The development of research cultures within a Pakistani university:

Analysing structure and agency

AHMAD SOHAIL LODHI Lecturer at University of the Punjab, PakistanPhD candidate, University of Leeds, UKahamd.ier@pu.edu.pk ; edasl@leeds.ac.uk

What will I share?

About the project Journey to find Archer’s

morphogenetic approach My experiences of understanding the

approach The guiding role of the morphogenetic

approach in this study Lessons learnt

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About the dish

The University:Regulated by the Higher Education

Commission (HEC) of Pakistan but autonomous in articulating internal policies and practices

Teaching as a dominant elementStriving to promote research under

the influence and support of HEC

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About the dish

The focus of my project was to examine factors influencing the development of research cultures in two social sciences faculties in a Pakistani public university.

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In search of the recipe

Organisational cultureCommitted to shared norms, values and

assumptions

Do universities have an organisational culture?

Archer ‘s conception of culture Heterogeneous ideas Interplay between the ‘parts’ and the

‘people’ 5

Understanding the Recipe

Difficult language and vocabulary

Interconnected concepts

Few empirical studies that used the morphogenetic approach

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Conceptualizing the notion of research culture Ideational aspects of the model

Choosing and developing instruments for data collection Informed by the stages of the morphogenetic cycle

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Nutritional value of the recipe

Picking the Ingredients

Interview questions

People’s views and perceptions about research

e.g. it should be applied or pure etc.

What, why and how questions

Questionnaire item

I have adequate time to conduct research (e.g., writing articles, books and presenting conference papers etc.)…................................ SD D N A SA

Conceptualizing the notion of research culture

Choosing and developing instruments for data collection

Analyzing empirical data the morphogenetic framework as

template

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Nutritional value of the recipe

Cooking

Periodisation to indicate the stages of the morphogenetic cycle

Relatively straightforward task T1 T2 (when new leadership took

over the university) T3 (when data was collected)

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Cooking

Articulation of Cultural and Structural emergent properties

Sometimes difficult to sustain analytical distinction between culture and structure e.g. teaching-research

Difficult task to maintain ‘analytical dualism’ while analysing interviews, especially, in case of cultural emergent properties

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Cooking

Necessary and contingent relations Mostly unproblematic to identify Influences of regulatory body (HEC) Discipline-specific influences on

research practices

Complementary and contradictory relations

Easy to identify but difficult to handle 12

Re-thinking the recipe

Time-consuming process

Availability of literature about the

context in relation to the problem

Long time span (T2-T3) is preferable

Knowledge about the context

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Questions Please ! ! !