This research seeks to gain an interpretive understanding o f senior managers’
conceptions of PPM work. A review o f phenomenography as an interpretive research approach to exploring people’s conceptions of phenomena, demonstrates an opportunity for its adoption in this study. Specifically, I have selected phenomenography as the approach for this research for the following reasons.
First, phenomenography is an interpretive research approach that adopts a non-dualistic epistemology. As such, it focuses on the internal relation between person and world, rather than focusing on either one separately. In this study, senior managers and PPM work are viewed as forming a unity. Senior managers’ competence in PPM cannot be captured in training manuals and activity lists, but it is established through the
subjective meaning that PPM work acquires for senior managers as they experience it in practice. Following the phenomenographic approach, the researcher’s job is to
understand what individual senior managers conceive of as PPM work, and through the elicitation o f examples, how they conceive of it (Sandberg, 2000; Partington et al., 2005). This has the potential to provide a direct and full description of senior managers’ conceptions of their work in PPM.
Second, phenomenographic research is aimed at the ‘description, analysis and
understanding of experiences; that is, research which is directed towards experiential description’ (Marton, 1981: 180). It is not based on the researcher’s preconceived notions resulting from previous empirical research on PPM. Therefore, the focus of phenomenographic research on PPM work is individuals’ experience o f the work. Third, phenomenography focuses on variation. On the basis of variation in life experience, phenomena in the surrounding world will appear differently to different individuals. Phenomenography provides the potential to identify variation of
conceptions of the same phenomenon across individuals. As Marton suggests (1986), a detailed account o f people’s conceptions o f a reality may help identify conditions that facilitate the transition from one conception to a better or higher-level conception o f the reality. A comparison of the similarities and differences across conceptions may provide insights for good PPM practice.
Fourth, the interpretive research approach utilised in this research can be used to identify and describe competence at work in terms o f worker’s conceptions o f their work (Sandberg, 2000). By taking the senior managers’ conceptions as the point of departure, it is possible to identify what constitutes competence in PPM work, and therefore answer the call by Whittington (2003) for more empirical research on identifying the skills required for strategising and organising work. Competence development would be achieved by changing conceptions o f work, as Sandberg suggests (2000).
Fifth, phenomenographic research does not ascribe individual differences in the meaning o f PPM work to either social or individual factors. Instead, differences in meaning between individuals ‘correspond with changes in individuals’ ways of seeing the individual-world relationship’ (Watkins, 2000: 103); so different conceptions of PPM work are based on different individual experiences of the work.
Sixth, life-world ontology can be used to re-examine and re-conceptualise practice, since life-world concepts align to common features o f practice approaches. Practitioners dwell in the practice worlds through education and work. ‘While members of
organisations are defined by these practice worlds, their practices are likewise
inseparable from the practitioners and others who live and enact them. Hence, practice and its members are co-constituted; neither can exist without the other’ (Sandberg and Dall’Alba, 2009: 1355). In particular, the relational character of practice is central within a life-world perspective. Key practice elements, such as activities, knowledge and people do not exist independently of each other; they are intertwined in practice worlds. In fact, life-world ontology considers entwinement of ourselves, others and things as our most important form of being, since we are always involved in social practices such as strategy, cooking, parenthood and so on (Sandberg and Dall’Alba, 2009). In other words, ‘engagement in activities presupposes entwinement with our world. Entwinement makes possible these activities; it does not occur as a consequence of them’ (Sandberg and Dali’Alba, 2009: 1355).
4.7 Summary
This chapter presented the rationale for adopting phenomenography as the research method for this study. I introduced phenomenography and presented the key assumptions underlying phenomenographic research. In relation to the research question, I then introduced phenomenography as a suitable research method for understanding workers’ competence at work. I explained that as the research would focus on individual senior manager’s experience of PPM work, this approach would allow me to provide a direct and full description of senior managers’ conceptions of their work in PPM. In summary, phenomenography’s focus on experience, its non- dualistic epistemology, and its consideration of the relational nature of practice, offer the opportunity to gain a more comprehensive understanding of senior managers’ understandings o f PPM work.
CHAPTER FIVE: METHOD
In this Chapter, I describe the research design as well as my approach to data collection and analysis. In Section 5 .1 ,1 review the approach taken to sampling. Section 5.2 covers issues related to access to the sample. I then review the data collection process in
Section 5.3, which includes the pilot study and the main study. My method o f data analysis is described in Section 5.4. Section 5.5 examines the issues of validity and reliability. Lastly, I summarise the chapter in Section 5.6.