MA-IS 602 Assignment 1: Research Question BrainstormingJeff McCarthyAthabasca UniversityMAIS

MA-IS 602 Assignment 1: Research Question Brainstorming

Jeff McCarthy

Athabasca University

MAIS 602: Research Methods

Dr. Lisa Micheelsen

Step 1: Initial Area of Interest

My area of interest is leadership in complex public systems, particularly in public service, emergency management, and non-profit organizations. This interest originated during a particularly stressful period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Essentially, it was my observation that emergency managers had spent decades creating all-hazard emergency response plans that quickly became obsolete as authority shifted from a collaborative, emergency management systems response to the political centre. 

In my view, leaders (deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers, public health officials, emergency managers, and local municipal leaders) became increasingly frustrated by the lack of adaptability to the challenges they faced.  My exposure to decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, crisis, and public accountability placed the concept of leadership and public service values under a microscope.

I was left to question my own public service management training in a time that called for certainty.  If, from time to time, we are meant to put multi-disciplinary leaders in the same boat so they may all row in the same direction toward a single outcome, how then do we account for multi-disciplinary approaches to leadership? Are we adding to the complexity and chaos of crisis response by not addressing this question? Are there not ample lessons from the pandemic to make us better leaders in times of crisis? Does a complex multi-threat horizon (political uncertainty, distrust in public institutions, economic upheaval, disintegration of rules-based order, environmental impacts, etc.) not point to the current resonance of this question, if not its immediacy?  In the face of greater threats, does building better leaders simply equate to achieving better outcomes or at the very least, fewer risks and vulnerabilities?

Step 2: Key Terms / Concepts

From this (distressingly) broad approach, I have extracted several key terms and concepts:

·       Adaptive leadership

·       Command and control leadership

·       Technical vs. adaptive challenges

·       Leadership vs. authority vs. political control

·       Public service leadership

·       Public service values

·       Crisis and emergency management

·       Crisis response coordination

·       Organizational complexity

·       Psychology of crisis response

·       Multi-disciplinary response

·       Governance and accountability

• Post-crisis or post-pandemic leadership contexts

• Public trust in crisis response

• Interoperability

• Political roles in crisis response

When searching for these terms and concepts in the AU Library, it quickly became apparent that there is a wealth of research on adaptive leadership lessons from the pandemic, highlighting the need for transparency, better communication, empathy, emotional intelligence, and collaborative frameworks, among others.

Multiple articles dealt with the application of pandemic-related adaptive leadership lessons to:

·       Education and teaching

·       Work arrangements

·       Business frameworks

·       Political administration

·       Corporate communication

·       Effects of burnout

·       General adaptive leadership lessons and case studies

A cursory reading of a selection of these articles and their specific research helped solidify my thoughts on leadership practices that arise despite traditional hierarchies, plans, and tactics.  Many articles addressed the best practices that emerged from the chaos (fog of war) of a global emergency response.

Step 3: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

This topic of pandemic-related adaptive leadership draws on multiple disciplinary lenses, including:

·       Leadership studies (adaptive leadership theory)

·       Public administration and political science (bureaucratic systems, accountability, governance)

·       Emergency management (interoperability, crisis management and response, after-action reporting and mitigation)

·       Organizational management (complex systems, role expectations, authority, governance)

Step 4: Narrowing Focus

Through the brainstorming process, my focus narrowed from crisis-response leadership in general to senior leaders who lead other leaders in complex public and emergency-management systems. Of particular interest are situations in which traditional authority structures are inadequate to address a myriad of simultaneous or black-swan challenges, potentially triggering cascading failures.

I believe, therefore, that my research interest may now be more focused on the question of who or what leads the leaders.  More specifically, this exercise and the available research compel me to question whether the pandemic experience offers sufficient lessons in adaptive leadership to inform the development of a new emergency management leadership framework. 

Final Research Question

What adaptive leadership challenges do senior public service and emergency-management leaders face when leading other leaders in complex public systems, and how do they respond to these challenges?

Final Thoughts

The literature review was the most revelatory and helpful part of the exercise. Admittedly, I was relieved to see the depth of research available with a similar focus, while also experiencing a brief sense of dread about whether my questions and assumptions had already been researched, tested, and proven. I was left to wonder whether these fleeting moments of uncertainty are common among academics. This process has made me acutely aware that I also need to learn to temper the biases and assumptions my lived experience has created.   Agee (2009) warned that “writing leading questions that arrive at certain conclusions before collecting data can bias a study in a way that damages its credibility” (p.444).

This reflective exercise has been helpful in developing my research question.  However, I suspect I will benefit from continuing the process until I achieve greater satisfaction and refinement.  I believe I started from the broadest possible position, making the process both harder and more essential. 

Agee, J. (2009). Developing qualitative research questions: A reflective process. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22(4), 431-447. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390902736512