Four important papers

Four research papers particularly interest me:

1. Appelbaum, S. H. and A. J. Steed (2004). "The critical success factors in the client-consulting relationship." Journal of Management Development 24(1).
2. Kaarst-Brown, 1999, Five symbolic roles of the external consultant: Integrating change, power and symbolism, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol 12, no 6. Accessed 15/4/2007
   
3. Sinclair, A., 1995 “The Chameleon of Accountability: forms and discourses.” Accounting, Organizations and society 20(2/3.): 219-237
4. Werr, A, Styhre, A. 2002, Management Consultants – Friend or Foe? Understanding the ambiguous client-consultant relationship, International studies of Management and Organization, vol. 32, no. 4, winter 2002-3 pp43-66

How to use them best?

1. The Appelbaum et al is a quantitative analysis of critical success factors in the client-consulting relationship.
2. The Kaarst-Brown is a qualitative analyis, again of the client-consulting relationship, interesting & amusing but perhaps too subjective, not sufficiently validated to be useful, and a retrospective self justification for a project that had gone wrong.
3. Sinclair's article is important for the light she sheds on the discursive construction of accountability by public sector managers.
4. Werr et al similarly qualitatively analyse the discursive construction of the client-consultant relationship.

I think that the Sinclair and the Werr et al articles are the most important because they both identify discursive constructions of the aspects that interest me. Perhaps my research must look at the discursive construction of accountability and the relationship of that construction to the client-consultant relationship.

Accountability for the apple

I can imagine a scene in Paradise, the walled garden surrounding the apple tree, the core lying on the grass, the serpent slipping away, while Adam and Eve account to God for their decisions and actions.

"She did what the consultant told her."
"The consultant advised me to do it."

You see, an interaction exists between these components:

• Paradise to be lost on accounting for the wrong actions,
• the stakeholder eye of God watching the actions,
• the two client managers and
• the consultant.

It looks to me like a system, but that's because I went to John Martin's seminar on Emergence, and this idea struck me when he was describing gardens as systems like the one at Bagh-e-Shahzadeh at Mahann in southern Iran. The surprise is even when they exist in the middle of a desert,

Cross

Well today I'm more cross than glum. I read marker's comments on last TMA, then looked at the breakdown, but it is odd because the individual scores add up to more than the given score. I scrape on to the PhD, depending on interview and competition. I look between the lines, knowing tutors mark to encourage or to discourage. A tutor should have checked the overall mark was indeed right for this TMA for this student. If it was, then he should have adjusted the individual marks, so the message came across clearly; if it wasn't he should have gone back and re-added them.

I spent yesterday evening looking at a couple of web sites, at universities that research the web, business and governance. I'm too late to apply now; e.g.The Oxford Internet Institute applications had to be in by 18 May but as some of our PGs came in January, it may be possible to get somewhere else in the new year, like De Montefort or Brunel, both of which research areas that interest me.

So now I've gone from very, very glum, to being cross, and then being sulky. Yes, I've learned loads, and at least I won't have to go through that part of the process again, if anywhere will take me with my inability to explain, justify, consider, discuss or write clearly. And I did enjoy writing that TMA. :(

Glum

I'm not doing well enough at this. I'm good in some areas but not where things get assessed, so I had better be looking for something else to do in October.

The really important problems

The problems consultants are called upon to solve are often not the really important underlying ones [agree (1) – disagree (7)][1]

This question involves the direction of the organisation, its mission and how it functions because you are looking at change and can’t ask people there to think of a different way of delivering the service. I anticipate the answer to this question will be different according to the relationship with consultants. Gattiker & Larwood designed the question in order to examine the political dimensions of the client-consultant relationship. The political dimension might be hiring a consultant in the belief that a consultant could lend meaningful weight to support a particular position, especially when bringing about change. So they anticipated finding that consultants might not know the important underlying issues behind their being hired. What the research found was that clients & consultants response to this question didn’t vary significantly from the expected chance value, so evidence for political hiring was mixed.

But that question need not be interpreted as about politics, but rather about choosing to consult on the right issues for the right reasons, and there is a need to account for that choice, isn’t there?

Secondly, G&L examined data from top-level personnel and it may be that lower level personnel have different perspectives on those reasons, and require different accountabilities. G&L suggest that “lower-level personnel have less need for influencing changes in organisational direction”, which might be true, but OTH if such personnel want to keep their jobs after change, then they would have different interests, different accountabilities and different responses from the executives. And public sector employees have different forces acting on them from corporations.

The weltanschauung of accountability to public is not the same as that of protecting jobs. Here, the accountability is for improving service not about change, but less cost and fewer people. But employing fewer people again implies that jobs are lost, and there is accountability for loss of jobs. (In a British society – a democratic society requires accountability, but an American culture will be less concerned with loss of jobs than a British one. Stakeholders in a British culture will include the workers and their union reps)

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[1] Gattiker, U. E. and L. Larwood (1985). "Why do clients employ management consultants?" Consultation 4(Summer 8756-6508): 119-129.

Methodology

If that CEO lets me, then I'm going to do a single organisation case study. The intention is to get information from and about a number of client representatives (cos Schein identifies different kinds of clients) and find out how they express accountabilities (different kinds of accountabilities) for their use and management of consultants. I should be able to map accountabilities to the different client stakeholders. So the data should match the theories I've read from Schein, Werr, Sinclair, Bovens, etc.

Analysis may be discourse analysis from interviews (takes ages to transcribe :() and stakeholder analysis and soft systems analysis (Checkland).

You see, that's my summary of my research proposal, which is supposed to be thousands of words and I'm assuming all the bits that I have not written. What else must I write about? Ethics - I'm stuck again. Access - okay. I have to write about the limitations of the research and why it's a good idea to do it this way - i.e. justify my approach, which I suppose also includes discussion of validity, generalisability ( a bit difficult with case studies).

PhD recruitment interview

In June the OUBS interviews us and external candidates for the six funded places on the PhD. I have 15 minutes to present to the panel:

1. my ongoing research project for MRes (max 2 slides)
2. how that research might be extended into a PhD project (max 2 slides)

Then the panel will ask questions on the presentation and "related issues" whatever that might mean. I also have to give in a clean copy of my first dissertation module assignment - it was okay, but I don't have a mark - and talk to my supervisors about their willingness to supervise me . I hope they both do.

And I wonder how the external candidates manage these hurdles.

Research progress

We are moving on from literature review to collecting data and some of us are having problems.

My Neighbouring Student emailed:

"I feel as if I am going around in circles with the research proposal. There are a number of ways I could do the research and I am struggling to explain why my prefered route is best."

Student from Hampshire is balancing home, health and study, about to take the family on a holiday, followed by an operation, but she hasn't yet collected data and has no participants to observe.
" Pressures of trying to get everything done before going away really - just not enough hours in the day and need to prioritise."

NS also has a family with a son that was off school yesterday so she had to stay home but has managed to get in for today's doctoral workshops conference presentations.

And I'm dead chuffed that I've had an encouraging email from a CEO whose organisation I'm hoping to use as my unit of study.

Accountability and tofu

Accountability is an abstract concept that is variously and metaphorically described as a social and political process (Day and Klein, 1987; Sinclair, 1995) with dimensions (Day and Klein), functions (Bovens, 2005), forms and discursive constructs (Sinclair, 1995).

And as a chameleon, a chimera, links in a chain, and tofu. Tofu? Yes - go and download Dubnick's draft paper, as he says not to quote it yet.

Clients and accountabilities

Had a supervisory meeting with S#2 today. Brilliant idea. Schein has identified several different types of client, and various writers describe different kinds of accountabilities. There may be research questions about how these accountabilities match to clients. Perhaps they could be mapped...

Why blog? why write?

At last week's Curriculum, Teaching & Student Support Conference at the OU there were reports from people who are investigating the use of blogs as learning tools. It seems an area ripe for research though I worry that some are saying "we've got a tool; how can we use it?" in the way that they say, "we've got a hammer; what can we hit?"

However, I agree with Miranda who wrote,

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"it’s like I have a running commentary in my head that just goes on and on, and it’s so abstract that writing is like the only way to make sense of what’s happening. Some days I write over fifteen pages straight, and still have no idea of what I’m trying to say, just that I haven’t said it yet."

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She is right; writing reflectively is what helps to make sense of what's in my head though I can't say that I'd write 'over fifteen pages straight'. I'm surprised how much I do write if I make the tiniest effort. And there's something about blogging that is better than writing a diary. There is this possibility that someone will read it because you do publish it in the hopes that there might be someone who wants to comment, so it's more than just reflective. And I also find it useful to go back to when I get to certain points in my study. Thoughts I had had come in useful later.

Aporia

When supervisor#2 to me last week that perhaps I was being too perfectionist in discarding possibilities, that he was being kind. Perhaps I am suffering from aporia. Do you know this term? I think this pertains to my lack of philosophical rhetoric. Apparently, aporia means:

"a state of puzzlement resulting from philosophical objections to proposed courses of action whilst simultaneously lacking any alternative solution." [1]

But Wikipedia also says it is an expression of doubt. I came across it in the context of performance appraisal, which is either “lauded” as central to organisational effectiveness or “denigrated” as a ritual. I suppose the state arises from such conundrums or dilemmas.

I suspect aporia applies in some way to accountability and might also relate to stakeholders and contracts. Supervisor#1 mentioned relational contracts. Contracts are usually thought of as legalistic and there are psychological contracts. Perhaps analysis of legalistic and relational contracts would reveal some aporia.

How would a stakeholder approach enable effective governance?

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[1] Simmons, J., Eades,E., 2004,
Challenging aporia in the performance appraisal of consultants: a stakeholder systems reponse, Clinician in Managment 12:153-63

Designing accountability

Power states [1] "Accountability and account giving are part of what it is to be a rational individual” (page 1). In order to audit, there must be:

1. a relationship of accountability


2. the relationship must be complex so that the principals are distant from the action and are unable personally to verify them.

Is accountability in the public services sufficiently complex that the principals are hardly known personally. So who verifies? Which principal can verify the action of the management agent in a public service? In the EDS case, it must have been vertical accountability from lower management up to Sir Nick Montague but was he so distant that audit would have been required? And would it have helped?

Power goes on (p123) to ask:
"What does accountability mean when it is operationalised by auditing?"
He relates themes of risk, trust, democracy and surveillance.

Page 127 the audit requires trust in experts; it is the dead end of the chain of accountability (Day & Klein: 244 [2]). Power states (p127):
“Audit expresses the promise of accountability and visibility”, which makes me think beyond visibility. Visibility is a design principle along with affordance, structure, consistency and feedback. So what other design principles apply to audit? Do they apply?

Day & Klein conclude (p249) that “accountability must be seen… as a system which is woven into the fabric of political and social life as a whole”

If accountability is a system, then somewhere it will show these design principles, even if they emerge naturally rather than be deliberately man designed.

Look for visibility, affordance, consistency, structure and feedback in systems of accountability.

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[1] Power, M., 1997, The audit society: rituals of verification, Oxford
[2] Day, P., Klein, R., 1987, Accountabilities: five public services, Tavistock Publications