Week 3 - Unit 2: Reflective Response

Jeff McCarthy

Athabasca University

MAIS 602: Research Methods

Dr. Lisa Micheelsen

Week 3 Unit 2 - Reflective Response

              Through the readings, reflections, and discussions in Unit 2, I have moved closer to a refined research question and a clearer focus on how I want to approach, manage, and relate to my overall research. I am still certain that I want to study leadership within complex public service and emergency management frameworks, particularly those that involve coordinating senior leadership teams. I am, however, no longer interested in combining NPOs under this research umbrella. I feel that my positionality is well-suited to conducting this research from a public service and emergency management lens rather than a non-profit organization lens. Unit 2 has forced me to think about how ethical responsibility, positionality, and relational accountability shape how I pose my research question and conduct my research.

              Conceptually, there isn’t anything I would change about my research interest or question. I am drawn to the notions of adaptive leadership, how power and authority are distributed in a multi-agency response, and how decision-making processes are affected in complex events, informed by my lived pandemic experience. If anything, Unit 2 has led to a slightly better research question and, perhaps more importantly, a considerably better researcher. Instead of treating ethics as inherent, a one-line consideration, or an afterthought, I now see the parallel between ethical responsibility and leadership in complex systems and responses. Bull et al. (2019) challenge conventional approaches to checkbox ethics in favour of a sustained, ongoing commitment to relational practices. This is not far removed from my earlier assumption that technical procedures and decision-making in emergency response can operate in a vacuum, unrelated to responders, victims, and downstream leaders responding to an ever-changing, evolving event. The technical, structured response practices must also be challenged, ethically.

              I also no longer see myself as the sole judge of what a better response framework in emergency

management could look like. I will be up front about my positionality and open to the possibility of

where adaptive lessons could take my research.  Where I once approached this research as someone who could fix structural problems, Unit 2 has helped me shed some ego, so that I now think my experience, positionality, and reflexivity can help me find what I would have otherwise overlooked. I will approach power, structure, impact, and political privilege differently, all for the betterment of my research. As Bull et al. (2019) suggested, ethical research is not only about meeting uninformed or institutional requirements; it’s about continually paying attention to the position of power, voice, and the impact of consequences.

              Although not explicit, I believe Bull et al. (2019) are advocating an inclusive and collaborative approach to research. This now resonates with me and informs my research approach. I am now actively thinking more about who actually benefits from my research. I hope to end up at a place that resembles common-sense outcomes through collective learning. Learning about ‘ethical responsibility’ has provided many insights into how best to approach ‘leadership responsibility’.

              I have revisited Bull et al.'s (2019) position on neutrality several times. My research will aim to measure the weight of political power in crises and its impact on planned responses and mitigation. I now plan to be transparent and reflexive about my positionality and proximity to that power distribution. I want to be open about my viewpoint so others can see that my research is values-based and driven by an understanding of relationships within emergency management frameworks. This is in stark contrast to how after-action reports are written during the recovery phase after an emergency. I am hopeful that my research will demonstrate that being open about my dual role as a researcher and an emergency management practitioner aids the research process rather than hindering it.

              As a result of Unit 2, I now view my research less as strictly an exercise in evaluation and more as an inquiry into relationships, power, leadership, and responsibility within complex public systems.

Research Question: How do senior Canadian public service and emergency management leaders experience and practice adaptive leadership during crisis response?

Bull, J., Beazley, K., Shea, J., MacQuarrie, C., Hudson, A., Shaw, K., Brunger, F., Kavanagh, C., & Gagné, B. (2019). Shifting ethics: The politics of ethics review and the regulation of research. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 14(3), 275–292. https://doi.org/10.1108/QROM-04-2018-1638