A pair of diagrams on unrelated diversification in the ALRA: an illustration
Diagram 1: A management-concerns diagram
Diagram 2: A theoretical framework
Sometimes, an inexperienced agile literature review approach (ALRA) user has difficulty to construct the two diagrams and, consequently, produced a diagram which is a hybrid of the of the two diagrams. So, it is vital to examine the two diagrams and be able to discern their differences in terms of features and purposes.
Developing a management-concerns diagram from a core theme in the Agile Literature Review Approach (ALRA): an illustration
Sometimes, a student's initial management-concerns diagram is purely his/her research theme expressed in diagram form. For example, the research theme is on sustainable product development. In this case, it is possible to introduce a few additional components into the management-concerns diagram to depict a set of management concerns more clearly, thus, more meaningfully. This is indicated in the following diagram:
Diagram 1
Components 3 and 4 cover the core theme of the research project on "sustainable product management" and "sustainable product marketing". Components 1, 2 and 5 are added to cover factors that raise the need to improve components 3 and 4. Preferably, the student should go through the project orientation phase more properly so as to include more specific factors for components 1, 2 and 5 so as to make the set of management concerns more specific to a particular client system at a particular time-space. Diagram 1 serves to encourage the student to do so.
A pair of diagrams on homelessness of young couples (HK) in the agile literature review approach (ALRA): an illustration
Diagram 1: Housing-concerns diagram
Diagram 2: A theoretical framework
Part-time MBA students participate in applied business research projects with their own managerial intellectual competence profile. I consider two components of the managerial intellectual competence profile. They are (a) the existing managerial cognitive filter and (b) managerial intellectual intelligence. Their roles in applied business research are depicted in Diagram 1.
Diagram 1: the notions of managerial intellectual cognitive filter and intellectual intelligence in the conceptual landscape of an ALRA-based applied business research project
The existing managerial cognitive filter (element 5 in Diagram 1) works as a intellectual cognitive filter of the student on comprehending information learned about the client system of his/her dissertation project. The fact is, some students are good at, e.g., human resource management while other at micro-economics/ strategic management. Thus, they are sensitive deferentially to the project background information exposed to them. The consequence is that, given the same project background, different students will produce a different diagram of management-concerns. The existing managerial intellectual intelligence (element 6 of Diagram 1) refers to the ability to acquire and apply intellectual knowledge to good use, e.g., production of a good quality applied business research report. The main determinants of this element are the student's intellectual learning mindset, thus also the motivation to learn, and personal resources, e.g., time available to learn, to support intellectual learning. Together, elements 5 and 6 of a particular student affects consequently the management-concerns diagram (element 1 of Diagram 1) and the associated theoretical framework (element 2 of Diagram 1) produced.
The dissertation project supervisor of the student plays an active role in the e-resources and other supportive infrastructure (element 7 of Diagram 1), but the supervisor is not expected to "instruct" or "order" the student, especially at a detailed level, what to do for his/her dissertation project.
The agile literature review approach (ALRA) offers useful theoretical concepts and procedural guidance to the students, notably on the construction of the management-concerns diagram (element 1), the theoretical framework (element 2), the research methods mapped with clear justification (element 3) onto the theoretical framework and a good quality theory-driven analysis and recommendations (element 4). Lastly, the conduct of the applied business research project in this ALRA-guided mode leads to managerial intellectual learning (MIL) (element 8 of Diagram 1) on the student's part.
The following diagrams explain how to construct a level-1 theoretical framework for housing dissertation: an illustration on the theme of homelessness of baby boomers in Hong Kong
Diagram 1: A level-0 theoretical framework on the theme of "homelessness of baby boomers in Hong Kong
Diagram 2: A level-1 theoretical framework on component 3 of the theoretical framework (level 0)
Component 3 of Diagram 1 is "Evaluation of homelessness conditions of Hong Kong baby boomers".
Diagram 3: A level-1 theoretical framework on component 3 of Diagram 1 with mapped research methods
Note that the academic ideas in the level-1 theoretical framework on component 3 (re: Diagram 1) come from the literature review of the researcher.
Note: with a pair of diagram on homelessness of baby boomers in Hong Kong, plus the corresponding level-1 theoretical frameworks on all Level-0 components and mapped research methods, the researcher in the housing field is a position to produce a clearly organized and informed dissertation proposal.
Reference
FB group on the agile literature review approach (ALRA)
A pair of diagrams [at level 0] for a housing dissertation project: an illustration on the theme of homelessness of baby boomers in Hong Kong
Diagram 1: A housing-concerns diagram on homelessness of baby boomers in Hong Kong: level 0
Regarding Diagram 1, the five components are:
Component A: Profile of baby boomers in Hong Kong
Component B: Drivers of homelessness of baby boomers (HK)
Component C: Occurrence of homelessness of baby boomers in Hong Kong
Component D: Problem of quality of life of homeless baby boomers in Hong Kong
Component E: Negative impacts of baby boomer homelessness to the Hong Kong society
Follow-up task: try to provide 3-4 relevant ideas (e.g., viewpoints, complaints, debating points and empirical observations) via study of local newspapers on components A to E above to make the nature of the components in diagram 1 [i.e. a set of related housing concerns] clear. [Sometimes, you cannot find much or any local information about a particular component from the Internet; in this case, you may be interested to do some own fact-finding for your dissertation project related to the component. Anyway, the academic literature may be able to offer you some generalized ideas related to the component concerned. So, you could still use these generalized ideas from the academic literature to describe the component in general terms. This is usually sufficient for initially justifying the chosen research topic and related research objectives.]
Diagram 2: A theoretical framework on homelessness of baby boomers in Hong Kong: level 0
The theoretical framework (re: Diagram 2) represents your intellectual response to examine and address your chosen set of housing concerns (as portrayed in Diagram 1). The theoretical framework provides the agenda for you to perform a focused literature review for your dissertation project.
[Also note that:
(a) the components in the core-focus domain make up: (i) your research objectives, i,e., research objective 1: to evaluate the homelessness conditions of HK baby boomers; research objective 2: to evaluate the personal and societal impacts of baby boomers homelessness in Hong Kong; research objective 3: to evaluate the available measures to alleviate the baby boomers homelessness problem in Hong Kong and (ii) the title of your proposal: "An evaluation of the homelessness conditions and impacts of the baby boomers in Hong Kong" and,
(b) your chosen intellectual response depends much on your profile of intellectual competence.]
Follow-up task: try to conduct literature review to provide 3-4 specific academic ideas / academic topics on components 1-5 of diagram 2 clear. You need to pay more attention to do literature review to include extra useful academic ideas for components 3-5 as they make up the core-focus domain of your theoretical framework. The main source for the literature review is academic journals related to your theme of homelessness of baby boomers.
My recommendations on continuous professional development after university graduation are as follows:
1. An agile approach: mainly relying on the social media, especially on Youtube to learn topics ans concepts in an agile mode, e.g. with the agile literature review approach;
2. A globalized approach: Learn information and knowledge in a globalized way; do not confine to learning in local educational/ professional institutions and local newspapers. Again, the social media on the Internet is one of the main channels to learn globally; Related to this, learning outlook should be cosmopolitan.
3. Adopt an appropriate mind-set of learning, as supplemented with a suitable life-style. In this regard, I recommend the pursuit of the scholar-practitioner development path;
4. Adopt a multi-disciplinary and, better still, a trans-disciplinary mode of intellectual learning, such as the multi-perspective, systems-based research mode;
5. Obtain some kind of tutorial and mentoring support, if necessary.
6. Continuous professional development should be self-driven, life-based, critical and reflective, and agile.
Lastly, compatible with my recommendations above, do not rely "too much" on continuous professional development programmes that are "expensive", "inefficient", "rigid", "big-bang-style", "intensively accelerated" and "external pressure-driven".
References
