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Professor Jesper Strandgaard, Professor Signe Vikkelsø and Associate Professor Per Darmer, all from CBS.

It is a prerequisite that the participants’ work on their research projects has reached a phase – including the empirical work – where they can bring forth reflections, experiences and problems from their analyses.

The participants are required to submit a written presentation – 7-10 pages – which are read by the other course participants and form the basis for reflections and discussions of each other’s projects.

Deadline for submission of the presentation is 8 February 2015.

It is a precondition for receiving the course diploma that the PhD student attends the entire course.

The objective of the course is to help the participants in their methodological reflections and choices connected to their PhD project. By contrasting the projects to each other and to selected methodologies for organizational and management analyses, the course aims to give the participants a profound understanding of the key considerations that must accompany studies of organizations and other social systems.

The methodology course differs from more specialized courses on method (which typically address only one methodological aspect or approach such as ‘the qualitative interview’ or ‘case studies’)  by dealing with the overall methodology of the project: the relation between research questions, relation to the empirical field, theoretical framework, data generation and analysis, and composition of the thesis. It is the ambition of the course to create awareness of and discuss the methodological coherence of each project and the connections between the different elements in the project’s overall research design.

The course is built up around four basic methodological elements:

1)    How to work with the research question?
2)    How to generate and analyse data?
3)    How to develop and use a theoretical framework?
4)    How to write the dissertation?

The course mornings will be used for lectures focusing upon with specific methodological themes followed by discussion and plenary debate. The afternoons are reserved for presentations and discussions of the participants’ projects and discussions of these in groups of 4-6 persons. The course is based on the following assumptions and premises:

* Research as a creative process involving both learning processes and personal development

* An organizational and management sociological methodology that seeks to constantly interweave theory and empirical material related to organization and management processes.

*Methodology as concrete linkages of theoretical perspectives, methods and techniques, empirical field, researcher and work process.

*Methodology as a practice which finds its legitimacy in relation to the completion of the research project and the research publications’ ability to convince relevant research and practitioner communities.
 

The course is not an introductory course to methodology with the intention of giving ‘solutions’ to the participants’ projects in terms of design. Instead the course invites to a joint reflection and discussion to develop the participants’ methodological competence especially in relation to their own project, but also as a qualified participant in research-related connections as opponent, reviewer, etc.

The reflection is based on two elements (that benefit from each other mutually throughout the course):

1) Discussion of methodological questions related to the course participants’ own projects.

2) Presentation and discussion of methodological reflections and experiences related to completed research Projects.

2 March
Introduction to the course • Presentation of the programme and the participants

Research questions and focus
•    ’Tricks of the Trade’
•    What is an interesting project?
•    How do you create a research question?
•    The development of the research question
•    The project’s aim and research interest
•    The research question’s status and consequences
•    Contribution and profiling

3 March
Data generation and the analysis process I (ethnographical methods)

•    Choice of data generation methods
•    Analysis of data
•    Relevance in relation to the project’s problem definition and theory

Group discussion of projects

4 March
Data generation and the analysis process II
(Archive and case studies)

•    Choice of data generation methods
•    Analysis of data
•    Relevance in relation to the project’s problem definition and theory

Group discussion of projects

5 March
The theory’s role and status in the project

•    How is the theory included in my project?
•    What is ’theory’ in my project?
•    Different strategies for confronting theory with empirical analyses (theory-driven or phenomenon-driven, theory testing, problem identifying, one-or-more-theories-approach?)

Group discussion of projects
 
6 March
Composition of the dissertation

•    Strategies for writing
•    Articles or monography?
•    Styles of writing and narration

Rounding off, evaluation, (light) lunch and goodbye  

The course provides students with greater insight into a number of approaches to organizational analyses, offering a larger repertoire to choose from, and better ground for making qualified and consistent choices.

The course improves the students' ability to critically and constructively evaluate the coherence and adequacy of different choices and parts of the research process. This will strengthen the research methodology of their own projects and develop their competence to discussing and helping other’s research projects (the latter increases their competences in connection with other research-related tasks, such as: Reviewer and opponent / discussant)

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Katja Høeg Tingleff
kht.research@cbs.dk
Tel.: +45 38 15 28 39