Will you still love me tomorrow...

New development

Just had a meeting with my supervisor. I think he is quite happy with my progress. He even suggested that we could develop 2 papers for this coming conference :) That is one good indication that he is quite happy with data analysis that I've come up so far. My baby daughter is OK now after suffering from Chickenpox. Now I have a new routine of calling her up during her morning break at school :)

Pattern or BSP

Just had a confusing discussion with myself :P So far I have identified two main constructs for my theory: One is the Main problems faced by the involved stakeholders, and the other is the Way they resolve their problems. It was not really clear how to differentiate "the way they resolve their problems" with the "pattern". The thing is 'patterns' are not and can not be treated as 'main category' (the main concept with most of the explanatory power). It is just "what's going on". This is quite different from what is temporarily my BSP (the core main concern which is also the -presumably main category). I identified "ints algnnt' as the pattern, but I am almost convinced that the "ints negotitn process" is the core category which is also the BSP. This BSP has three distinct phases: learning-relearning, internalising and responding (action). Almost all other concepts can be explained when seeing the problem using this angle. But will take more time before everything can be adequately understood... Baby, thank you for showing me your new songs and dances last night :) Dad loves you...(Thanks to Skype)

New Paper

I have been struggling for weeks to come up with the right angle for my new paper on the context of the my first case study. Luckily now I have a much better idea on what to do with the paper. I have with me (almost) all the data and have also collected relevant references so it will be pretty straightforward to develop the paper. But I might also need to collect a little bit more data on the perspectives of the decision makers, the client institutions, (potential) users, members of Parliament as well as the public in general (CSOs). Seems to be a lot of work but the thing is the whole discussion involved only a single topic. Time for finalising the results of the first field study. Looking forward for conducting my second field study :) Hang in there baby, Daddy needs just another year from you... then this all will be over...

Great Weekend

Last weekend was one of the best weekend I ever had. Delicious food (Indian and sea food), wine and beer, and Bollywood dances too.. :-) Had a very relax afternoon, and then a delicious Indian food plus playing a great game called The Mafia, where every body has to guess who the real mafia is/are, and ended up killing each other for no reason at all...

One year on...

Wow it's April 2012 already. I now have so many things to share. But in short, my research has been going very well. Since the last update (more than a year ago :p) I have conducted my first field study last year (September to November 2011), have also successfully defended my research proposal (in November 2011), and currently working on finalising my data analysis for the first field study. Apart from these, I have also presented my papers in Europe and in China :) This is another way of saying, I have been traveling around and it's paid by the university :) I am now a very happy PhD student :) at first, working with a very demanding supervisor was quite overwhelming, but without it, I would not be able to achieve the very state I'm currently at. Thank you so much to my supervisor for being a strict mentor and forcing me to produce work on a weekly basis. The very good news I want to share is actually about my dissertation. Based on data from my first case study, I have developed my theory on the topic, and will try to enrich it by collecting more data to be able to clearly define its boundaries. Very much hoping to conduct the second field study within few months time. Meanwhile, I'm also quite busy developing a new paper discussing a particular aspect of my case study's context. Happy that I'm actually on the right track to complete the study on-time (3 years) :)

Hello again

It's been a while I haven't update this blog. 2 weeks ago was a mess, mainly personal related problem with its real consequences on the study. Thank God everything is back to normal. My regular visit to the Gym have had side effects of fatigue and less focus on the readings, so I decided to take a break for a while until I have come up with a good draft of my research proposal (hopefully by the end of this month).
The core structure and ideas are clear, yet filling the structure is quite another game.

Meanwhile, LR review is painful as always, but I managed to get myself going even though painfully slow :(

My research in progress paper to one of the conference in Europe was rejected: unfortunately, the reviewer didn't provide any constructive comments apart from the obvious editorial mistakes. Have filed a formal complaint but not really sure about the response.

Structuring the LR

At first, it was quite difficult to start the LR: too many things to start with. But then after spending a day or two thinking about how to handle this, I come up with some strategies to help me working on it:

1. Decide the topics to be searched for: Stakeholder management, stakeholder, project management, developing countries,ect.

2. Start with Journals in the IS area: MISQ, ISR, JIT, EJIS, etc.

3. After that, open up the search to include journals from different areas. This time search the topics in On-line databases.

4. Develop the LR structure

Starting tomorrow I will be working on the second task....
Hopefully by the end of the week, I will have searched all the available sources...

Very time consuming....

Focus: Research Proposal

The comments on my Ethics Proposal draft that I sent last week was a positive one :) And now I just need to work on the revision and will be able to submit it by the end of this month.

The next focus is to write my research proposal. I thought that it would be simple since I have written 2 conference papers on this. I was wrong. It needs to be as extensive as possible, and that means I really need to put extra efforts on this to make sure that the proposal will be a good product.

2 main parts of the proposal that I really need to work on are the Literature Review (mainly on the Stakeholder management) and the research methodology (GTM). I have done some on these parts, and I guess the next step is to review what I have so far, compared it to what I want them to be, and trying to fill the gaps as much as possible.

I SHOULD REALLY WORK ON MY MEMOS OF PAPERS USING ATLAS.TI.... Next week will be dedicated to work on the Literature review and developing a detail structure of the Research Proposal.

"I Will Remember" by Toto

This is one of my favorite songs since high school... Kind of summarizes the story ;-)

Research Ethics Application Draft

This week is a quite productive week for me having completed the first draft of the ethics application for my research. It was planned to be completed by the end of March, happy that I have almost completed this bit.

Research proposal is the next big task (probably the biggest of all) as I will have to defend my proposal by May this year because my supervisor is planning to travel overseas for 6 months from June-November 2011. The ideal scenario is for me to be also 'away' during that period of time, working on data collection in the field (back in my home country) and be back to campus at around the same time for further data analysis and writings of conference papers (possibly ECIS if not ICIS conference).

Meantime, I have more readings to do:
1. Literature review on research topic, and
2. Research methodology (GTM)

Thank God I have Skype now and be able to talk to my daughter almost every night.

Busy Week

I have been participating in the SR trainings throughout the week and the trainings will only end on Sunday evening... If this new role will need such a great time commitment, then I guess I will have to resign from this role since it will only do harm to my research progress... Have to check this with the people at the hall.

Meantime about progress in my study: I have now a clear list of things that I need to focus on for the next week:
1. Ethics Approval application
2. Research Proposal (need to obtain format from my supervisor)
3. More readings:
a. Theoretical Sensitivity in Stakeholder management-Memoing using Atlas.ti
b. GT research Method and memoing using Atlas.ti
4. Improve the field report I have just submitted

Ethics approval has to be submitted ASAP, while I have to successfully defend my research proposal by May 2011.

I haven't talk to my daughter for 2 days now...

Good News...

This week is I guess the busiest week I have so far since joining the program. Although it is not related directly to my study, so far I 'enjoy' the new dynamic involved as a result of my participation. In particular I really enjoy 'outside office activities' such as group lunch (we had a Ferry cruise lunch yesterday touring the lake for about one hour...), and also a group dinner where everybody brought their food from their respective countries.... Enjoyed the meals from Africa, Australia etc....

I now can comfortably disagree to the saying that 'doing research study is a long and lonely journey..' Not if you can spent time wisely with other people in your community, and more importantly, getting some sort of rewards for your participation (in my case it was a scholarship - talking about synergy :-).

Anyway, this memo is actually written to share a good news about me finding the most CLEAR single paper on how to conduct my research.

I have been reading several books on the research methodology (Grounded Theory) and still (really-really) struggling to outline every little steps involved in each research stages (Entering the field, collecting data -interview, transcribing the interviews, sorting, coding, more coding and eventually, after reaching the saturation stage, writing down the theory).

The steps outlined clearly in this paper can be compared to having a cookbook on your side while cooking, only that I am cooking a different meal.

I can humbly thank God Almighty for every little progress (or sign of progress) that I have... and Thank also to my daughter, the sole source of motivation. Dad Loves you.