Article A6.2 Research is Like Sailing on a Sea Anand Agrawal Independent Researcher and Consultant, India prof.anand[at]gmail.com 1. On Entering a Research Career My entry into the world of research is through a newly launched doctoral programme in management and, fortunately or unfortunately, I was among its first batch of doctoral students. I still think, “doctoral guinea pigs” is a better way to describe the first batch. We were experimented upon with all the new modes of teaching in a doctoral programme--ranging from the Harvard style to the MIT style--spread across 3 years of classroom sessions, giving enough time to seasoned professors to try their methods on us. Consequently, we were left with tight schedules for seminars, presentations, research writings, case studies, management games, research projects, teaching assignments, and what not. Those dreadful days still haunt me as nightmares. Out of 20 students, four left the programme before the third year and six could not pass the final exam in the last year. I still wonder if there was a need for such a dreadful procedure to develop a successful researcher. After completing the doctoral programme, I joined industry, in a market research agency. I also continued teaching postgraduate students in some places on a part-time basis. 2. Sailing on a Sea You can never know a sea well enough--even experienced sailors are never too sure. They may know a part of the sea, but can never discover the entire sea in a single life time. Even the known parts of a sea may behave differently due to weather and a number of other factors. I believe, the moment one enters into the world of research through a doctoral program, one actually enters into a sea. The first few months go into understanding the general features and the undercurrents, so as to “locate” one’s position and not get lost in the open waters. Gradually, most students find a suitable undercurrent and decide to sail along it, exploring the parts where the current takes them, which they keep navigating sometimes for the rest of their research career. Well, most of the time, this is the only way to understand a sea--each researcher exploring a part, leaving us to combine the parts to understand the entire sea, if possible. 3. Symptoms and Underlying Problems Seeing my business card, executives in industry promptly ask, “So you are a doctor?” And, my standard reply is, “Yeah, but not a medical doctor; I am trying to be a doctor of management.” Often it acts as an ice-breaker--they start discussing their business problems and expect a diagnosis. Well, the challenge is the same in any research: understanding the problem. Symptoms of the problem are easy to detect, but often, research projects in industry aim to reach the “real” problem. It is quite similar to the task of framing one’s research problem in a doctoral programme, which often demands a lot of time and effort from the student. The only difference of course is the fact that most projects in industry need to be finished in just a few weeks. Therefore, the art of framing a problem quickly is the first and foremost requirement here. I acquire a bit of that over the years, starting from my doctoral programme where my initial 2 years went towards finalising the research problem. Now, I do regard myself a doctor, often trying to distinguish the symptoms from the underlying disease. 4. Solutions as By-Products The process of research involves identifying the underlying problems that explain the symptoms. Solutions, if any, emerging in the course of finding the underlying problems are in fact just “by-products.” Researchers keep busy finding more problems rather than solutions. Even in industry, where clients seek practical solutions to practical problems, no problem stays solved for long. One solution leads to other problems and this is the way research agencies generate work for themselves, keeping their clients captive. This is more or less similar to academic research, where research articles often provide a set of directions for future research, generating work for researchers, and doctoral students. 5. Quantitative or Qualitative I still remember how I barely managed to pass my mathematics examinations at secondary and higher-secondary levels. Still, given the quantitative bias of my university, I had to take the compulsory course on statistical modelling. I used to wonder, why are numbers so important? Great management researchers, such as Mintzberg, have worked with qualitative research, have not they? Later on, I realised that the dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative research is often overemphasised. A researcher needs to understand the nuances of both and, more importantly, where and how to apply these in course of research. In industry, both of these work in tandem and support each other, to find more problems! 6. Written and Oral Communication I used to get overwhelmed by what I write. But, sometimes I think my doctoral guide never read more than about 10 percent of what I wrote. Now, in industry, my boss never reads my research proposals or reports. I wonder how important written communication may really be in the process of research. As with my guide, so with my boss, orally discussing the problem and the proposed approach has helped us work together. Of course, written reports are often part of the deliverables in research, whether in academia or in industry. 7. Humble Contributions I often meet doctoral students aiming at creating a sea change through some breakthrough research. My experience suggests that a doctoral project would normally make a small contribution to a field of inquiry, often in the form of clarifying some old problems or identifying new ones (and maybe offering some solutions, as by-products). It is quite rare for a piece of doctoral research to contribute in the way of a major theory or a significant invention. Such momentous results take their own time and course, lying far beyond the limited scope of a single doctoral project. 8. Unknown Frontiers In general, research takes you towards unknown frontiers. Is there a “method” to it? Using the sailing analogy, should one sail along a particular current or just wander in the open waters? Is one problem more worthy of a researcher’s attention than another? I think the individual researcher has choices to be exercised in such matters. A particular current may take you towards interesting frontiers or familiar dead ends. Wandering in the open waters, one may leave a useful trail; sometimes one may even be lost. Speaking of the relative importance of specific research problems, one that seems less relevant today may become more relevant in future. Therefore, there may be no general way for selecting one over the other. No matter which problem is selected, or which undercurrent is navigated, research remains an adventure. Like in other adventures, there is no guarantee of a happy ending; primarily, the journey is the reward. Happy journey! Copyleft Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar 751013, India Research World (ISSN 0974-2379) http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/Home |
