The rules of the game

After this semester’s study, I think the rules of the game that Kerry are trying to pass to us is: selecting an interesting topic and research question(s); making good arguments for the theory you select and results that support your research questions.   

Writing up for qualitative research-some thoughts

There are many types of qualitative researches (e.g. positive qualitative research, interpretive qualitative research and grounded-theory qualitative research). Different types of qualitative research may lead to different styles of writing up research paper. For example, for positive qualitative research and interpretive research, it is better to write literature review and develop theory, which is followed by data analysis; for grounded-theory qualitative research, researchers always start writing of data, after which researchers may seek a suitable theory for explaining the observations.

Also, I found it quite useful to use more intuitive tools (e.g. maps, diagrams, headings, structure) to assist your writing. This is particularly useful for qualitative research since this type of research focuses on investigating the process of a particular phenomena, which usually the dynamic and complex development through different stages.

In terms of structure of qualitative research paper, it is a good idea to use a topic sentence in the beginning of each paragraph and a concluding sentence in the end of each paragraph. This can facilitate readers to get understanding the ideas of the research paper. Also, the flow of the whole paper and the flow between paragraphs are important. The flow can keep readers’ attentions and make the research paper logically written. Lastly, different paragraphs in the research paper should always be focusing on the research questions. This can strength the research question and enable writers to support their argument.  

Rewriting for the data you collect

Kerry mentioned in class that the first writing up for qualitative research paper will always be horrible. Some unexpected or discouraged things may happen: the results from the data you collected do not match the theory; the results of from the data may be totally different from the theory the paper is arguing; the results from the data may not be the one you expect. From Kerry’s experience, a good qualitative research paper has to be wrote, improved and garnished many times (at least three times).

I totally agree with Kerry. From my experience, even for a quantitive research paper, it may need to write many times before it is ready. For example, the results from regression may not be significant, which requires the reshaping of the model; the results imply extra findings, which needs us to add up additional points that is not expected at the beginning; the results seems weird, which requires us to delete some extreme data (e.g. outliers). Furthermore, researchers have to present their draft research paper in front of colleagues or conferences where a lot of suggestions and recommendations come in. This requires a lot of amendments for the research proposal. Lastly, even when the research paper is sent to journals for publish, there may be still a long way to go before it can be published. I heard from supervisor that it is very likely or even impossible for a paper to be published when it is first time submitted. The reviewers may make many comments on research draft. I know one friend that it took him eight years to publish one of this paper. That sounds scary, but I know that is the value of published papers.

But there is two things I am wondering. First, we have to rewrite and reshape our research draft if the results from the data are not consistent with our expectation or are weird. Will this distort our original idea (e.g. the evidence we collect may not be the one testing our original research question)? Does this mean the data we collected does not match our research questions and theory? Is it a good idea to recollect data that is more pertinent to our research question and theory? Second, sometimes, we can not directly ask questions from participants. Instead, we have to rely on interviewees’ answers and guess/infer the implications for our research questions. I am wondering is this ok because our thinking may be different from what  the interviewees think? Also, how about interviewees intentionally misguide researchers in their answers?             

Theory development in quantitive and qualitative research

From my experience, theory development for quantitive research is different from that for qualitative research. For quantitive research, the researchers first need to envisage a causal relationship between two or more variables based on the gab of existing literature, which is essential.  Then, researchers need to make sense of the causal relationship by linking the proxies or attributes of one variable with those of the other variable(s) based on the knowledge in existing literature. This process of making sense of causal relationship is regarded as theory development in quantitive research.

For qualitative research, there is no need to predict the causal relationship between two variables because the researchers do not know the which variable will have effect on which variable (in other words, the direction of the causality of the relationship is not know in the theory development section or the relationship between the variables is dynamic where the direction of the causal relationship may change depending on contingent factors). The focus of theory development in qualitative research is a) how the application of an existing well-known theory will assist researchers to investigate the unknown relationship between variables; b) why the use of a particular theory is suitable/plausible in examining the relationship between two variables in a particular context.  The justification of using a well-known theory in investigating the relationship between two variables is regarded as theory development in qualitative research.            

NVivo-some thoughts

Currently, NVivo is one of the most popular softwares for qualitative researches. It is so powerful since it allows us to share projects with colleagues; importing and analysing any combination of documents, spreadsheets, databases, audios, video or pictures; manage our bibliographical data; code our sources with the application of dragging and dropping which are quick and easy; have a more intuitive view of our data which assist us to generate findings.

There are also some limitations of this NVivo. It is not able to recognize some types of documents (e.g. JPF). It can not help researchers to transcribe voice interviews to plain words (we have to manually transcribe voice interviews to words, which takes plenty of time). NVivo just provides some assistance to view the data in a relatively clear way, which is a dispensable tool for qualitative researchers. Barry this in mind, Nivo can be seen as an editing tool rather than analysing tool. After all, it is researchers who have to think and analyse data. However, it would be great if NVivo can incorporate some analysing functions (e.g. incorporating some analysing functions alike the regressions analysis in most quantative research softwares).       

If used properly and efficiently, I think NVivo is of great value. Particularly, I reckon NVivo will be of great importance in big qualitative research project.  

How to make contributions in writing academic papers

There are various ways of making contributions to existing literature when writing academic paper. It can come from the improvement of a particular research design/model; it can come from a better research sample; it can come from the advancement of existing knowledge or creating new knowledge. Among these, I personally think the third type of contribution is relatively most valuable when we write papers.

In management accounting research, one technique to make knowledge contribution is to explore and inject knowledge from various disciplines to accounting literature. For example, we can combine variables in psychology and social science literature with accounting variables in a particular context. Although, the variables may not be new or have limited significance in their own discipline, significant contribution can be made when across-disciplines are connected.

Another technique to make knowledge contribution is to connecting accounting theoretical knowledge based on accounting practice. Accounting academic study should be able to assist daily-used accounting practice. Accounting academics may go into the field and find the problems/weakness/challenges/difficulties of the actual accounting practices. Contribution can be made if accounting researchers could find solutions to those problems.      

The Impact of Management Control System on Social Capital in Supply Alliances

Background and Motivation

In recent times, economic organisations have sought to expand their business through alliances. This has led to a proliferation of many forms of inter-firm alliances among which supply alliances have become a popular strategy. Alliances are said to be vehicles through which organizations gain competitive advantage and by which they improve efficiency and effectiveness (Ring and Van de Ven 1994; Cousins and Spekman 2003). Whilst alliances are said to have the potential to improve organisational performance, existing studies have documented a high failure rate of these alliances (Spekman and Isabella 2000; Ireland et al. 2002). A substantive research has focused on identifying economic control problems in inter-firm alliances (e.g. opportunism, moral hazard and coordination problems) and seeking control mechanisms to mitigate these economic control problems (Van der Meer-Kooistra and Vosselman 2000; Langfield-Smith and Smith 2003; Dekker 2004; Caglio and Ditillo 2008).   

Anoop and Tallman (1998) stress that more attention should also be paid on relationship management process in inter-firm alliances. There are several studies investigating the role that social capital plays in searching and managing the relationship between alliance partners. According to Michael and Deepa (2000), social capital can be defined as a) bridging relationships across various social connections (bridging social capital) b) bonging group members with a common identity and purpose (bonding social capital). Based on a case study of eighteen multinational alliances, Wong and Ellis (2002) argue that ‘social networks provide a valuable resource for reducing alliance partner search costs’ (p.267). Hitt et al. (2002) investigates the importance of social capital in multinational alliances by comparing alliances with an East Asian (Chinese, Korean and Japanese) partner and alliances with a Western partner. They conclude that many Asian firms have a more competitive advantage in the global markets than Western firms due to the high attention to social capital.

In accounting literature, many researches have highlighted that MCS has a significant social effect in managing relationship in alliances (Mahama 2006; Ahrens and Chapman 2007). Chenhall et al. (2010) investigates the relationship between MCS and social capital in and between organisations. They classify three taxonomies of MCS and examine how different MCSs affect the bridging and bonding social capital. Based on framework of formal and informal MCS developed by Chenhall and Morris (1995), they propose that a) formal controls may have a positive effect on bridging social capital through the demonstration of capabilities and reputation to external parties b) formal controls may have a negative effect on bonding social capital due to the damage to customary informal controls c) informal controls facilitate bonding social capital as they allow close and frequent interactions based on interpersonal connections. Based on Simons(1995)’ framework of four levers of control, Chenhall et al. (2010) frames that a) belief systems, boundary systems, diagnostic control systems, and interactive control systems enable the bonding of social capital because a shared, core and collective value can be facilitated under these systems b) belief systems, diagnostic control systems, and interactive control systems have a positive effect on bridging social capital as assist the network extensions c) the mix of different levellers of control may result a contradictory effects of management of control systems on social capital. Chenhall et al. (2010) employ Adler and Borys (1996)’s notion of enabling and coercive controls to theorise the relationship between MCS and social capital. They contend that enabling controls ‘enhance bonding by encouraging identification with goals’ while coercive controls inhibit bonding as inconsistent with sharing of ideas and values that are central to the way that NGO’s operate’ (p.743).

Chenhall et al. (2010) test their theoretical framework based on a non-government organization and get supportive results. Chenhall et al. (2010)’s study is among the first to elaborate the relationship between MCS and social capital in and between organisations. It contributes to our understanding by demonstrating that MCS could either enhance or inhibit social capital. However, Chenhall et al. (2010) regard bridging and bonding social capital as two different dimensions of social capital and investigate the link between MCS and each of these two dimensions of social capital separately. Newell et al. (2004) highlight the need of strong bonding social capital before effective bridging social capital. This suggests the importance of examining bridging social capital and bonding social capital jointly within the entire “social capital network” in alliance study. Further, Chenhall et al. (2010) provides limited understanding of the process of how each linkage between MCS and social capital develops through time. Therefore, this study aims to locate inter-firm alliances within social capital network and investigate the role of MCS in the evolvement of social capital network.

Board Research Question

How MCS influences the evolvement of social capital network in the context of supply alliances?

Theory Development

A substantive research has used actor-network theory (ANT) to study social implications in inter-firm relationship (Callon et al. 1986).  First, Chua and Mahama (2007) posit that the study of MCS in inter-firm alliances should be beyond the dyadic relationship between alliance partners and extend to the entire network with which the alliance interrelates. ANT enables us to study alliance network through social capital and investigate how MCS is implicated in such social capital network. Second, ANT treats human and non-human systematically as actors and focus on the relationality of actors. According to ANT, MCS, bridging social capital, bonding social capital can be seen as non-human actors. ANT seeks to explore how these three actors act on each other and how the relationship among them evolves through time. Lastly, some ANT theorists argue that how two actors influence each other also depends on the relationship between these two actors and other actors. This suggests that “the actors cannot be studied without at the same time paying attention to the network through which their identities are defined (p.52)” (Chua and Mahama, 2007). Therefore, all the actors are directly or indirectly connected and co-influence the performaity of the network. This indicates that bridging and bonding social capital together build up an entire social capital network and they should not be studied separately. The performaity of social capital network is co-influenced by the MCS, bridging social capital and bonding social capital, as well as the relationship between these actors. ANT provides us with a lens to study how MCS, bridging social capital and bonding social capital and the relationship among them jointly influence the evolvement of social capital network.   

Research design and methods

This paper will use a case study method to address research questions. Case study is extensively used in social science studies as it enables researchers to observe a social phenomenon in its raw form (Yin, 2003). This paper aims to investigate the “social capital network evolvement” under the influence of MCS. Therefore, case study is advocated in this paper. Further, according to Benbasat et al. (1987), case study is particularly useful to study “how” questions. Given that the research question in this paper focuses on how MCS influences the evolvement of social capital network, a case study is considered as appropriate. Finally, Coooper and Morgan (2008) contend that case study is superior to other research methods by providing the understanding of uncertain, instable, unique situations. This paper addresses the research question based on the context of inter-firm alliances. Inter-firm alliances are operating with great environment uncertainty (e.g. opportunistic behaviours from alliance partner; market uncertainty). In addition, alliances are operating by at least two distinct interdependent firms, in which both cooperation and conflict are pervasive. These features determine the uncertain, instable and unique context of the research problem in this paper. Therefore, the use of case study is said to be adequate. 

Interviews, observations and archival document will be used to facilitate the case study. The use of observations aims to identify how social capital (bridging social capital and bonding social capital) evolves in raw form. Interviews enable us to collect relevant information about the use of MCS; to verify whether the results of our observations are consistent with interviewee’s views to ensure that the observations have no bias. Archival documents are selected to collect historical information about alliances and to verify the use of MCS is used during a particular period.

The data used to test the research question is to be collected from a small constructions and development company (A) located in Canberra. First, construction and development company heavily relies on buy-supply relationships. This provides potential rich sources of supply alliance that is the context the research question is based on. Second, small- and medium-sized firms are “building more and tighter relationships with other companies to achieve greater external economics of scale, market strength, or exploit new opportunities” (Rosenfeld, 1996, p.247). This highlights the importance of developing and maintaining social relationships in small- and medium-sized firms, which facilitates the examination of research question. Finally, A has an Asian director. Relationship building is predominately in Asian culture (Hitt et al., 2002). Social relationships between organizations are ubiquitous and are of importance in all business dealings of Asian companies (Luo, 2000). This provides a good lens for us to study the social capital network.    

Change of Research Context

I have decided to change my research essay context from international joint ventures to supply alliances since I realized the difficulty of collecting evidence to support the central argument.  

First, in my former international joint venture (IJV) research context, I need to do three interviews. I need to conduct interviews with accountants in the IJV to determine how management control systems are used in IJV. I also need to interview each boundary spanner of the partners in IJV to collect information regarding to the social relationships between them, as well as the relationship between either one of them with outsiders. However, the target IJV that I am aiming to conduct interviews is in their busy seasons currently and prefers getting interviews after this busy period. This means that I could not finish the research essay within time limited. Second, I am struggling for deciding which IJV partner side should I stand for. Previous literature does not give clear guidance regarding to  which partner side should research papers stand for in IJV literature. The results of the research essays based on one partner may differ from that based on another partner. Third, theoretical definition of IJV is vague, which makes it difficult to determine an IJV.

Due to time constraint and the difficulty in collecting evidence. I decided to use supply alliances as my research context. The choice of supply alliances is for the following reasons. First, supply alliances are pervasive nowadays, which provides rich evidences pool. Second, supply alliance literature provides some guidance in relation to which partner side should a research stands on. Lastly, the identification of supply alliances is clearer than that of IJV.

Good Proposal Template

Kerry uploaded a good proposal template, which has eight closely related elements: key academic paper, research problem/gab in that academic paper, the importance of the research problem/gab in that academic paper, basic process model of to be developed, the central theory to be used, suitable evidences to fill the gab, the ways of collecting those evidences.

A good research proposal also needs logic and continuous flow of these eight elements rather than develops them as separated pieces. This means whenever we write a research paper, we have to consider the eight elements together where each element copes with each other. For example, research problem/gab in extant literature must be answered by developing a research model for which requires an appropriate theory to support. The evidence collected must be related the model we develop and be able to answer the research problem/gab. In this way, the research paper can make readers feel “comfortable” and trigger their interest of keeping on reading.

From my experience, it is not always easy to develop such a good research proposal with these eight closely related elements. Sometimes, although you have a good research problem and model, the data is hardly to collect, which force you to change your research topic. Sometimes, although you have good ways for collecting great data, you find it hard to make significant contribution to extant literature based on those available data. But this does not mean we are unable to develop a good research proposal following this template. If we can think thoroughly these elements together and conduct a sufficient amount of researches at the beginning to determine the feasibility of our thoughts, it can save lots of time when we write our research proposal.   

Experiences of First Interview

Me and Yi did three interviews last Friday. I would like to share my experience with all of you.

Overview of the interview process

Before doing interviews, we first illustrated the aim and the procedure of the interview to interviewees. Then, we assured these three interviewees that a) any information obtained in the interview will not be reported without their consent b) information obtained in the interview will be used only for the purpose of this study. Lastly, we informed these three interviewees that they would be given the report if requested. These proceudres seek to promote trust between interviewees and us so that interviewees are open amd honsty to respond our questions.  

All three interviewees are Chinese students. The first interviewee is a male and currently doing a master degree in ANU. The second interviewee is a female and currently doing a master degree in ANU. The third interviewee is a female who finished her master degree in ANU two years ago. These three interviewees were asked about their experiences of studying in ANU and living in Canberra. 

Some thoughts about the interviews 

First, these three interviewees are all my close friends. These three interviewees are willling to cooperate with us. From the interviews, I could not tell that they were inentionall hiding nor relutant to tell us information. I am curious to think whether the interviews would be so favouring if the interviewees are those who I did not know? Next time I will test this.  

Second, all these three interviewees are Chinese internatinal students who have traditional Eastern norms and values. I am wondering whether interviews results will be different if interviewees are from Western countries (e.g. Euro)? 

Third, at the first instance, me and Yi were struggling whether to design specific questions for interviewees. We finally agreed with each other that we would not design specific questions which may limit the scope of interview results. But in our real research project, since our research project focuses on specific issues, is it necessary for us to design specific issues before doing interviews? 

Fourth, I found it is quite helpful that if we could do tape recording and taking notes/memos simultaneously. This is specifically useful when we do critical analysis, which can save us a lot of time. We do not need to re-listen interview and we can pick up critial information from our notes/memos. 

Lastly, we did our first two interviews on a group context and third interview individually. We found group interviews may make interviewees more relax, which is favourable to the interview results.     

Building Relationship before Doing Interviews

As discussed a little bit with Yi on yesterday's class, I would like to share this interesting question with all of you. The key point is whether interviewees will perform differently or disguise the truth when they know the interview will be recorded.

To be honest, I had little experiences in doing interviews. But Yi told me his experience yesterday that when he had several interviews with Chinese people in China. He finds that interviewees will hide or disguise the truth. Instead, they fabricate some fake information to make short shrift of interviewer. I think there are many reasons for Chinese interviewees to behave this way. First, they may be afraid to leak some confidential information during the conversion. Second, they may feel uncomfortable if they know that they will be recorded. Thus, they may be intentionally some information. Third, they may try to avoid some negative effect on them in case their recodings is used by others to act against them. Fourth, they will respnd negatively if they know they are going to be recorded. The worst situation is that they will not give the researchers even an interview opportunity if they know that the interview is to be recorded.

As disussed above, the questions then I have is whether we have to do tape recordings when we conduct interviews? Or, there may exist a way to overcome this issue?

One solution I am thinking about is to build relationships with interviwees before interviewing them. This may specially useful in doing interviews for Chinese people. In China, building relationships with people and develop personal social networks are extremely importnat both for personal development and dealing business. There are many ways to build such relationships such as introduction by mutual friends, relatives, governments, professors and colleagues.

The introduction letter is far less enough to build relatinoships with interviewees. There are many things you could to develop your relationship with interviewees to a deep stage. For example, inviting them to have a relaxed meal, trying to watch and play sports with them if they have such interest and introducing friends who maybe helpful to them. 

After the attempt to develop relatinoships with interviewees, they may deem you as a good friend on who they can trust. This may wide up their baseline to sensitive questions and may allow you to do intervoew recordings. 

These are my thinking and some tips in doing interviews, specially for Chinese interviewees. Hope this can help.     

Case Study vs Field Study

Case study is a qualitative research method where a or multiple cases with specific context are investigated. Case study foucses on studying organizations, events and activities with its specific context, aiming to link theory to practice. In this way, it provides practical evidence to test, support or refute existing theory, as well as to develop a new theory. Therefore, case study is particularly useful in answering "how" and "why' questions, as well as identifying problems and best practices in the particular context. Schon (1983, p.50) argues that case study is vauable to the "entire process of reflection-in-action, which is central to the 'art' by whcih practitioners sometimes deal well with situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness and value conflict". 

Case study may take researchers either a short or long time to complete, depending on the research question. Data collection for conducting a case study may be in the form of interviews, archival documents and experiments.

Field research is about studying phenomena in their nature setting (Atkinson and Shaffir, 1998). Researchers who advocate field research contend that natural behaviour can not be captured from the outside. Field research is particularly useful when researchers want to study the natural habit of their target observations, standing from the point of view of those who are observed.

In order to collect data in field research, researchers have to pick up a particular site and stay in that site for a long period. Further, researhcers have to get used to the "local cultural" of the research site and get recognized by "local people" in the research site. Shaffir and Stebbins (1991) describes field research as a continuous process including getting in, learning the reopes, maintaining relatinoships, and leaving.

Nevertheless, whenever doing case study or field research, it is always important to pick up case(s) or research site that a) is helpful in answering research problems/questions and b) is closely related to the theoretical framework in the research paper.

Building a theory

Shirley classifies the structual of theory into five types: theory for analyzing, theory for explaining, theory for predicting, theory for explaining and predicting, and theory for design and action. Although there may be different types of theories, i am thinking how these different types of theories are derived through the well-designed process of theorizing.

There are various well-recognized theories in various disciplines (e.g. agency theory, actor-network theory, and institutional theory), whcih are used extensively used by researchers. However, it is possible to have a good 'anonymous theory' as long as it is well-theorized. One way to build a theory is to use well-recognized theories as basis and transform them to suit a specific context. Another way is to create a new theory where we have to link and bridge two or more constucts by developing a sensable process between constrcuts. Either way, a good theory 'makes a significant original contribution to knowledge'.

   

Qualitative Research and Quantitive Research, which ine is better?

Generally speaking, quantitive research aims to derive a relationship between two variables which is out there indepent of human beings while qualitative research attempts to investigate the processes in a particualr phenomena. I think there is no 'the best research approach' as qualitative research and quantitive research are based on different views. Quantitive research generates a constant relationship, which seems to create new knowledge. However, this may be too general and the 'golden rule' may not be suitable for all situations. Qualitative research focus contextual factors, which enables researhcers to gaint insight knowledge. However, complexity is introduced since each context will have a specific rule.

Really, both quantitive and qualitative research have pros and cons. Researchers could apply either one of the two research mehtod, depending on their believes and research questions. Maybe the mix use of quantitive research and qualitative research will bring a suprising result.

Rules of The Game and Research Gaps

Hi everyone, it is very exciting to meet all of you in Professor Kerry Jacobs's class (BUSN 8018 Qualitative Research Methods). 

Wednesday's class about ‘the rules of the game’ was quite interesting. According to the class, as an academic person, we have to follow the ‘rules of the game’ in academic competition and those who have powers in academic make the rules for academic game. However, as far as I know, there exits more than one academic group who have the power to ‘make rules’. For example, in accounting academia, four top A accounting journals have the power to allow particular accounting papers to be published. My question is that ‘are they going to and how can they compete with each other to gain more power in accounting academia?’ And a following question is that ‘is it a good idea to talk with the examiner of our paper reviewers/chairman of a particular journal to get equipped with the rules of the game if we want to involve in the publication of that journal?’

One good research project should identify research gaps in relevant disciplines so that contributions can be made. However, I found that it was really difficult to find research gabs when starting a new research project. Can anyone tell me are there any steps or ways that we can follow to look for research gaps?

Look forward to seeing all of you again in week two’s class.

Yours Sincerely,
Alex Wang