Respond to two or more of your colleagues

Post an evaluation of ethical considerations for independent scholars within the doctoral research process. In your evaluation, do the following:

· Briefly describe your problem statement and the topic you have chosen for your individual Doctoral Study.

· Analyze any potential biases, assumptions, and attitudes that may impact your Doctoral Study, including how you identified these issues.

· Explain potential strategies for addressing and limiting the negative impact of your own biases, assumptions, and attitudes on your study. Be sure to provide scholarly examples to support your explanation.

Be sure to support your work with a minimum of two specific citations from this week’s Learning Resources and one or more additional scholarly sources.

Juan

Describe your problem statement and the topic you have chosen for your individual Doctoral Study.

Previous research identified that businesses adhering to supply chain management (SCM) principles enjoy higher profitability and improve their overall business performance (Mat, Johari, Azis, & Hashim, 2018). Yet, the specific business problem is that some business managers fail to integrate supply chain management into their business strategy. Therefore, the goal of the research is to discover business practices managers are using to integrate SCM into their business strategy. However, as Yin (2018) noted, it is incumbent on the researcher to remove potential threats to reliability and validity, including individual bias. 

Analyze any potential biases, assumptions, and attitudes that may impact your Doctoral Study, including how you identified these issues.

Therefore, as Saunders Lewis, and Thornhill (2015) discussed, within the research design, data collection and analysis the researcher’s efforts should include removing his or her own subjectivity and assumptions. As an example, as the instrument of my research, I carefully transcribed the information collected from participants interviewed paraphrasing only to achieve clarity. The goal was to present the information as accurately as possible to ensure the participants message was presented without my professional bias. Equally, I allowed the participants to express their experiences then categorized and coded the data to complete the analysis. 

Explain potential strategies for addressing and limiting the negative impact of your own biases, assumptions, and attitudes on your study. 

            Fully aware that both the interviewer and the interviewee could allow their prejudices and assumptions to compromise the data collected, I controlled my non-verbal behavior and allowed the participant to dictate the place and time where conduct the interview. As Saunders et al. (2015) expressed, the approach helped limit causes of biases. Moreover, I rehearsed several times with friends and colleagues and identified several behavioral affinities which could have made the interviewees uncomfortable and unwilling to provide in-depth answers. Lastly, to safeguard the integrity of the data collected I made a verbatim transcription of the data then used an inductive approach to analyze the information gathered; a method which Loubere (2017) described as the systematic and reflexive interviewing and reporting (SRIR). 

 

References

 

Mat, T. Z. T., Johari, N. R. M., Azis, M. A. A., & Hashim, M. R. (2018). Influence of information technology, skills and knowledge, and financial resources on inventory management practices amongst small and medium retailers in Malaysia. Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Journal, 13(2), 173–200. Retrieved from https://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=133405814&site=eds-live&scope=site

Loubere, N. (2017). Questioning Transcription: The Case for the Systematic and Reflexive Interviewing and Reporting (SRIR) Method. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, (2). Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsdoj&AN=edsdoj.0329791f14934bd8a8ad5157c425de91&site=eds-live&scope=site

Saunders, M. N. K., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2015). Research methods for business students (7th ed.). Essex, England: Pearson Education Unlimited.

Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Courtney

My problem statement revolves around the practices, procedures, and strategies of agencies and how they handle the buyer-supplier relationship from beginning to end and identifying the constraints that prohibit the flow of a service or product.

An issue I have identified is that I myself work for one of the agencies I hope to do my study on. My agency is also the buyer and supplier for outside vendors as well as being the supplier for other agencies who seek services from us. As the manager of a small team within my organization we only manage the system used by ourselves and other agencies. We do not participate in any dealings directly with other agencies or suppliers outside of aiding with the system or providing help in gathering information to suppliers. This allows for little bias in the exploration of strategies used by the decision-making leaders in the agencies. This position allows me to see the processes from beginning to end and identify the constraints in the process.

By interviewing leaders in my own organization as well as leaders in other agencies I hope to gain unbiased interviews of common suppliers. Open end questions will lead to gaining a better perspective (Chenail, 2011) of the participants experiences in the buyer supplier relationship.

 

Chenail, R. J. (2011). Interviewing the investigator: Strategies for addressing instrumentation and researcher bias concerns in qualitative research. The Qualitative Report, 16(1),255–202. http://tqr.nova.edu/