Which DBA you prefer?
If you haven’t chosen a DBA program, congratulation! You still have a chance to make a right choice before too late. You may be someone who have been working in the industry for quite some time and have earned much useful and practical knowledge. Currently, you may be worried about whether or not you can further study up to the doctoral level when you choose to go back to the university to take a DBA. That’s right. The worry that you are currently having is not wrong. This is because most of the DBA program that are currently available will really put you into a nightmare. Not only your valuable industrial experiences are undermined, you will end up with learning something impractical and irrelevant to your businesses. Let me begin by telling you a true story about someone from the academic world.
“I studied mechanical engineering and started my career as a sales engineer for an industrial product. I took my MBA while I was assuming the role as a project leader. Upon completion of my MBA, I moved to a higher managerial position as a marketing manager to oversee the entire marketing, logistics, inventory control, and after sales services of a world leading brand of an industrial product. I applied the knowledge I gained from my MBA because it was very practical and relevant. I earned a higher reputation from the company because I performed well in my job with many new ideas and practical inputs. After that, I took a scholarship to study PhD in Cambridge University, Institute for Manufacturing, Centre for Strategy and Performance. Upon completion of my PhD, I returned home to serve a local university. Since then, I have attended many local academic conferences. Hey! I was very surprised. Where the field of management is heading to? Our academics seem to be writing conference papers for the purpose of achieving more publications, but unfortunately no one is addressing the practical issues that faced by the industries. They seem to address issues of methodology, research design, and analysis methods.”
That is true. It is not a surprise. Most researchers here seem to conduct pure research. Unlike the group of researchers in Cambridge, over there, they conduct applied research. Their researches are mainly conducted in the field. They study real world practices. They solve practical problems. They publish their research outputs in the practicing journals and also in the form of practical workbook (Mill, et al., 1996; Phaal, et al., 2001; Christodoulou, P., 2010). They conduct evening workshops to train managers and executives to use the managerial tools that they have developed from their research. Thus, the different between the pure researchers and the applied researchers is that they disseminate their research outputs to two groups of mutually exclusive audiences.
Very unfortunate, many academics that I met here are in favor of testing new or sophisticated statistical technique rather than investigating or solving current problems facing practitioners. Practical issues are ignored by our academics. They prefer to isolate themselves in the ivory tower to admire their own models, formulas, and equations which can never be understood by most managers.
One of the problems with our academic community is perhaps most of them having no industrial working experiences at all! They have never market a product, prepare a budget, conduct a sales presentation, lead a business project or manage any companies.
I guess the other problem is because our doctoral program put too much emphasis on methodology, particularly statistical technique such as multivariate methods. Our doctoral students have no idea that they are a lot of other research methodologies which are available, such as case study, action research, ethnography, and even experiments. These methods are equally valid, reliable and useful. More importantly, they are all very mature and widely accepted.
The researchers in Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing have been using case-based approach, action research and process approach quite a bit. The institute is regarded as one of the highly relevant research institute and it is also ranked as a 5 star research centre.
The case-based methods have been described in a quite detail way by many. However, there is another method which I would like to introduce to many local researchers is structured action research. Although I have talked quite a great deal about it before in a few of my previous articles (please see Yee, C.L. 2009a; Yee, C.L. 2009b; Yee, C.L. 2009c; Yee, C.L. 2009d; Yee, C.L. 2009e; Yee, C.L. 2009f), I would like to emphasize here that it is actually a methodology that can bridge the gap between academics and practitioners. By adopting this methodology, a researcher is actually goes all out to help firms to solve their problems. The researcher is acting like a consultant.
Some of our academics maybe worried that this work is not scientific. The answer is not. In fact, the PhD candidate will have to write their thesis according to the requirement of PhD. That is to say, they still have to write a proper research design and methodology (in this case is structured action research). They have to justify their choice of research method and discuss the research philosophy or theoretical foundation of the qualitative research design in quite detail. Many quantitative examiners may not agree with the qualitative paradigm. However, again, I would like to emphasize here that many of the quantitative researchers are bias. They use quantitative criteria to access a PhD candidate who adopted a qualitative study. Their work is not professional and fair (see Yee (2011) for more arguments and debates about the paradigm war between quantitative and qualitative researchers).
Doctoral students should seriously ensure that their research is industrially relevant. Thus, the use of structured action research method is especially useful for DBA program. This is because a DBA program is normally designed for business executives. For these business people, they won’t be able to understand those heavy methodologies which are mostly quantitative in nature. Honestly speaking, to them, these methods are not practical at all. However, structured action research will be different. They can apply their experiences from the industries through using action research to prove the relevancy, practicality, and generalizability of their experiences.
When I said ‘experiences’, it doesn’t mean that it is always existed in the form of tacit knowledge. In action research, experiences of one can be transformed into codified knowledge such as in the form of tools, techniques, step-by-step processes, practical guidelines, etc. You may be wondering whether these forms of knowledge are acceptable as a form of knowledge contribution in a doctoral research. The answer is yes. Many work that have been done in Cambridge’s Institute for manufacturing are of these forms. Please see my article for detail illustration and argument of those codified knowledge as an acceptable mode of knowledge (Yee, 2011). Then, a DBA candidate can conduct a research by applying this tool in the real business world to investigate and prove its feasibility, usability, and utility. The study can also be extended to other context in order to generalize the findings. Again, the generalization here I mean is not statistical generalization but is analytical generalization (see Yin, 1984 for the argument of case study method and generalization)
In this sense, the practicing community will be benefited from academic research and at the same time the current body of knowledge will be advanced with additional practical knowledge. Practitioners should be encouraged to enroll DBA programs that emphasize the use of practical approach such as structured action research and conduct applied research.
In fact, many of the successful practitioners when they are entering DBA or PhD programs, they found it very difficult to adapt themselves into the program. Most of them are having valuable corporate experiences which are a much needed resources, but their talents and experiences have been wasted.
Worst still, they have to force themselves to learn many sophisticated statistical methods and mathematical modeling techniques. When they return back to the industries later on after they have completed their study, they would not be able to use them or share their doctoral experiences and learning with their peers. This is mainly because no one there in the field will understand their formulas.
Vice versa, if these business executives are adopted the structure action research method, not only they can conduct a piece of good research in the academic world, but they can also help the practicing world. Upon completion of their DBA, they can use the knowledge and experiences they earned when they returned back to their work and share with their peers more easily. The whole training of the DBA program can actually upgrade or enhance their capability and skill to perform even better in the industries. This is due to the transfer of knowledge is made easy when it is in the form of codified knowledge. If more and more researches are done in this sense, they would not only improve practices in the industries but more new useful knowledge would be added to the current body of knowledge.
My objective to write this is not to undermine all research that is currently being produced. But I believe that the field of management would be made more relevant with more research that can help the industries. I also understood that many of the world leading journals in management are accepting only quantitative papers. However, I seriously doubt that whether these papers are read or even understood by practitioners. We should not just produce words for the consumption of only the academic community. Because if you do so, the academic community will leave in an isolated world and the words will be circulated within a closed-loop circle.
Many PhD students seem to develop/test models which are seldom used by the industries. We have been trying to mimic the hard sciences methodology, but forgetting that much of the hard sciences research are supported by experiments and we do not. Many researches in the field of management treat the development of mathematical models as an end by itself. But, hard sciences research treat mathematical models just the means to an end. The ultimate end is actually to be able to conduct an experiment in the real world to prove your theory which eventually led to the development of practical tools, machines, products or artifacts that are physically existed in the real world.
Finally, it is hoped that our DBA or even PhD program can actually look into this issue seriously. Making the field more relevant needs a lot of efforts from all of us. If we want to improve our world ranking to become a world class university, this is one of the important things that should not be neglected.
The problem with the over methodological focus of our doctoral program has its root. One of the academics (who has supervised many PhD students) I met recently told me that he can only supervise students that are using SPSS. He doesn’t know any other methods than SPSS. When I asked him why, he replied that this is because when he took his PhD locally, his supervisor only knows SPSS. Thus, that was the only method he learned from his supervisor and also the only method he can teach his students now. Having heard about this story, I told myself privately that next time your students will only supervise doctoral candidates that use SPSS because you teach them SPSS only. This kind of in-breeding process will continue from generation to generation in our academic community and it can never be corrected or improved if we never go beyond our comfort zone.
No wonder our research method classes are so biased towards the use of SPSS or quantitative methods. Most top business school has already, to some extent, divided the course into qualitative and quantitative modules. Research students at the graduate level have to take both of them. This is to ensure that they are exposed to both paradigm systems. But, unfortunately in our case, we may not ready yet for this changes. I rather think that, one day our research method course will be changed to SPSS course to reflect the actual situation.
If we let the problem of over emphasize on methodology to happen continuously, our academic community will be going farther and farther away from the practicing world. Our mission to become a world leading institution or top business school can hardly be achieved. Although more and more papers we add to the cited journals, these are actually representing more and more formulas and equations we produced. These kinds of knowledge that we added, will confuse more and more managers in the practicing world. At the end, we will never be able to transform ourselves into a world class university like Cambridge.
The points that I have made so far are not baseless. As a matter of fact, many articles that appeared in the recent Harvard Business Review encouraged CEO to consider applying research methods in their businesses (Anderson and Simester, 2011; Davenport, 2009). Many research methods can be used in a very practical sense. But our academics must dare enough to go beyond the traditional academic boundary to meet people from the industries and to find out what they want and what their problems are. In fact many articles from world leading journals recently encouraged researchers to try to bridge the gap between theory and practice (Brennan, 2008; Cummings, 2007; Gerardo and Bonardi, 2011; Miller and Tsang, 2010; Reed, 2009;). If we are still sleeping in the ivory tower, we will be left behind.
DBA candidates who want to pursue their research should try to think of a more practical approach such as structured action research. Not only this can help to improve the practicing world but also improve the advancement of knowledge.
References
Anderson, E.T. and Simester, D. (2011) “A step-by-step guide to smart business experiments” HBR Vol. 89, Issue 3, pp. 98-105.
Brennan, R. (2008) “Theory and practice across disciplines: implications for the field of management” European Business Review, Vol. 20, No. 6, pp.515-528.
Christodoulou, P. (2010) “Strategy workshop toolkit” The Choir Press, UK.
Cummings, Thomas G. (2007) “Quest for an engaged academy” AMR 32, 2, 355-360.
Davenport, T.H. (2009) “How to design smart business experiments” Harvard Business Review 87, 2, 68-76.
Gerardo Okhuysen and Jean-Philippe Bonardi (2011) “Editors’ comments: the challenges of building theory by combining lenses” AMR 36, 1, 6-11.
Mill, J., Platts, K., Neely, A., Richard, H., Gragory, M. and Bourne, M. (1996) “Creating a winning business formula” University of Cambridge.
Miller, K.D. and Tsang, E.W.K. (2010) “Testing management theories: Critical realist philosophy and research method”, SMJ 32, 139-158.
Phaal, R., Farrukh, C.J., and Probert, D.R. (2001), T-Plan – The Fast-Start to Technology Roadmapping: Planning Your Route to Success. Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge, UK.
Reed, Michael I. (2009) “The theory/practice gap: a problem for research in business schools?” Journal of Management Development 28, 8, 685-693.
Yee, C.L. 2009a, Toolism: Generation of Mode 2 Knowledge in Research, The 20th Annual POMS Conference No. 011-0489, 1-4 May 2009 (Orlando, Florida, USA).
Yee, C.L. 2009b, The Science of Toolism, Faculty of Economics and Management Seminar (No. 103) 1-3 December 2009 (Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia).
Yee, C.L. 2009c, Toolism: Generation of Mode 2 Knowledge in Research, Faculty of Economics and Management Seminar (Poster Session) 1-3 December 2009 (Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia).
Yee, C.L., 2009d, Toolism: A multiple-methodological approach in research, The Third International Conference on Operations and Supply Chain Management. 9 – 11 December 2009 (NO: M2) Track SC-T7-12 (AIMST University, Bujang Valley, Sungei Petani, Kedah, Malaysia).
Yee, C.L., 2009e, SNAP: Generating roadmaps for effective supply chain management, The 8th Asian Academy of Management International Conference, AAMC 18 – 21 December 2009 (No: 103) (Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia).
Yee, C.L. 2009f, The 4-stage protocols of Toolism, Proceeding in the International Conference on Quality, Productivity and Performance Measurement (ICQPPM), Putra Jaya, Malaysia (16-18 November 2009)(Paper No. 079).
Yee, C.L., 2011, Linking theory to practice with a new research perspective (http://yeechoyleong-research.blogspot.com.) Accessed on 6 October 2011.
Yin, R.K. 1984. Case study research.
Dr Yee Choy Leong
Working Towards World Class University
A case of adopting qualitative or quantitative approach in research
