THE DOCTORATE SERIES (2 OF 7): HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS AND THE PROBLEM WITH PROBLEM STATEMENTS

“Imagine someone blindfolds you, leads you into a darkened room, spins you around several times, hands you a loaded gun…and then says “there’s a target in this room somewhere…try to hit it!”” Fellow DBA Student

In this second blog post in my “informal advice to those planning to undertake a doctorate,” I will discuss three key points: (1) How a DBA program works; (2) The process of developing your research question, and; (3) How to get organised.

When I started my DBA I will admit to being somewhat disorientated. The problem was I simply couldn’t picture a roadmap stretching out into the future that ended with me getting a doctorate. In part, this is completely natural because when you begin there are almost infinite paths you could tread...What...Why...How...and...Who...to research...create a perplexing number of variables. Consequently, your school will start with a wide net to cover all the possible bases. The problem is….it is so broad initially…it’s hard to see the wood for the trees. 

In this post, I’m going to share how I made sense of my program, developed my research question, and got organised. I will try to do this in general terms which might help the broadest audience.

THE DBA PROGRAM IN SUMMARY

What I’ve done below in Figure 1 is give you a high level overview of my DBA program. The first column shows how the DBA program was broken down into 8 deliverables (the last is something of an amalgamation of the others). The second column shows roughly the timeline (this will vary dramatically depending on what you are studying and your chosen research method…along with how much time you have to dedicate to the project). The final column deals with the questions or focus of your research. 

Figure 1 – Formal DBA Program Summary 

DBA PROGRAM CONSTRUCT

The way Cranfield designs its program is to set you 8 individual assignments which build to a complete thesis. While there is some overlap and iteration (particularly with deliverable 8), the idea is you focus on one of these at a time, present your work to an internal school panel, and when they are happy it is ‘doctoral standard,’ you pass to the next stage gate.

This approach has the benefit of allowing you to set bite size goals toward what is ultimately an 80,000 word thesis. However, there are three key points here:

(1)  Doctorate Degrees are based ONLY on the final product…the ‘progress’ through each stage gate is a confidence booster but doesn’t really matter for much when you get to the final Viva.

(2)  Not all stage gates are equal: I’ve highlighted in red the deliverables that I felt were most important and the ones that will probably make or break you at Viva.

(3)  Iterative: Probably the biggest single factor to remember is that these only make sense as a whole. Breaking them out makes the program seem less daunting BUT, and this is a HUGE but, they have to make sense when woven together.

On this last point, I found each previous assignment made MUCH more sense AFTER I had completed my NEXT assignment. One doctorate student told me he consequently found it easier to work on 3 assignments at the same time (the current assignment and the next 2). I tried that and found it helped to do a little of the reading and familiarise yourself with the questions you would be addressing next but, honestly, I had difficulty handling the required workload, let alone trying to work a bunch simultaneously.

TIME FRAME

The Cranfield program suggests a 4-year time frame. In reality, it seems about 5-10% of students can go faster than that, about 40% stay largely on course with 4 years and a good number take longer. Frankly, the timeframe, while to some extent influenced by research design choices, is in my view largely a personal thing. For me, once I’d completed my literature review and agreed my research question…I wanted to finish. It became a crusade, a passion, an obsession.

So...each to their own on timing. My main advice is to try to do something on your doctorate every day. I found any other routine resulted in you wasting time reacquainting yourself with where you left off. I also like routines.…so finding time every day felt right for me.

AN ALTERATIVE VIEW OF THE PROGRAM

There are a number of different ways to think about a doctorate program. The illustration in Figure 1 is one. Another way to think about it is the flow of your research question to literature review back to research question and then into data gathering/analysis, and finally to outputs. In Figure 2, I’ve attempted to show how the DBA actually felt to me.

Figure 2 – The way the DBA actually works

THE PROBLEM WITH PROBLEM STATEMENTS

In my first blog, I talked about writing your application essay and declaring your proposed research area. What you learn very quickly (in the first 6 months), is that you probably haven’t done a great job of expressing this question well enough to undertake research. You will probably revise it at least 3 times. In my figure 2, I show this first phase as a narrowing or sharpening of your question.

In my case, I started with succession and shareholder value and family firms. I was interested about the intersection of these three areas based on what I had witnessed working in India. I realised, gradually, that what I was really interested in was the intersection of organisational change and family businesses. It took me 12 months to get there and it was only AFTER I had completed my literature review.

In the first, yellow, section of my Figure 2, I show three stages with a literature review completed between stage 2 and 3. The literature review poses a different but related question about what research already exists. The idea is to mine this to: (1) ensure you are not embarking on a fruitless exercise which has already been covered, but also: (2) to be laser focused on where the gaps are and how best to target your research question. 

EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

After you have gotten very clear what you want to research, you enter the empirical investigation phase (what I’ve shown as green). This is the fun stage, or at least is was for me. I will cover this in more detail in a later blog.

THESIS STAGE

The final stage is what I’ve shown as the red thesis stage. This is where all of the pieces have to come together. Again, I’ll cover this in a later blog.

SOME PRACTICAL TIPS

There are so many complicated things to understand about pursuing a doctorate. Many I struggle to understand even now much less try to explain in a blog. However, there are some really easy and practical things that make a huge difference. I will list some that helped me below:

(1)  Journal– Keep a journal of your thoughts. I couldn’t commit to a diary but I found keeping a weekly log of where I was at and what I was thinking was useful. It was a paragraph typically. I would usually send this to my supervisor and he would occasionally write something back along the lines of “this is quite normal…don’t worry.”

(2)  Academic Advisory panel– Don’t be afraid to ask authors you’ve read who make sense to you on your subject if they would be willing to give you some occasional advice or even read some of your work. I formed a group of 5 academics who I collectively called my personal academic advisors. I simply sent them emails and they were hugely generous and kind in reading my ramblings and giving me pointers.

(3)  Adopt Faculty– I was very fortunate in being blessed with a great supervisor. However, I also tried to coop other members of the university faculty to support me. Two in particular became informal supervisors for me and they were incredible. Don’t be shy in asking people who you think ‘talk your language’ to help you. If you don’t ask…….

(4)  Literature Database– This is a grand way of referring to a excel spreadsheet where you make notes on every paper you read. I remember reading a paper and thinking…I’m sure I’ve read this before! Fortunately, about 3 months in, I set up a simple excel spreadsheet with filters and religiously wrote notes against every paper I subsequently read. I would refer back to this constantly. Today it has over 400 papers all listed with about 200-300 words of my summary against each.

(5)  Mendeley– This software has glitches. It is especially dodgy on Macs. However, you simply have to use it. It is really the best way to organise papers, read them on the move, and keep temporary notes.

(6)  Word Templates– I discovered 2 years in, that my University required me to submit my Thesis using a word template with built in macros and formatting. I would much rather have been practicing with the template from day one. I recommend if your University has a word template…start using it immediately. You can get your mistakes out of the way early on.

(7)  Have a Project Plan– I found having a plan, setting myself deadlines, and tracking my weekly progress hugely helpful. If you want to do a DBA you have to project manage yourself. DBA’s are a voyage into the unknown. It is easy to get lost. Incidentally, I also applaud the idea of setting a date to make a decision relative to your DBA. For many reasons this makes sense not the last of which is the process requires contstant iteration...a plan helps you keep moving forward. Try to stick to your own deadlines and keep moving…..you will revise your work but it will be improved and informed by your future work…so don’t fret too much (at least until Thesis and Viva).

(8)  Don’t over or under work– You can do both. I certainly did. I found 10-20 hours a week was my min/max. More than that and I made mistakes or missed key points. Less than that and I simply lost momentum.

(9)  You will have ups and downs – I found that despite my best efforts, I would occasionally get downbeat....generally after some tough panel sessions. This was mainly because it felt like goal posts got moved. My advice is….breathe…..take a week out if you need to…..but don’t let it stop you. If this were easy….well….you know the rest.

SUMMARY

In this second of my series of blogs on undertaking a DBA, I’ve focused on explaining the journey, how a DBA program works and a few tips on how to save time and keep on track. I suppose if I tried to summarise this blog in as few as words as possible I would say:

(1)  Try to keep a perspective of where you are in the overall journey and how the piece of work you are working on fits

(2)  Understand the program starts broad and after 12 months you will get clearer on what you need and what you don’t (the program will still fire at you stuff you don’t need!)

(3)  Get organised and make a plan that works for you

(4)  This can be a lonely journey….try to take some people with you and leverage the help that is available

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