On learning to make creative contributions to the literature (or you need to do more than crunch numbers).
Recently, I was asked what distinguished between a good doc student & a great doc student.
The distinction is relatively simple - a good doc student masters the methods & literature presented in courses - a great doc student applies methods & literature to learn something new.
It's not a subtle distinction - it's the difference between being able to regurgitate content & create novel content.
Few students are capable of creating utterly novel content.
Most faculty take years to go beyond making incremental contributions & make the next leap forward to new knowledge frontier.
I'm not sure I'm there yet - I'm a work in progress.
Why?
Because it is tough to know what you don't know & even more difficult to learn how to extend an established body of knowledge coherently.
Mastering literature takes time, effort, & focus.
Extending literature takes more than that - it takes a bit of creativity.
So how do you do it?
First, take some time to understand the fundamental questions in your field.
In business disciplines, we tend to focus on improving the world through increasing the efficiency of markets, the effectiveness of management, or some other metric.
In other disciplines, conversations revolve around other metrics - such as health, well-being, ethics, & so on.
What is important is knowing the focal point of your field.
Second, take time to grasp research methods.
Methods fall in & out of favor. In my field, in the 1990s qualitative & interpretive methods picked up steam, and in the 2000s, econometrics & experiments became more popular. Lately, mixed methods have become popular.
While methods are a moving target, understanding their assumptions, their limits, & their strengths will give you a feel for how your field has evolved & how your field answers questions.
Third, recognize that applying new methods is not equivalent to contributing.
It's not the application of the method that is important - it is the insight gleaned from the method - which may seem obtuse.
Applying a method does not merit publication - nor claims of extending literature - it's the theoretical insight derived from the analysis that adds to our understanding.
Fourth, take some time to read classics on theory building.
Take some time to read the classics - Whetton, Bacharach, Suddaby, and more.
Ponder Kuhn, Popper, and reach even further back.
These authors will give you a clear rubric for how to think about theory & how to know if you've extended theory.
Fifth, take some time to think.
Very few people think outside the box. Practice problematizing what you think are interesting questions.
In doing so, ask yourself what the theories and methods you know tell you about a problem. If they tell you very little, you have a creative opportunity :)
Best of luck!
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