Just could not go pass it: it totally expresses what I was thinking about for a long time:
"When survival is uncertain, cultural diversity
seems threatening. When there isn't
"enough to go around," foreigners are seen
as dangerous outsider who may take away
one's sustenance. People cling to traditional
gender roles and sexual norms, and emphasize
absolute rules and familiar norms in an
attempt to maximize predictability in an uncertain
world. Conversely, when survival begins
to be taken for granted, ethnic and cultural
diversity become increasingly acceptable—
indeed, beyond a certain point, diversity
is not only tolerated, il may be positively
valued because it is interesting and stimulating." ({Inglehart, 2000 #26})


Inglehart, R. and Baker, W. E. (2000) MODERNIZATION, CULTURAL CHANGE, AND THE PERSISTENCE OF TRADITIONAL VALUES, American Sociological Review, 65(1), pp. 19-51.

Case Studies

Reading now about using case studies for teaching purposes. Sounds like a bit of revelation for me. I mean every programmer hears "case study" approximately every day of the life, but it is just a bit of different way of seeing it: teaching method. After all - I'm using it all the time, maybe due to the lack of cultural context, I always try to explain everything using a parable. It is also a matter of politeness for me - I do not want to force my opinion and experience on another person, rather show the way to get to the same conclusions.
Anyway, what I've enjoyed in my reading: suggestion that each teacher should start with animal training, i.e. if the animal does not do the trick, it is not the animal's fault, but the teacher's. In my view, for a teacher it is much more difficult - he/she must be able to take responsibility for the way he/she teaches, in the same time it is important to make the student understand his/her own responsibility for the studies, i.e. using the parable of the animals again - the student gives himself the treat-reward for the success in the studies.
And the last: the quote about case study, which in my view is the quote about the life in general:
"ambiguous evidence, shifting variables, imperfect knowledge, no obvious right answers, and a ticking clock that impatiently demands action"[1] - "alice in Wonderland" isn't it?
1)B.Barnes, "The more I teach, the less I use the chalkboard," Echo, 1997

Luck

I was writing today a wish for a colleague that is leaving for another job and caught myself on the thought that I always wish people good luck. And it made me think: there are people with internal locus of control (ILC) and external locus of control(ELC) as suggested by Rotter. And I would think that I'm definitely a person with internal locus of control, whereas luck is a concept typical for the cultures with the domination of external locus of control. So why such contradiction?
I have a theory: I'm coming from a culture with external locus of control dominance and I have internal domination. Then I moved to the place with the dominance of ILC and I clearly remember the feeling that I belong more to this place, which was further sometimes replaced by the longing for the taking of the world in a more usual for my previous environment way. In the same time I find it very beneficial have a sort of different overview, I think it correlates with the conflict resolution suggestions by Trompenaars(1) where he advise to take the features where one culture excels and manage them on international level (to be fair - he has different suggestion for the reconsilation of ILC and ELC).
Another argument can be that I take luck as: "The more I practice the luckier I get", which is quite internal control view. Probably that's where ILC and ELC meet - my culture tells me that luck is important, but my personality makes it internal

1) Trompenaars, F. (1996) Resolving International Conflict: Culture and Business Strategy, Business Strategy Review, 7(3), p. 51.

Sad thoughts

1. I'm incredibly far from being where I'm supposed to be.
2. I took reading wide too seriously - read everything except for what was really relevant to my topic

On Selfishness in Business

I've been really inspired today reading Mintzberg's article[1] about selfishness. It seems to me that he raises incredibly important questions about the values in our world. Maybe it will be my first step into understanding the balance of business, money, contribution to society and my own role in this world as a grown-up.
I find that many views are oversimplified by common opinion, which makes most of the views just "uncommon nonsense"[2]. The definitions of a human being as a consumer of goods, a creature with unsatisfied needs was amazingly wittingly mocked in "Monday Begins On Saturday"[3] and is still very vivid in my mind.
I guess over the past year I've lost a lot of important feelings - and it caused me to lose the sense of living itself. My world should be large, otherwise it becomes cheap. I want to be able to give and feel responsibility and know that each day had some value. And I feel that I need to get back my internal integrity, maybe it was good that it was shaken - it should come back stronger.
Individualism is good, but it should be part of the society. Society should have values and protect them. I can't think of myself disconnected from the environment - I am nobody without the people around me and I can't achieve much on my own.
It is important to view the business as part of the contribution into this world - what we create at work is the most part that we can give to the society. Job is not a way to make money, it is a way to contribute something that I can do well, so that others will contribute into my life. I guess it should be a day to day question: does it make sense to do what I do? Should I do it differently? Should I not do it at all? It makes sense to live the life after all :-)

References:
[1] Mintzberg, H., Simons, R. and Basu, K. (2002) Beyond Selfishness, MIT Sloan Management Review, 44(1), pp. 67-74.
[2] L.Carrol "Alice in Wonderland"
[3]STRUGAT︠S︡KIĬ, A. N., & STRUGAT︠S︡KIĬ, B. N. (1978). Monday begins on Saturday. New York, Daw Books.

Random Ideas

"A society devoid of selfishness is certainly difficult to imagine.
But a society tbat glorifies selfishness can be hnagined only as
base. Tbe intention here is to challenge such a society — not to
deny human nature, but to confront a distorted view of it. In so
doing, we wish to promote another characteristic no less
human: engageiucut"

"Real leadership is often more quiet tban heroic. It is connected, involved and engaged. It is about teamwork and taking the longterm
perspective, building an organization slowly, carefully and collectively"

Mintzberg, H., Simons, R. and Basu, K. (2002) Beyond Selfishness, MIT Sloan Management Review, 44(1), pp. 67-74.


"a propensity for ahruism and harmonious cooperation in social groups is favored by natural selection. The old thesis of social Darwinism — strict selfishness — was based on an incomplete understanding of animals, particularly social species."(E. Mayr, "Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought," Scientific American,
July 2000, 83.)

What to read??

I'm getting a bit overwhelmed by the articles. How to decide which ones are good and which I should skip? I remember the same feeling when I was doing the proposal first time - initially just reading everything and then I did not use any of these articles at all - just had to do another search and used completely different sources.
Well, I guess this is ok with me. But what about key thinkers? I think Hofstede is well cited on cultural diversity. Others are Fons Trompenaars and Henry Mintzberg.
How to evaluate if they are really key thinkers?
I can't really find their books on the internet, so I'm not sure how to proceed with them. Will leave it for now and read other articles. Hope i will get the "key" ideas and theories out of there

UPDATE:
The best way is to search by the author on EBSCO - gives a lot of results.

Research Support

These guys help me in my journey:

PMBOK

Today I came accross a book called The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK):
http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/pdf/pmbok.pdf
Here is a small MM that I've created as an overview of the basic terms discussed there:

I must start reading...

I decided to set up reading goals (otherwise I will never read!). So for this week - let's take it easy:
Monday: 2 articles and find another 2
Tuesday: 2 articles
Wednesday: 2 articles and find another 2
Thursday: 2 articles and find 4
Friday: 1 article at lunch break :-) Find 3 new
Saturday: Organize all that was read, write a draft review on it
Sunday: Read "Research Journey"and plan for the next week.

Good luck for me!

Update - actuals:
Monday: found 1 more article and one book. Read 1 page. Hmmm

Postmodern Approach To Research

I was reading today about postmodern approach to science and it "clicked". It is so releaving to find out that the view of the world with multiples "knowledges", multiples "truths" is accepted. Looks like I just was not talking to the right people.
The world is so subjective - we call a thing "objective" if the influential majority agrees that it is so. Especially in social sciences - human being is changing and quite rapidly over the last decades.
It feels like a valid question for me to ask: is something in this world unchangeable or is there just no reason to change it? Or - we lack control of how we change it. We do not want to change the climate to result in global warming - but we are doing it (lack of control, but enough power).
Maybe our world can be viewed as just a tool that we as human beings are using to create. Science is the way to learn to control this process. At the moment we create in an experimentative way - how will it work? Sometimes we do not know. It is always a risk. But there is always not enough time -- we want to know the answers even if we risk a lot. But that's the human nature. Or is it? :) Came to the mind: "There are 2 kinds of people: those who do things and those who do not want to make mistakes". Obviouly, while those who do not want to make mistakes are always late and have to face the consequences. That's unproved generalization, of course :-)
But I was thinking about creating knowledge vs discovering it. There are 2 things that support this view in my mind. First, the observer (scientist) influences (changes) the observed object. So the truth was not the same before somebody took an effort to try and find it. The second, the world changes under our influence, so human beings themselves are creating those things that have to be studied and contributed to the knowledge base. Part of this second thing is the nature of human beings themselves - we are not only changing the world, we also change ourselves.
In a way I would also say that truth is a function of time - it changes continuously, so the findings about it are always too late to describe the real truth. And this post is hugely outdated as well :D

Decisions to be made

I'm still wondering which approach should I take: qualitative or quantitative?
What do I believe is more true?
[Continued]
Just read this:
http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research/Qualitative/qualquan.htm
Looks like my view of the world is more oriented towards qualitative research - holistic and unseparable from the researcher. I think I can still complement it with some quantitative data though. If it will work this way I mean :-) It will be actually very interesting to find out if these 2 appraches support or contradict each other in the context of my research questions.
I need to read more about analysis strategies. I think I will get some vague picture of the problem during my literature review, then I will need to make it clear, until I see the edges of the problem clearly. By this time I should have a set of hypothesa about the possible answers. I will find out the shortest way to prove them right or wrong. Or maybe prove that it is not possible to find an answer at the moment, or the answer is very context-tied and cannot be applied generally. The last step would be to provide theorectical explanation: why the answers were as they turned out to be.
This sounds pretty logical, so I'm not sure which research analysis strategy it is. Need to read more about it

Dissertation Requirements

I find that some of the dissertation requirements are easy, others are difficult.
I think the most difficult for me is"conceptual framework" - I just can't get what it means.
Probably the best definitions that I've found so far (http://www.mujersana.ca/msproject/framework1-e.php):
"It can be any or all of the following:

• A set of coherent ideas or concepts organized in a manner that makes them
  easy to communicate to others.
• An organized way of thinking about how and why a project takes place,
  and about how we understand its activities.
• The basis for thinking about what we do and about what it means, influenced
  by the ideas and research of others.
• An overview of ideas and practices that shape the way work is done
  in a project.
• A set of assumptions, values, and definitions under which we all work together."

I think it means a general knowledge about the subject. I assume the process of preparing the literature review should "create" conceptual framework in my mind. I guess the main goal of getting this conceptual framework is to find out where is the current knowledge about my topic, i.e. what is common view of the problem at the moment.

Maybe the second difficult part would be methodology. I guess I will just use the common methods and see where it will take me. Suppose I can always adjust on the way - stay agile :-)

Problems

I find it difficult to read. Well, I knew that I will hit this wall. I prefer writing. I think I will have to create a reading schedule and try to make it a habit to read a bit each day.
Or - maybe even better - if I will tell myself that here is an article, I'm going to write about it, thus forcing myself to read it.

What am I going to do

Just a very general starting brainstorming. I was trying to answer the question: "what am I going to do to write a dissertation?"




Done using FreeMind
Will refine it later as it becomes more clear.