The document discusses strategies for postgraduate education in the context of dissertation writing, emphasizing the importance of identifying a 'golden thread' within one's data that reflects the true outcomes. It highlights the need for integrating literature and personal insights into research while encouraging a narrative inquiry approach to understand experiences during organizational change. Additionally, it outlines the structure of a research study that examines how managers interpret their experiences amidst radical changes, supported by empirical narratives and a framework analysis.

1. Exploiting Rapid
Change in Technology
Enhanced Learning
… for Post Graduate Education
After Data:
Weaving Together the EndGame

2. For me, …. is like chess. It's like I'm herding a
person/readers into a certain position. Say my endgame
is an arm bar a final dissertation or thesis. I'm not gonna
actually take you and put you there. What I'm going to do
is convince you that it's a good idea to move in the
direction I want you to go.
Ronda Rousey

3. Agenda: This week the Threads…
Next week outcomes of the exercise
1. What is your golden thread? DATA
2. How does this look in light of your field? LITERATURE
3. What is important to you personally? DISCUSSION
4. How do you sum it up? INTRO & ABSTRACT
Exercise – answer those 4 questions after listening today.
NEXT WEEK – backwards mapping getting it done.

4. What is your golden thread?
HINT: Its in your data….

5. Golden Thread -
Not what you thought you were
studying….
Not what you want to say at the
end….
What your data actually confirms
as true?
What is the real outcome of your data?

6. Golden Thread.2
You have designed each chapter to
augment that golden thread.
Now decide whether and to what extent…

7. Literature

8. How does this look in light of your
field?
What needs to be reworked?
What is no longer necessary?
What new material has been written
that may add to your discussion?
Have you already written your lit? If
so, how much needs to be rewritten?
This is the story your literature has to sustain

9. Discussion: What is important to you?

10. Discussion
This is where your voice as a researcher and
writer should come through.
What do YOU want to say?
Do you have full substantiation of it?
What recommendations for future study does
that lead you towards?
What three points do you want your reader to retain?

11. Summing it up in a concise manner

12. Introduction
Not a synopsis of the whole text
But a lead in for the reader of the full journey
Leave us:
• understanding completely where we are
going
• but also wanting to travel the full
distance
A summation of the what and why of the research w a hint and the where it
ended.

13. Abstract
The purpose of this research…
Scope…
The methodology used …
Findings…
Conclusions…
Limitations …
Contributions…
http://www.doctoralnet.com/phase-3/3-5-writing-final-phd-thesis-things-to-keep-
in-mind/dissertation-thesis-polished/947-video-how-to-write-abstracts-for-
doctoral-dissertations.html
The full journey in 7-10 sentences

14. How an award winner did this

15. Abstract
This study explores how individuals understand and make meaning of their experiences while in the midst of
radical organizational change. Empirical materials for this research were obtained though written stories and
interviews of two groups of managers within the Canadian public sector who were themselves in the throes
of organizational change. The findings of this study were analyzed through a three dimensional narrative-
inquiry-space framework.
In this study, stories and metaphors were used as expressions of experience. The results of this study
support the postmodernist notion of a dialectical, co-constructed, and recursive relationship within
expressions, namely between metaphors and stories, and between expressions and experience. It was also
discovered that 7 key variables moderated the relationship between expressions and experience. These
variables are linked to 4 categories: cognitive, internal beliefs, relationships, and language.
The findings of this study suggest that the success of managing change is directly related to the ability of
leaders to attend to the problem of the interconnectedness between cybernetics and interpretive paradigms.
The scholarly need to address this problem was in direct response to the predominant tendency among
scholars and change practitioners to focus exclusively on either one of the two approaches. Accordingly, the
call to scholars and practitioners to shift from systems to stories is grounded in the need to shift from the
cognitive tyranny of either-or to the genius of the and. Narrative inquiry is well aligned to promoting the
cognitive genius of the and as a strategic tradition of inquiry.
Narrative Inquiry into the Experiences of Individuals in the Midst of
Organizational Change: A Shift from Systems to Stories by Stanley M.
Amaladas

16. Introduction
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY.
Introduction
The Statement of the Problem
Background
Purpose of the Study
Significance of Study
Nature of the Study
Research Questions
Conceptual Framework
The Perspective of System Integration
The Perspective of Social Integration
On Demonstrating the Interconnection
Definition of Terms
Assumptions
Scope and Delimitation
Limitations
Functionary-effect
Tenure in Current Position
Willingness to Participate
Summary
Organization of Dissertation

17. Literature Review
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Overview 35
Section 1: Stories from the 18th to Early 20th Centuries 36
Rousseau's Experience and his Story of Change 36
Marx's Experience and his Story of Change 39
Weber's Experience and his Story of Change42
Durkheim's Experience and his Story of Change 44
Section 2: From Reflective Thinking to Intentional Planning 49
Frederick Taylor and Scientific Management.50
Elton Mayo and the Human Relations School. 53
The Rise of Systems Thinking 55
Cybernetics and the Steering Role of Management. 56
Section 3: The Experience of the Individual in the Midst of Change 64
The Modemist's Perspective 64
The Perspective of Postmodemism 68
Summary 70

18. Methodology
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Description of Narrative Method of Inquiry 72
Methodological Guidelines and Implications for Social Research
77
Sample 80
The Collection of Empirical Materials 84
Establishing Validity 90
Selection of Participants 90
Functionary-effect91
Credibility 92
Reactivity 95
Ethical Concerns 96
Method of Analysis 98
Summary

19. Results
CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS OF EMPIRICAL MATERIALS
Overview
Analysis: Three-Dimensional-Narrative-Inquiry-Space 106
The First Dimension: Temporal Context
The Third Dimension: The Landscape 109
Red Team 109
Blue Team 112
The Second Dimension: The Personal and Social 113
Stories as Informed and Structured by the Use of Metaphors
The Red Team
Jennifer: It is like being a hamster on a forever turn wheel
and a dog chasing his tail 118
Kathy: It is like being card players in a game 121
Jerome: The emperor has no clothes 122
Melanie: It is like being in a tense-filled relationship
that could be cut with a knife
Joan: I am their mother hen 126

20. Results
Storying as a Product of Already-Made Decisions 128
Transformation of "If ' to "When" 129
Fabricated Conclusions as Driving Decisions 131
The Forgetfulness of Authorship 132
On the Connectedness Between System Integration and Social Integration
Stories as Informed by the Power of Recall 136
Recurrence of a Recursive Relationship 140
Significance of Backward Glance 142
On the Interconnectedness Between System Integration and Social Integration
Stories about the Lack of Management Support 144
Looking Outward and Corresponding Inward Reactions 144
The Voice of Symbolic Interaction 147
The Voice of Critical Theory 148
Recursive Relationship as Proposed by Bateson 149
Stories as a Product of Competing Understandings of the Problem 150
Storied Outcomes Inadvertently Affinned by the Researcher 152

21. Discussion
CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Overview 188
Summary 189
Methodology 189
Summary of Findings 192
Conclusions in Relation to the First Research Question 193
Red Team: Recursive Relationships between Metaphors and Stories
Blue Team: Recursive Relationships Between Metaphors and Stories
Conclusions in Relation to the Second Research Question 203
The Cognitive Category 205
Revelation 1: The dialectical and recursive relationship between
experience and acts of attention 205
Revelation 2: The recursive relationship between already-made
decisions and experience 209

22. Conclusions
Conclusions 220
1. The problem is out there and the problem is co-constructed 221
Information and interpretation 229
Problem and paradox 230
On building relationships 232
On the relationship between interviewer and interviewee 233
Recommendations and Implications 236
A Statement on Social Impact. 241
Contribution to the Literature 245
Implications for Future Research

23. EXERCISE: Answer the questions in
this set of slides for your own study
– come back next time to work on
the timing needed to pull it off!

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