Category Archives: Study

Contemplating What’s Next – My thesis is nearly done!

I’m nearly there. My PhD thesis is with the copy editor for the second time. I know there will be yet more typos to fix and references to correct. I know my supervisors will make a few more suggestions, but I’m nearly there. In a few weeks my PhD Thesis will be in the examiners hands.

It’s almost six years since I started my PhD journey and eight since, in contemplating what’s next, that I commenced an academic journey. At that time I was exiting my career as a partner in a global consulting firm and I had to think about what I’d do next.

With the benefit of some wise counsel from two colleagues and after reading Herminia Ibarra’s Working identities I had a plan. I didn’t want to pursue the non-executive director route or remain in the corporate space. I thought I’d be an academic and explore a completely new path.

That was the and this is now.

All of those years later, I am close to completing that journey and I’m feeling a bit lost. What’s Next?

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I’m still here just buried in my research!

I love this pen!

When I started this blog it was part of my transition to retirement strategy and it was the vehicle I would use to write. A commitment that I would have to some imaginary group of people who might stumble on my blog and find it interesting.

My personal commitment was a post at least once a month and at least one thousand words. I’ve been pretty faithful to that commitment however in the last few months my PhD has taken over. I have a deadline and it is getting near. I’m writing every day and my PhD is coming together.

So for the next few months posts will be even more sporadic as I work on finishing my PhD.

A published author!

I received some great news at Easter an academic journal accepted an article I submitted for publication. Finally, I will be a published author.

It gets better. I have also just received an email from the editors of a soon to be released book on family business that my chapter for their book has also been accepted.

So after 4 years of submitting various articles, I am to be published not once but twice.

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Puff the magic dragon

As I was working on the last section of my Research Methodology chapter which at the time of writing stands at an absurd and definitely to be edited 63 pages before appendices, a childhood favourite came up on the Spotify playlist – Puff the Magic Dragon.

My parents loved Peter, Paul and Mary and as kids, their music was regularly playing on the family radiogram. There aren’t a lot of music artists that I have in common with my now late parents but Peter, Paul and Mary was one of them.

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Research paradigms – down the rabbit hole again!

This year’s Doctoral Colloquium (a posh word for an academic conference or seminar) for post grad students provided me an opportunity to peer once again down the rabbit hole.

A requirement for attendance is the preparation of a short paper which each post grad student is required to present and receive feedback on.

My short paper was an excerpt from Chaspter Three of my thesis – Research Methodology . I used the paper to get feedback on how I was approaching my research. Specifically my research method.

My paper glossed over my research paradigm because every time I start to think about the research paradigm I quickly descend down a rabbit hole.

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