I have found a great video of Elinor Ostrom talking about the need in academia to push for more multidisciplinary research. Most of the creative side of her work came from studying various disciplines. Sadly, many don’t have the same approach or vision in academia. Enjoy!
You probably know Seth Godin. If not, you should. Godin is referred as a marketing guru. To me, he’s simply a brilliant man who knows a lot about business (entrepreneurship, marketing, management, etc.) Godin is also a best selling author such as Purple Cow and recently Poke the Box. More importantly, Godin is being followed by many via is great blog. Everyday, at least once, Godin posts a simple short blog post that makes you think and rethink about marketing and management. It is short but always really profound and deep — really effective.
So what’s the link with academic research? The reason that I am talking about Godin is to make you realize that in the field of academic research, we often tend to forget that we have to sell an idea (just like pitching) and hope to get publish (just like finding a buyer). We need marketing skills… yes we do — no matter what is your field of research. Suggestion: Simply read everyday Godin’s blog, and think about what Godin says and how is idea can be applied to research. You will be surprised how effective it is!
This year I had the opportunity to attend the 2011 Northern Finance Association conference for the first time. Over 100 papers were presented and I could only attend 25 presentations. There was some very good papers presented but sadly the quality of some presenters literally kills the significance of their work… we really need to improve the quality of presentations in academia – and in business in general. Anyhow, three presentations stood out for me (if I judge by the quality of the presentation and their research – I am aware that my personal interest biases this selection).
*in no order*
Aurelio Vasquez, ITAM “Volatility Term Structure and Option Returns”
Oyvind Norli (presenter), Norwegian School of Management; Diego Garcia, Kenan-Flagler Business School, UNC at Chapel Hill “Geographic Dispersion and Stock Returns”
Stephen Foerster (presenter), University of Western Ontario; Lionel Fogler, Kingwest & Company; Stephen Sapp, University of Western Ontario “Northern Exposure: How Canadian Small Stock Investments Can Benefit Investors”
Few weeks ago I arrived in Vancouver to start my PhD and I was able to find some time to start reading a book I wanted to read for a while … “Conjectures and Refutations” by Karl R. Popper. I won’t go into the details of the book but simply introduce one key point raised in C&R.
Some of you might know that Popper was a critical rationalism philosopher. In other words, the best way for us to increase our knowledge is through self-criticism or from criticism of others regarding our research findings and theories. We musty try to falsify theories (if falsifiable). The bottom line is that no one holds the definite truth.
Early in the book, Popper amplifies the idea that we seem to beg for authority in our quest for the truth, which can come from politicians, philosophers, etc – by anyone basically! We seem to beg for authority.
This reminded me of one of my former prof at the masters level that once told me that if you wish to publish a paper that disprove one particular theory that I must avoid some journals for publication if one of the editors is considered as an authority on the subject – in other words that editor is a proud supporter of the theory that my results might disprove. (No wonder there is so many papers that likes to prove a certain hypothesis and many researchers are afraid to take the risks to try to disprove a theory)
Now what is this… authority in social science? How can there be such thing as authority in social science? What is the difference between a dictator who says that he or she holds the truth on how social life should be organized and administered and someone who claims to be an authority in a particular field of social science? Don’t confuse authority and someone who has a lot of knowledge on a particular field of study. By authority I mean, someone who deliberately want to protect its views / findings (on a particular authority or hypothesis) from criticism.
This same prof also said that whatever we do in social is often “abstract”. So again, how can there be someone claiming authority in the abstract world? Truth is above human authority…
“What we should do, I suggest is to give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for truth even though it be beyond our reach. We may admit that our groping is often inspired, but we must be on our guard against the belief, however deeply felt, that our inspiration carries any authority, divine or otherwise. If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be fond within the whole province of our knowledge, however far it may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without danger, the idea that truth is beyond human authority. And we must retain it. For without this idea there can be no objective standards of inquiry; no criticism of our conjectures; no groping for the unknown; no quest for knowledge.” (p.39 of Conjectures and Refutations; Karl Popper; 2010 reprinted edition of Routledge)
Since I’ve graduated from my Masters back in April, I wasn’t too sure whether or not I would prefer working or do a PhD. Quite frankly, I didn’t want to do a PhD. I was seeking employment in the field of International Business or Finance. I had one nice work opportunity in International Business that I almost got but fell short to a candidate with more experience. However, in June I learned that I was a recipient of the SSHRC bursary if I would do a PhD in Canada. Right away I was about to cancel the bursary since I haven’t applied to any PhD graduate schools : )
Over the following weeks, the recurring thoughts of “what I would like to research if I do a PhD” started to hunt me. Fractals in finance (or multifractality) always came back in my mind. In the past two years I developed a keen interest in fractals thanks to Benoit Mandelbrot and Nassim Taleb. I also know that there was a professor at the University of British Columbia (Sauder School of Business) that specialized in the subject. I got excited, call the researcher / professor in question and asked whether I could apply for January 2012… he asked me to come right away for September 2011. Well, two months after receiving a letter stating that I was a recipient of the SSHRC bursary I am now in Vancouver BC. Am I excited: Yes! Will this program be easy: Hell no!
I will update this blog more often now since I am now “set”. Expect a lot of blog post on research and other finance related subjects.
My co-researcher and I are conducting and writing a literature review paper on a particular topic concerning small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is the first time for both of us that we are writing a paper that simply focus on a literature review of a particular topic. Conducting a good literature review takes as much patience as collecting data. It was a fun but very challenging process. Most of the challenge comes from not being efficient enough at keeping track of all the papers and journals you go through. Therefore, I decided to write a little recipe on how to conduct a good literature review.
Step 1: “Be a drunken cowboy” – shoot everywhere!
Simply use Google Scholar search engine and “shoot” at every direction using various words related to your subject. Collect all the papers that sound interesting by reading it quickly (abstract, conclusion, and then introduction if needed) and look at their bibliographical references. Search for each paper in the bibliography that may be pertinent to your subject by looking at the title of the paper.
Step 2: “Be a bookie!” – Record your papers
Open excel and record every papers that you went through. Record the following information for each paper:
- Author(s) name(s)
- Title of the paper
- Publication/Journal name
- Year of publication
- Have a one line resume of the paper
- Methodology used (i.e. qualitative, OLS regression, etc.)
- Theory (or theories) employed by the author(s)
- Is this paper really relevant for your literature review? (Yes, no, maybe)
Step 3: “Be snobby” – Pay a closer attention to the top journals (or as often referred in academia as “A” journals)
List all the top journals in the field of study (related to your literature review topic) and do an in-depth search in each publication using various key words. Don’t be too selective on the papers you find (from the search engine of the journal’s publisher website). Browse each “potentially interesting” paper and record them as per Step 2. Also take note of any particular interesting papers mentioned in the references.
Step 4: “Stop being snobby!” – Look at the non-top journals (or as often referred in academia as “B” or “C” journals)
Is there a journal that is not considered the top in its field but focuses particularly on your research topic? If yes, apply Step 3 to this journal also.
Next, look at all the papers you have recorded in your excel document and count the number of papers for each journals. Are there some journals that are not “top journals” or do not focus particularly on your research topic/subject but have a good amount of papers that you have found that is related to your topic of research? If yes, then apply Step 3 to this publication also!
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Following these steps will avoid you from browsing too many journals which takes a lot of time and be concise in your research analysis.
I am finally done with my Masters degree. I hand-in my thesis in April and got a really nice grade. I am somewhat proud of my work but the best is yet to come. My director Jean-Claude Cosset, co-director Anis Samet, and I are working together on its publication. My research process of the last eight months has been relatively smooth – not too much stress. Though, I have to admit that my thesis experience at the bachelor level helped me a lot. Nonetheless, I have done some very stupid and common mistakes during the process. I would like to share with you these mistakes because that is how we learn and get better for future research. We learn much more through errors and mistakes than successes. Here they are:
(1) Never assume your readers know what you are talking “about”
(2) Never write any value judgment sentences in your work (e.g. “I believe that this work is a major step towards better comprehension in the field of….)
(3) Never cite a paper without having read it
(4) Never ignore the contribution and motivation in your introduction
(5) Never forget to list your assumptions
(6) Never ignore most recent published or working papers in your research field. Always stay up-to-date through the writing process of your research
(7) Never work to fast! Research always takes more time than expected…but that is sometime the beauty of research
(8) Never tackle your research without a plan…but never believe that your plan is “set-in-stone”
that’s pretty much it!
Personally, what I think is the most important thing when it comes to presentation is to know who your audience is. You will not have a successful presentation if you can’t bond effectively with your listeners and it all starts by knowing who will attend your presentation.
Resonate – a book by Nancy Duarte
Nancy Duarte, CEO of Duarte Design (the firm behind Al Gore’s presentation “An Inconvenient Truth”) recently released a new book titled “Resonate”. It is a simple book but how effective at teaching you the basics (and more) at making sure that your message in your presentation resonates with the audience. The author argues that in order to “resonate” with your audience you must follow simple rules. One of these rules is: “If a presenter knows the audience’s resonant frequency and tunes to that, the audience will move.
Duarte says that before a presentation, you must know who your audience is by segmenting them in groups. In other words, segment them by answering this question: “Who are they?” You may segment them by lifestyle, knowledge, motivation and desire, values, influence, and respect. That is what I exactly did few weeks ago…
Presenting your research to academics – what’s their background?
I had to present my Masters Degree research to my department, not for defending my thesis, but to demonstrate that my research has a good chance to publish in the upcoming year. My research is titled “Do Political Institutions Affect the Choice of the US Cross-Listing Venue?” Now, since I did my research in the international business department and not finance (despite my work being more a finance discipline type of research) I was presenting to a group of academics with various backgrounds such as economics, finance, political science, strategy, etc. So like usual, I did some very basic and quick research on the background of the individuals assisting my presentation. I asked my research director who will attend the presentation and researched them on the web. I quickly realized that many comes from different background and consequently I would face some difficulties at making my research “resonate” with them if I don’t take this into account.
When I started my presentation, one of the first thing I did is to read the title of my work and say right away that I expect many to be 100% clueless of what my title or research is all about. The second thing I did was not to dive directly in the work/research itself but to take time and define three things:
(1) What is “Cross-Listing”?
(2) What is a “Cross-Listing Venue”?
(3) What do I mean by “Political Institutions”
Again, my title of my work is “Do Political Institutions Affect the Choice of the US Cross-Listing Venue?” (to be available soon on SSRN and my website)
I made sure that everyone understood these three set of terms and the research question. I also tried my best to relate each terms with various research fields. This was really appreciated by my audience. We were all on the same page from the beginning. Then it was easy for me to carry them on through my research. If I had dive in my research from the start, it would have been a major failure…quite early in the presentation!
There are more universities around the world that offers the chance for many to pursue their studies via a Masters
degree with two distinctive pathways: (1) academic research and (2) supervised project (i.e. doing an internship somewhere like in a company with more courses). For this short blog post, I will argue why doing an academic research is not as bad as you may think… in fact you can get a lot of practical (yes I said practical) skills.