doing creative and original research dr edgar a. whitley, isig, department of management
TRANSCRIPT
Doing creative andoriginal research
Dr Edgar A. Whitley, ISIG, Department of Management
Why worry about originality?
Thesis requirements (LSE)
• The scope of the thesis will be what might reasonably be expected after three or at most four years of full-time study.
• The thesis will:– form a distinct contribution to the
knowledge of the subject and afford evidence of originality by the discovery of new facts and / or by the exercise of independent critical power;
Strategizing for Compelling and Significant Research
Blue ocean versus red ocean strategies
• Compete in existing marketplace
• Beat the competition
• Exploit existing demand
• Create uncontested marketspace
• Make the competition irrelevant
• Capture and create new demand
What does it mean to be original in a PhD?
Original questions and answers
Where does originality come from?
Your perspective on a problem
• Highlights some things over others• Based on detailed immersion in the
situation–More experience means more focussed
perspective– Become socialised into the norms and
expectations of the academic community
• Awareness of anomalies
But
• Perspective might be limiting
• Consider destabilizing your views
How to be creative?
Be creative!
The best way to get a good idea …
… is to get a lot of ideas …
Linus Pauling
… and throw away the bad ones
Some strategies for originality
• Strive for failure
• Achieve collaborative inimicability
• Experimentation
• Thrive on gradual breakthroughs
• Practice unskilled learning
Practical steps
• Take advantage of interactions at LSE and beyond
• Jot down the ideas• Write them out• Seek positive criticism–Not “This is rubbish because …” but “In
what ways might we …”
Remember
• Idea generation and sifting are different tasks
• Have fallback strategies
An example
EnCoRe
• Making giving consent as reliable and easy as turning on a tap and revoking that consent as reliable and easy as turning it off again.
• Arose from a facilitated, ideas generating ‘sandpit’ workshop
• “The environment will encourage free and open-minded thinking”– The ability to develop new, adventurous
and highly original research ideas– The potential to contribute to research at
the interface between disciplines– The ability to work in a team– The ability to explain research to non
experts
• The EnCoRe team– Legal scholars in medical ethics– Secure computing specialists– Defence contractors with expertise in
compliance– Research officers from some of the
smallest and largest IT firms in the UK– Business and management expertise
from LSE
References / followups
• Blue ocean strategy: W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborne, Blue ocean strategy, Harvard Business School Press, 2005
• Strategizing for compelling and significant research, Allen S Lee, Editor’s comments, MIS Quarterly, 1999, 23(2) http://www.misq.org/archivist/vol/no23/issue2/edstat.html
• Ciborra CU (1991) From thinking to tinkering: The grassroots of strategic information systems. ICIS, 283-291.
