Korean Job Discussion Forums

[gajackson1]

Hey, all - this one is a little unusual, so bear with me . . .

A very close friend of mine is working towards a PhD in business innovation management studies from aSSIST here in Seoul. (He is an older Korean male, and fairly successful businessman in his own right). The majority of the work has been done here, in conjunction with Twente University in the Netherlands.

The introduction is all written, review of related literature basically finalized, hypothesis and model are set, and the description of the research design and methodology already written, as well. The qualitative portion of the case study - about the innovative transformation of a company in crisis - has already been done. All that is needed to continue is the data analysis, to test the validity & draw conclusions from.

So, a set of over 100 survey-questionnaires (13 pages per survey) was produced, completed, and returned, and here is where he/we are stuck:

He NEEDS the surveys collated/tabulated (preferably in a format that we can 'play' with, to extract different results, based upon the demographic parameters/input) by an outside/independent source, to keep bias/partiality out of the equation (normally, this wouldn't be a problem - because the researcher is outside of what is being researched. However, this is a unique case, based on a case study of a company he formerly ran as a CEO. For the quantative end of things, he NEEDS to triangulate sources, and these surveys being independently worked are absolutely critical to the overall success/validity of the study).

Suffice to say, I started by tapping a handful of business/academic contacts to find someone here in Seoul capable of doing the work. I thought that Korea's branch of Accenture would be a good choice & up to the task, but no luck there - he got a generic 'your project is too small' form-letter reply, and no further referral/advice from them.

I've since contacted another DESLer here (who also happens to know the guy doing the PhD), and he's looking on his end, as well. But I figure with the number of other long-termers, advanced students, etc. someone may have a name to pass along.

Please note that while he is Korean (as was the company in question), the PhD is being produced in English initially, and will later be reproduced in Korean, for publication in related academic journals. So, whoever takes the job will need to be moderately comfortable in both (the surveys were written in English, but 'shadowed' in Korean, which makes things easier for both the respondents and whoever does the actual tabulation of the results.

I will answer whatever questions anyone may have, either here or by PM. Any help would be greatly appreciated, as always.

Regards,

Glen

(oh - just in case there was any question, yes - this is a normal research project for pay)

[blackbird]

Would the person helping out with the research be included as a co-author on any of the publications? That might be worth something. Also, some more details on what exactly you require would be heplful. Do you simply need someone to verify the statistics? What software are you using? Minitab, SAS?

[gajackson1]

sorry, BB, but there would be no 'co-authoring' credit - just the standard academic citation, etc. as well as name attachment for any related tables, charts, etc. produced. Acknowledgement in the forward, etc.

He's not looking for an individual to do it - if that were the case, a good student with any of the freeware suites (a la ADE-4) available could do it. Heck, I could probably brush up & do it, in that case. But he needs the clout of a firm behind it for credibility purposes. Most of the rest of the data comes either from the direct company reports, or by work done at Booz Allen Hamilton for consultation purposes back then. He doesn't want this part to be the weak pillar in the triangulations done.

As to the nature of the surveys? It was a survey of factors thought important in innovating a company - whether environmental in the workplace, the policies/practices of management, or the personality traits/characteristics of the top leaders/managers. Responses have been chosen then ranked; he'd like it all collated, and then be able to filter using demograpic keys (such as age, position, religion, etc.) to test for underlying patterns.

Hope that helps -

G.

[blackbird]

Oh well, thought I would ask. I am a math professor and am always on the lookout for possible publications Hope you find what you need.

[PRagic]

1. If the companies the data were collected from were not/are not affiliated with his case study target (the firm he used to run), then there would be nothing unethical about him personally inputting survey data and running the models he has already created.

2. It sounds like he is requesting data entry for 100 surveys. Generally, data for that small of a number of surveys can be put into Excel and later moved over to SPSS or SAS to work the stats. How involved are the stats he wants to run? You don't need to 'filter' the data to find out what he wants. From the sound of it, you could just run ANCOVAS. Also, for the purposes of a dissertation, he shouldn't be 'searching' for anything. He should be testing his hypothesis.

3. How in the hell did he get people to fill out 13 page questionnairs? Hard to believe his advisor let that slide!

Good luck to him. Sounds like interesting stuff.

[gajackson1]

Thanks, you two!

BB, absolutely no problem - over the years here in Korea, it has become the same for me, and most of the other long-termers (esp. those w/ Korean spouses are). Sometimes, a really amazing opportunity can come from a casual question-response like this.

PR, you are pretty intuitive! But like I said before, this is not a run-of-the-mill case study:

1) The company the data is collected from (only 1 company) is the EXACT same company he used to be the CEO of; indeed, a number of the survey respondents are the same people who used to work for him. Also, besides there being a quantitative end, there is also a qualitative portion, of free responses, where keywords and themes need to be extracted. While not much of an 'ethical issue,' there is certainly moreso of one here, as opposed to him doing the case study on an unrelated company, or with a partner/team. We're just trying to minimize that concern.

2)SPSS & SAS are the standards; we've also looked at Minitab, Portrait, and KXEN, as well as some others. For him, the key is balancing the mining with a GUI that isn't overly confusing; he is definitely an end-user in this sense. And yes, the hypothesis & models are set; however, because of the nature of the study, it is possible some patterns may be revealed by using different filter sets, such as age ranges, education levels, occupational groupings, etc. that would NOT be expected/anticipated otherwise. For example, is there any statistically significant difference based upon the religion of the respondent in regards to admired personality traits of managers, all other things being equal?

(That was just a random example, off the top of my head, for illustrative purposes. For anyone who just wandered in here, this is NOT a point of discussion/debate - take flame wars elsewhere!)

In this sense, the case study is also a springboard for other potential academics/practitioners. A lot of possible variations & follow-ups can be done, based upon different companies, industries, and countries.

3) 13 pages sounds like a lot, but it wasn't really; 1/2 page was an introduction, 1/2 a page was demographic/background info. MOST of the rest was lists of things that were checked, or repeats thereof that were ranked. A few open-response questions were given, with enough space for extended answers. And finally, the full survey was done in both Korean AND English, so the length was effectively doubled. From that perspective, it isn't so much, really.

So, the help & suggestions were appreciated. I think we've found a company that can handle it - he's going to go by their office later on today and see.

Warmest Regards,

Glen

[PRagic]

Ah, therein lied the confusion. Sounds like more of an ethnography than a case study. The questionnaire is now around 5 pages, and the responsdents are all in one firm.

With a solid lit review and methodology (operationalization), however, there shouldn't be too much more statistically that should be a surprise. This is not a new topic by any means (Gertler and MacPherson come to mind).

He should be able to analyze his own data. The ethical problem would have fallen in the choice of the company to begin with, and, for research purposes, during the data collection process. If he distributed the survey instrument, or the respondents knew it came from him, then there would be a problem. Now that he has the DATA, though, he should clean it and run everything himself under the guidance of his dissertation chair. I don't see any reason why this step has to be outsourced. In fact, I would insist that he do it himself!

Good luck finishing up. Once you get the data back, it gets exciting.

[Woland]

Gotta agree with PRagic; he should be able to do the analysis himself, especially the quantitative part. For the qualitative part, you want a second reader for a portion of the data (give 100 questionnaires, I'd say 30 to be safe) and do a reliability test showing that his analysis is consistent with what an outside reader does.

Really no need to go outside here except for that. If someone on the committee is insisting on it, then you're stuck, however.

[PRagic]

Thanks, Woland. I agree, though I doubt a chair would insist that data be run by a 2nd party. I imagine that he's looking at some T-Tests, Crosstabs, ANOVAs and maybe some correlation tables (depending on how the data are distributed). He could also put together some ANCOVA, a lin regression or, depending on his dependent variable, log/prob regression (though results are harder to interpret in the latter case). Depending on the depth of the data, he could also do some cool stuff spatially.

At his stage, all this should already be set up, though. It's just a matter of cleaning up the data and tweeking it to get normal distribution (depending on what he's doing - nonparametric runs are an option), all of which is pretty straight forward using SPSS (my favorite) or SAS. If push came to shove, you could do most of the above in EXCEL, but it would be a pain in the arse.

Just my 2 cents. Wishing him a good go of it. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on his data!

[PRagic]

Just one last thought. He could just run his stats, and then use the qualitative portion of the responses to buff out his results. Given the limited number of responses, this would be acceptable.