how the produced dissertation deliverables (purpose 2) fit together in the form of a reference template (purpose 1), students are more able to conduct research learning (e.g., literature review and research methods learning) and research investigation (e.g., data gathering and analysis). 

The ALRA report structure checklists are primarily for students using the agile literature review approach to conduct the dissertation projects. Other than the report structure checklists, most students are also interested in seeing some dissertation report samples, Due to the newness of the ALRA and, very often, the confidentiality of dissertation reports, only a few sample reports based on the ALRA are available. Nevertheless, there are quite some piecemeal diagrams and documentations on the ALRA for illustration to students, e.g., on management-concerns diagrams and theoretical frameworks.