Postgraduate Research Winter Symposium at University of Winchester

Today I attended my first post graduate research symposium for University of Winchester students.   It was a terrific opportunity to listen to a series of 20 minute presentations on a wide diversity of research topics and to spend time chatting with fellow students on what they are doing.

Here are a few short notes on the 10 talks we had during the day that give an indication of what was covered.

Investigating endings - looking at endings in novels that have been short listed for the Booker and Costa prize since 2000.  Different sorts of endings, different approaches of writers - including one who starts writing a novel by writing the last sentence.   Given that some people will start a book by reading the ending it made me wonder if authors might respond to this by creating last lines that could make sense as an end to the novel and yet if which read first would purposefully send the reader on the wrong track.

“I Love you, guys” - looking at inclusive masculinities in a Californian High School Cross country running team.  Exploring issues of attitudes to homosexuality and how that impacts on displays of masculinity - if homosexuality is not socially acceptable then this could lead to hyper macho displays of masculinity as boys/men seek to avoid any suggestion that they might be gay.  Introduced me to a new term “homoerasure” when society denies the very existence of homosexuality.   Interestingly in this context there may actually be greater acceptance of less macho behaviour.

The effects of anxiety and depression on eyewitness memory - this one struck me as hugely ambitious research activity given the breadth and detail of what was being studied as it will cover perceptions of legal professionals as well as questions of how people perform in interviews, video identification lineups and under cross examination.

The next topic was a case study of the Whitney Plantation and how it represents slavery from the perspective of the slave and not, as is more usually the case, from the perspective of the plantation owner.  Powerful talk based on the speaker’s experience of having visited the plantation and clearly having been deeply affected by it.   Reminded me of my visit to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg a couple of years ago - you can read about periods in history but there is something deeply impactful about visiting the place.

Thomas Jefferson and slavery -  exploring paradox of man who penned US Declaration of Independence and promoted abolition of slavery yet held views that blacks were inferior to whites and owned slaves through his life, was opposed to interracial relationships and yet had 6 children by one of his slaves.  

John Rawls and his theory of justice - talk from someone who has recently started their doctoral journey so this one was more of a scene set on Rawls and "contractarianism" then their own research findings.

Presentation on career paths post PhD - given by first person who graduated with a PhD from University of Winchester when it became able to grant its own research degrees.   Interesting examples of how engagement in the right networks led to opportunities.  Also reference to article that compares structure of academic roles in the UK with how drugs gangs are organised - lots of poorly paid insecure roles at the start taken by people hoping to be the ones who succeed and breakthrough to the better stable roles further up the hierarchy.

“Embodying another’s memory” was an interesting investigation by the speaker into her father’s past in war time Poland.   Again the impact of visiting the place came through and how she had discovered a very different narrative to his life when she investigated what had happened compared to what he had told them.  Fascinating how he seems to have woven stories from his family into his own life story when presenting it.

The Last Judgement mosaic on West Wall of Torcello Cathedral, Venice was a detailed exposition of the iconography and meaning of the various complex elements of this 11th Century mosaic.  Astonishing level of detail on the individual elements and how they might have been intended to be “read” by the people viewing it.

Last talk of the day explored how different types of dual-task performance would have different effects on novel skill acquisition.   As an example consider people learning for the first time how to play an Xbox game.  Experiment then looks at how ability to learn how to play the game ( bowling in this case) if that is the only thing you have to do vs learning to play game while also counting backwards from 300 in 3’s vs learning the game whilst listening out for and responding to an audio beep that is played periodically.   The underlying research question is whether an exploration of this sort of dual-task approach could improve how stroke patients are helped to relearn tasks that can lead to greater independence and improved recovery.

All in all a very interesting day and I shall certainly be looking out for the next symposium.  As well as learning a lot about such a range of topics and feeling a sense of inclusion into the research community at Winchester, it was also good to reflect on how my own identify as a researcher and DBA student has evolved over the last year.   More than once I was able to think of things I had read in my own research which had relevance or informed me about something being presented.   Was also a whole lot better placed to cope with some of the more social sciences style of language used by some of the presenters.

Making a start on the 3rd module of the DBA course

Loyal readers will remember that last September I embarked on the Doctoral Business Administration part time degree course offered through the University of Winchester.   Incidentally,  if you harbour an interest in a challenging but rewarding program of study like this, then I believe there will be a new cohort starting this September.  Check out their website for more details or get in touch with me and I'll be happy to talk about my experience thus far.

The DBA program starts with a set of 6 taught modules - one a term for the first 2 years.  Each of the modules follows the same pattern with 2 taught "weekends" and then time to produce an assignment. Yesterday and today saw the 2015 cohort at the Business School for the first weekend of the 3rd module - "Maximising Engagement and Impact".

Under the expert and enthusiastic leadership of Dr Martina Hutton we have spent two full days exploring questions of scholarship,  identifying the "conversations" that we want to be a part of, our identity as researchers, ideas around what our contribution will be through our DBA thesis.   As usual the days have been a mix of content to get us thinking, practical exercises, and discussion amongst the group.   As the modules progress the cohort gets to know each other ever better and the richness of questioning, challenging and support of each other increases.  Considering the comparatively short time it is since we started this journey it really is amazing to see just how far we have all progressed in our thinking about what our area of research will be.   It is a privilege to be a part of the research journey that my fellow cohort members are taking and I am very excited to see what they come up with in the coming months and years - indeed I think one of my challenges will be keeping the focus on my own research and not getting distracted and intrigued by some of the things the others are looking at.

The assignment for this module is to write a short paper ( up to 3000 words) on a topic of our choice ( the most obvious being to choose something aligned with our research interest) and then to create a presentation that allows us to share the findings with any audience that we choose.  The final element is then a short reflection on that process and our success at disseminating our findings through both the paper and presentation.

As part of today's module we had some writing exercises including spending a short amount of time to come up with a possible title and abstract for our paper.   An interesting exercise in that it forces you to conceive what it is that you may end up writing.  Pretty much a given that, as we engage with the process of research and thinking about the topic, what we come up with will differ from what we imagined today but it was a powerful technique for helping to at least crystallise some initial lines of enquiry.

Here's what I came up with...

Computer says "yes" but what happens next? Understanding the impact on employee engagement when HR Analytics are used to determine employee compensation.

Abstract

Have you ever felt if only the decision had been based on data rather than taken by failible human beings you'd have got the pay rise you deserved? What if we had the ability to take those decisions at an organisational level removing scope for bias and prejudice? The increasing ability to harvest employee data and application of HR Analytics offers the promise of just such a nirvana but does it work in practice?   Every action has a reaction, and this paper will explore both the art of the possible and some of the potential consequences of taking a data driven approach to compensation decisions.  Models of Employee Engagement are used to provide a framework for the discussion, looking at both the short and longer term impacts on staff and managers. The paper concludes with an initial exploration of how the mere act of taking an Analytic based approach can lead to changed behaviour as employees seek to maximise their chances of a favourable personal outcome.


I'm really looking forward to working on the paper over the coming months ( due date is in September).   Any comments you have on the topic or indeed suggestions of areas I could look into as part of the assignment will be gratefully received.

Becoming a student again

Back in September I signed up to be part of the first cohort to study for the newly launched Doctoral Business Administration degree at the University of Winchester. It's a part time degree program that should take me somewhere between 4 and 7 years to complete.  The first 2 years consist of 6 taught modules ( 1 per term) that are designed to build skills and insights that will then equip us to complete our thesis.  We are a small but diverse group of people drawn from of a wide range of job roles and experiences which makes for some great discussions when we are together.

With the assignment for the first module - a critical ( that's critical as in looking at decisions made and reasons for them and not to be confused with criticising ) review of my professional development and a future development plan - submitted it seemed like a good time to look back at what has happened so far.

Since completing my MBA back in the mid 90s I've always harboured the thought that it would be good to do some further study and have looked at various programs from other universities. A couple of things that drew me to this one were the structure of the program, convenience of the location, and my existing contact with some of the faculty. It was still a major decision to make as the time and money required are significant but one that felt right.

A term in and I have no regrets, yes finding the time to fit it in alongside everything else I do is, and will remain, very tough but it's great to be a student again. All learning changes you and I've certainly noticed already that the extensive reading I'm now doing is filtering into my discussions with people both at work and beyond. I've also had the joy of renewing my Bodleian card and returning to some of Oxford's libraries and indeed venturing in to some that I had not visited before - Mathematicians not having much call to visit the Social Sciences Library.

Having online access to journals is terrific but there is still something very satisfying about summoning old copies from the stacks and joining the hushed studious environment of one of the reading rooms to work your way through them.






The first module was always going to be the one where I started to get a feel for what was required so in numbers here is how it panned out...

I read 16 books on a range of topics including Critical Reflection and many aspects of learning and development

in addition I've skimmed or read parts of a further 6 books and consumed around 50 academic journal articles.  When it came to writing the 5,000 (+/- 10%) word assignment one of my biggest challenges was letting go of some interesting ideas I'd read about, taken notes on and wanted to include but didn't fit inside the word count ( Reber's work on Implicit learning and Tacit Knowledge being just one example).

For the next module I need to pin down what my area of research will be for the next few years as I pursue the DBA.  More details to come as I work that out...

Responsible leadership and the power of a good question

Over the past few months I've attended a number of talks at Winchester Business School’s Centre for Responsible Management (part of the University of Winchester).

I've listened to Steve Holmes from ASK Italian,  Gin Tidridge from B&Q,  Keith Abel of the eponymous Abel and Cole, and this week Ralf Schneider from Better Business Consulting.

Whilst there has been a strong theme around Responsible Leadership (as you would expect) the areas they have covered have been very different. Each speaker shared insights into their work over many years and talked about challenges and successes that they have seen.   Ralf's talk was the exception as, though it did cover things he had done, it focused more generally on the societal and business pressures that make responsible leadership ever more important.

As I reflect back on the series of talks I was struck by the common theme of a timely, well placed question in each of their stories.

For Steve's it was the corridor meeting with the CEO where he asks should we be greener?  For Gin's it was the organisation being asked whether they knew where the timber in their products came from.  For Keith's it was the organic farmer who asked him if he knew what chemicals were on a potato.  For Ralf ..... well most of his session was deliberately about important questions rather than answers.

Reinforces my belief in the power and effectiveness of leading through asking good questions rather than through command and control.   Also opens up the interesting question of how as a member of an organisation you can ensure that you are the sort of person who is turned to when the big questions are being asked. I suspect that in there lies the key to disproportionate influence over the outcomes.