Combining problem structuring methods to conduct applied research: a mixed methods approach to studying fitness-to-drive in the UK

Hindle, Giles A.; Franco, L. Alberto

doi:10.1057/jors.2008.125

Cited by 21 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Such principles helped us to make sense of our qualitative data (i.e., the papers reviewed). Systems thinking tools have been employed before to assist researchers in their analysis of the content and structure of qualitative data, both primary (originating from interviews) and secondary (originating from documents) [54]. Here, a literature review on sustainability and community acceptance of RES was conducted to identify the main factors that appear to play a role in slowing down or speeding up the implementation process of renewable energy projects.…”

Section: Research Methodology: a Systems Thinking Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

On the Acceptance and Sustainability of Renewable Energy Projects—A Systems Thinking Perspective

et al. 2016

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Rapid population growth and increasing concern related to improving the living standards in impoverished communities without damaging the natural environment have drawn attention to the adoption of renewable energy systems (RES) around the world. Despite this global trend, the implementation of these projects has not succeeded completely in rural poor communities due to several factors, including social barriers faced at the time of their execution. These social barriers lead to poor acceptance of the projects and their consequent abandonment. Acceptance is a social construct that is influenced by several factors that need to be understood to achieve successful and sustainable results in the future. In this paper, we develop a conceptual model, based on principles of sustainability and systems thinking, to understand the interrelationships among the main factors that have been reported in the literature as key to determining the sustainability and community acceptance of RES projects. To do so, we review the existing literature on sustainability and social acceptance of RES and then construct a causal-loop diagram of their driving factors. While doing so, we also view the problem through the lens of the sustainable livelihoods framework, aiming to maintain the perspective of rural communities and observing the impacts of RES on their contextual reality. The resulting model helps to understand the multiple interactions that RES projects have with rural communities as well as identify potential intervention points for future projects. We end the paper with a discussion of the implications of the model and how can it be used to inform future rural energy decision making.

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Section: Research Methodology: a Systems Thinking Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

On the Acceptance and Sustainability of Renewable Energy Projects—A Systems Thinking Perspective

et al. 2016

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“…In our case, our knowledge of and experience with problem structuring and decision analysis methods (e.g. Franco & Lord, 2011;Henao, Cherni, Jaramillo, & Dyner, 2012;Hindle & Franco, 2009) meant that we had the requisite level of competency for mixing these methods in practice and, therefore, our particular choice of methods seemed both natural and useful for the intervention at hand. Table 2 provides an overview of our intervention design.…”

Section: Intervention Designmentioning

confidence: 97%

Unpacking multimethodology: Impacts of a community development intervention

Henao

Franco

2016

European Journal of Operational Research

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Multimethodology interventions are being increasingly employed by operational researchers to cope with the complexity of real-world problems. In keeping with recent calls for more research into the 'realised' impacts of multimethodology, we present a detailed account of an intervention to support the planning of business ideas by a management team working in a community development context. Drawing on the rich steam of data gathered during the intervention, we identify a range of cognitive, task and relational impacts experienced by the management team during the intervention. These impacts are the basis for developing a process model that accounts for the personal, social and material changes reported by those involved in the intervention. The model explains how the intervention's analytic and relational capabilities incentivise the interplay of participants' decision making efforts and integrative behaviours underpinning reported intervention impacts and change. Our findings add much needed empirical case material to enrich further our understanding of the realised impacts of operational research interventions in general, and of multimethodology interventions in particular.

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“…Many of the problemstructuring approaches presuppose a model or that the issues have already been identified though some have implicit tools embedded in the methodology. For instance, both the 'how' and 'why' are implicit in formulation of rich pictures (Checkland and Scholes 1990) and can be used as a source of issues (Hindle and Franco 2009). Inspection of the recent literature shows that soft OR case studies usually involve some sort of model, such as through rich pictures (Bell and Morse 2013), scenario analysis (Cole and Kuhlmann 2012), cognitive mapping (Franco and Lord 2011), viable system modelling (Espinosa and Walker 2013), causal loop diagrams (Smits 2010), and tree constructs for multicriteria decision analysis (Barford 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, sequential analysis will lead to optimisation studies probably pitched at the tactical decisions. Of course, recent problem-structuring literature contains several references to, and examples of, 'mixed methods' or 'multimethodology' (Hindle and Franco 2009) and reasons are given for why one methodology may be picked over another, which may include familiarity (Howick and Ackermann 2011). This implies that there is likely to be no set way of conducting such analysis and that given time and resources more than one method may be tried.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical modelling methods to identify issues of concern in a two-sided military system

Curtis

Shrivastava

Moon

2014

EURO Journal on Decision Processes

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We propose the notion of a 'substrate' model which can be used as a common and agreed picture to develop issues of concern in the problem-structuring phase of a study. Such a process provides a transparent and defensible means to develop prioritised options for consideration by decision makers. In this paper, we explore two empirical methods, one based on sequential examination of events in a process and the other uses a functional (influence diagram like) approach to explore how system features change with time. An example is taken from a current problem in the military sphere-the two-sided interaction involving the use of, and defence against, improvised explosive devices. In this paper, we illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the two modelling methods, the complementarity of the use of a more concrete 'substrate model' with the 'softer' aspects of problem structuring and the implications of the clients' needs, in particular the position of the study within the typical Defence capability development life cycle. We believe that such empirical methods will have practical application to similar studies at the 'front-end'.

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Combining problem structuring methods to conduct applied research: a mixed methods approach to studying fitness-to-drive in the UK

Cited by 21 publications

References 29 publications

On the Acceptance and Sustainability of Renewable Energy Projects—A Systems Thinking Perspective

On the Acceptance and Sustainability of Renewable Energy Projects—A Systems Thinking Perspective

Unpacking multimethodology: Impacts of a community development intervention

Empirical modelling methods to identify issues of concern in a two-sided military system

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