A diagram on a conceptual-framework bridging mechanism in the consulting-cum-academic-oriented project type in the ALRA

A diagram on a conceptual-framework bridging mechanism in the consulting-cum-academic-oriented project type in the agile literature review approach (ALRA)

On the concepts-framework bridging mechanism

Mechanism 1: concepts-bridging: academic concepts that are pragmatic oriented (tor the consulting-oriented project consideration) may need to be reformulated to become more academic oriented (responding to specific research issues), and vice versa.

Mechanism 2: framework bridging: the consulting-oriented theoretical framework may need to be reformulated to be more academic oriented (responding to specific research issues), and vice versa.

The following Q&As with perplexity provide examples related to mechanism 1:

My question 1: "In the context of doing an MBA dissertation project that is equally consulting and academic oriented, please provide the 2 concept definitions (one being research issue-focused and the one being management concerns-focused [for the banking sector in Hong Kong] the following concepts:

Concept 1: leadership function

Concept 2: organizational trust

Concept 3: organizational resilience

The reply: "Leadership function and organizational trust are essential concepts for an MBA dissertation blending academic rigor with consulting relevance in Hong Kong's banking sector, where regulatory pressures like HKMA's OR-2 demand practical resilience strategies. Organizational resilience similarly bridges theoretical models with management imperatives amid economic volatility. Below are dual definitions for each concept, tailored to research issues (academic gaps, e.g., theoretical testing) and management concerns (banking-specific challenges, e.g., disruption recovery).

Leadership Function

Research Issue-Focused

Leadership function refers to the dynamic processes through which leaders influence organizational direction, resource allocation, and adaptive behaviors to address identified gaps in contingency theories, such as how transformational leadership mediates between environmental uncertainty and strategic outcomes in empirical studies. This definition targets academic inquiries into underexplored linkages, like leadership's role in fostering innovation amid digital disruptions, enabling hypothesis testing via mixed methods.

​

Management Concerns-Focused

In Hong Kong banking, leadership function encompasses senior executives' accountability for embedding resilience frameworks, including vulnerability identification, crisis decision-making, and third-party risk oversight, as mandated by HKMA's Operational Resilience guidelines to ensure critical operations continuity during disruptions. This practical lens prioritizes board-level actions to align people, technology, and processes, directly tackling client concerns like regulatory compliance and service stability.

​

Organizational Trust

Research Issue-Focused

Organizational trust constitutes the collective psychological state where members perceive reliability, benevolence, and integrity in intra-organizational relationships, highlighting research gaps in how trust moderates knowledge-sharing efficacy under high-stakes ambiguity, as critiqued in social exchange theory applications. Academically, it supports propositions testing trust's causal impact on performance metrics through longitudinal surveys or structural equation modeling.

​

Management Concerns-Focused

For Hong Kong banks, organizational trust involves employee and stakeholder confidence in management's ability to safeguard operations against cyber threats and geopolitical risks, fostering accountability and rapid incident response as per HKMA's emphasis on senior management oversight. This consulting-oriented view addresses immediate concerns like retaining talent in a competitive market and maintaining client deposits amid volatility.

​

Organizational Resilience

Research Issue-Focused

Organizational resilience denotes the capacity to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and recover from adversities while sustaining core functions, probing academic issues like the interplay between dynamic capabilities and resilience in volatile sectors, often underexamined in non-Western contexts. It facilitates dissertation aims to validate frameworks via scenario testing or comparative case studies.

​

Management Concerns-Focused

In Hong Kong's banking sector, organizational resilience is the ability to deliver critical operations through disruptions—like technology failures or third-party dependencies—via structured frameworks for vulnerability mapping, tolerance thresholds, and annual self-assessments under HKMA's OR-2 policy. This definition aligns with consulting needs for executable strategies, including incident management and infrastructure upgrades to ensure market stability."

My question 2: "What are the things that a dissertation project researcher needs to pay attention to when using two concept definition versions (i.e. research issue-focused and management concerns-focused in research methods design and subsequently, on research method findings analysis and synthesis?"

The reply: "Using two versions of each key concept is very workable in a pragmatic MBA dissertation, but it creates extra demands on design, analysis, and how you write the “story” of the project. The points below focus on keeping your research issue‑focused and management concerns‑focused definitions coherent and usable across the whole dissertation.

​

1. At the level of research design

• Ensure conceptual alignment with aims and questions: Check that each research question and objective clearly signals whether it speaks to the academic/research‑issue definitions, the management‑concerns definitions, or both; avoid questions that mix the two in an unclear way.
  ​

• Decide which version drives which method: For example, structured surveys may operationalize the research issue‑focused definitions into measurable variables, while interviews or focus groups speak more directly to management concerns such as HK banking leaders’ worries about AI downsizing.

• Keep the overarching philosophy coherent: Under a pragmatist stance, explicitly justify that using two versions of each concept is to capture both theoretical and practical facets of the same phenomenon, not to run two unrelated mini‑studies.
  ​

2. Operationalization and instruments

• Translate each definition into distinct indicators: For the research issue‑focused version, derive variables from the academic literature (e.g. validated scales for trust, resilience, leadership style); for the management‑concerns version, derive indicators from client documents, HKMA circulars, or media issues (e.g. “perceived risk of knowledge loss”, “confidence in resilience processes”).
  ​

• Avoid construct contamination: Do not mix items from the management‑concerns view into a scale that is supposed to operationalize the academic construct, otherwise reliability and validity become unclear for examiners.

• Pilot for clarity with both audiences: In a small pretest, check that practitioners can understand the management‑concerns items, and that the academic items are consistent with how the constructs are used in the literature.
  ​

3. Sampling, data collection, and fieldwork

• Match data sources to definition versions: Academic/research‑issue constructs may be best examined via broader samples to allow credible patterns (e.g. bank staff survey), whereas management‑concerns constructs may rely on purposive samples of key stakeholders (e.g. senior managers, HR, regulators) for rich qualitative data.

• Make phase roles explicit in a mixed‑methods design: For example, a quantitative phase may primarily address research issue‑focused hypotheses, followed by qualitative interviews that problematize or contextualize those findings from the management‑concerns angle.
  ​

• Attend to access and confidentiality: Management‑concerns data in the banking sector can be sensitive (downsizing, AI, performance), so plan consent, anonymization, and what can be safely reported to keep your consulting orientation credible.

4. Analysis of findings

• Separate but connected “tracks” in analysis: In Chapter 4, you can structure sections so that for each concept (leadership function, organizational trust, resilience) you first present results tied to the academic/research‑issue indicators, then follow with the management‑concerns patterns from interview or document data.
  ​

• Use different analytic lenses appropriately: Apply statistical tests and model‑based thinking to the research‑issue track (e.g. regression between trust and resilience), and thematic/content analysis to the management‑concerns track (e.g. themes around succession risk, AI‑related fear, regulatory pressure).
  ​

• Avoid forcing symmetry: It is acceptable if the academic track and management track do not “line up” perfectly; your task is to explain why they diverge (e.g. theory suggests strong effect of leadership, but managers are more worried about regulatory constraints than style).

5. Synthesis and discussion

• Make dual contributions explicit: In Chapter 5, for each concept, write separate sub‑sections on (a) contribution to academic debates (research issue‑focused definition) and (b) implications for management practice/client (management‑concerns definition), then add a short integrative paragraph to bridge them.
  ​

• Use your conceptual framework as a map: When synthesizing, return to the framework where you had placed each concept in two roles (theoretical and practical) and show how the empirical results confirm, refine, or challenge that framework.
  ​

• Maintain a transparent “line of argument”: Show the reader, step by step, how you move from dual definitions → tailored methods → parallel analyses → integrated conclusions, so that the two definition versions appear as a deliberate design choice rather than a confusion.
  ​

6. Writing and examiners’ expectations

• Label and signpost carefully: Throughout the text, use consistent labels such as “academic definition of organizational trust” versus “client‑oriented definition of organizational trust” so the reader never loses track of which version is being used.
  ​

• Be honest about limitations: Acknowledge that in a 4‑month, part‑time MBA project you cannot fully exhaust both academic and consulting agendas; explain which side is deeper for each concept and why this prioritization was necessary.
  ​

• Reflect in positionality: In your positionality section, briefly state that adopting two definitions per concept reflects your dual identity as a student‑researcher and quasi‑consultant, and note any biases toward practice or theory that may have shaped interpretation.
  ​

If you share your tentative research questions and conceptual framework, more concrete wording can be suggested for how to keep these two versions aligned across Chapters 2–5."

The following Q&As with perplexity provide example related to mechanism 2:

My question 3: "If I, the researcher, am interested in constructing two associated theoretical frameworks, one research issue-focused and the other one management concerns-focused, what are the things I need to pay attention to when using these two associated theoretical frameworks to inform my dissertation project research methods design and research findings analysis and synthesis? In particular, what are the things I need to pay attention to bridge the two theoretical frameworks to stress their relatedness to serve a single research theme of my dissertation project?"

The reply: "Using dual theoretical frameworks—one research issue-focused (academic theory synthesis) and one management concerns-focused (practitioner/pragmatic application)—strengthens a pragmatic MBA dissertation by addressing both theoretical gaps and banking sector challenges like HKMA resilience mandates. Key is designing methods and analysis around their complementary roles while explicitly bridging them to unify under a single theme, such as leadership-trust-resilience dynamics in Hong Kong banking downsizing.

​

Research Methods Design

Align Frameworks to Methods

Map research issue-focused framework elements (e.g., validated scales from contingency theory on leadership function) to quantitative methods like surveys for hypothesis testing, and management concerns-focused elements (e.g., HKMA-derived resilience indicators) to qualitative methods like elite interviews for contextual application. This ensures each framework informs distinct but linked data collection tasks, avoiding methodological overload in a part-time project.

​

Ensure Philosophical Coherence

Under pragmatism, position the dual frameworks as pragmatic tools that prioritize "what works" for the unified theme, justifying their pairing as a bridge between abstract theory and actionable insights rather than competing paradigms. Explicitly state in Chapter 3 how the frameworks together operationalize mixed methods, such as sequential design where quant data from the academic framework feeds qual probes for the practitioner one.

​

Findings Analysis

Parallel but Integrated Tracks

Analyze separately first: Use statistical modeling (e.g., SEM) for research issue-focused framework results (e.g., trust mediating leadership-resilience links) and thematic analysis for management concerns-focused (e.g., themes on regulatory fears). Then integrate via joint displays or matrices showing convergences/divergences, ensuring analysis rigor without forcing false symmetry.

​

Handle Asymmetries Transparently

Acknowledge where frameworks diverge (e.g., theory predicts strong leadership effects, but managers prioritize compliance), using this to refine the unified theme rather than treating it as a flaw. Apply framework-specific validity checks, like Cronbach's alpha for academic constructs and member-checking for practitioner ones.

​

Bridging the Frameworks

Visual and Narrative Integration

Create a single "bridging diagram" in Chapter 2 showing overlapping domains (e.g., shared variables like "trust" with academic/practitioner facets) and arrows linking them to the core research theme, such as "enhancing banking resilience amid AI disruptions." Narrate transitions like: "The research issue-focused framework tests theoretical propositions, while the management concerns-focused extends them to HK-specific vulnerabilities, together illuminating [theme]."

​

Unified Theme Anchoring

Reiterate the single theme in every chapter as the "meta-framework" that both serve—e.g., "how dual facets of leadership, trust, and resilience address knowledge loss in HK banking"—using signposting phrases like "bridging academic insight X with practitioner concern Y." In synthesis (Chapter 5), derive joint contributions: academic extensions plus prioritized recommendations, validated by triangulation across frameworks.

​

Limitations and Originality

Note risks like framework complexity increasing cognitive load for examiners, mitigated by parsimonious visuals and clear prioritization of the practitioner framework for MBA relevance. Highlight originality: Dual frameworks demonstrate pragmatic innovation, filling theory-practice gaps in HK banking contexts."

My question 4: "Are there any additional suggestions on the topic above if the overall research philosophy is critical realism?"

The reply: "Critical realism (CR) elevates dual theoretical frameworks in an MBA dissertation by treating them as stratified lenses on underlying generative mechanisms—research issue-focused for deeper causal structures (the "real" domain) and management concerns-focused for empirical actualizations (observed events in HK banking). This ontology naturally bridges theory-practice gaps without pragmatism's action primacy, emphasizing retroduction to explain "why" phenomena like resilience failures occur amid AI downsizing.

​

Methods Design under CR

Stratified Operationalization

Position the research issue-focused framework at the real stratum (e.g., mechanisms linking leadership function to trust via power structures in contingency theory) to guide intensive methods like elite interviews probing "hidden" assumptions, and the management concerns-focused at the actual/empirical (e.g., HKMA-mandated resilience indicators) for extensive surveys tracking observable disruptions. Design mixed methods retroductively: qual data generates mechanism hypotheses from practitioner concerns, tested quant against academic theory.

​

Pluralist but Mechanism-Driven

CR's openness to multiple epistemologies justifies dual frameworks as complementary strata, not rivals—e.g., interpretivist qual for subjective trust experiences, positivist quant for resilience correlations—unified by searching for demi-regularities (semi-predictable patterns) serving the single theme. Sequence phases explicitly: start with practitioner framework to surface events, retroduce to mechanisms via academic framework.

​

Findings Analysis under CR

Layered Interpretation

Analyze in stratified tracks: empirical patterns from management concerns (e.g., thematic coding of regulatory fears), then retroduction to real-domain mechanisms from research issue-focused (e.g., how stratified power impedes trust-resilience links), using joint displays to map absences/counterfactuals. Avoid reductionism by judging intra-stratum adequacy (e.g., validity checks per layer) before cross-layer synthesis.

​

Handle Emergence and Contingency

Emphasize how mechanisms interact contingently (e.g., leadership enables resilience only if trust mechanisms aren't blocked by HK banking hierarchies), explaining divergences transparently as ontological depth rather than flaws.

​

Bridging the Frameworks under CR

Ontological Meta-Framework

Develop a single "laminated" diagram in Chapter 2 showing strata: shared theme (e.g., "resilience amid downsizing") at the core, with research issue-focused arrows to real mechanisms (causal powers) and management concerns-focused to actual events (HK-specific manifestations), linked by retroduction loops. Narrate: "The practitioner framework reveals empirical tendencies; the academic framework retroduces generative structures, together explaining the theme's stratified reality."

​

Retroduction as Unifying Logic

Stress relatedness via CR's retroductive cycle across chapters: "From management concerns' events → research issue mechanisms → refined understanding of [theme]." This demonstrates frameworks' interdependence, with the theme as the problem-led anchor. In Chapter 5, derive emancipatory contributions: theory critique plus contextually-grounded interventions (e.g., restructuring mechanisms).

​

CR-Specific Cautions

Explicitly reject "epistemic fallacy" (reducing real to observable), justifying dual frameworks as anti-relativist pluralism. Limit to 2-3 mechanisms per concept to fit part-time scope; reflect on researcher reflexivity in accessing strata (e.g., positionality biases). Originality shines in HK banking: few studies apply CR to resilience-trust-leadership interplay."

My question 5: "As a way to consolidate and summarize the ideas covered here in the context of the consulting-cum-academic-oriented dissertation project type, could you come up some overarching and figurative way to formulate:

1. the concepts-bridging mechanism involved

2. the conceptual/ theoretical framework-bridging mechanism involved"

The reply: "Dual theoretical frameworks and concept definitions in a consulting-cum-academic MBA dissertation can be unified through overarching metaphors that capture their stratified interplay under critical realism or pragmatism, emphasizing a single research theme like HK banking resilience amid downsizing. These figurative formulations consolidate the bridging mechanisms discussed, portraying academic rigor and practitioner relevance as interdependent layers of the same phenomenon.

​

Concepts-Bridging Mechanism

The "Polaris Duo-Compass"

Formulation: Dual concept definitions (research issue-focused and management concerns-focused) function as the two needles of a Polaris Duo-Compass, where the academic needle points to theoretical north (gaps in causal structures like trust mechanisms), and the practitioner needle aligns to magnetic management south (HKMA-driven realities like resilience thresholds). Together, they triangulate true direction for the unified theme, preventing drift: academic precision calibrates practitioner action, while lived concerns ground abstract theory in navigational relevance.

Application: In methods design, survey items follow the academic needle (hypothesis-tested scales), interviews the practitioner (contextual probes); analysis merges bearings via joint displays showing convergence on the theme's "course" (e.g., leadership steering resilience).

​

Frameworks-Bridging Mechanism

The "Stratified Prism Lens"

Formulation: The paired frameworks operate as a Stratified Prism Lens, refracting the single research theme through dual facets—research issue-focused prisms split light into spectral mechanisms (real-domain powers from contingency theory), management concerns-focused prisms focus empirical beams (actual events like AI disruption impacts). The lens converges these refractions at a focal point: retroduction reconstructs the theme's full-spectrum image, revealing hidden generative colors invisible to either prism alone.

Application: Chapter 2 diagrams the lens with overlapping facets; analysis layers spectral outputs (thematic codes + regressions) into a composite image; synthesis (Chapter 5) projects actionable illuminations—emancipatory theory tweaks plus prioritized interventions—bridging strata for holistic insight.."