A critical analysis of Hughes's faculty merger communication study

¶ … faculties merge: Communicating change" by Hughes (2007) is a poorly written qualitative personal account; the result of a "learning journal" containing subjective interpretations that has no discernable generalizability to others. After reading the article in its entirety, I am left with several questions. Given that this "research" was published in a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, it is difficult to understand, exactly, how Hughes' (2007) article contributes to any body of knowledge in the sciences.

For example, Hughe's (2007, pg. 25) writes that it is the goal of the paper to provide "subjective experiences of change communication." The reader is left to wonder "who cares?" For the following reasons, the Hughes article is one of the least developed, least generalizable and poorly written peer-reviewed journal articles that I have read. This article represents well the importance of maintaining high academic rigor in academic journals that this "research" simply fails to achieve. In fact, this article can scarcely be labeled "research" at all.

While Hughes (2007) provides a framework for research, the result is less than effective. The language that Hughes uses is both grammatically incorrect and confusing. The confusing language is not due to complex subject matter, but, rather, the seeming lack of understanding regarding the concepts presented by Hughes (2007). By suggesting that the author's "unique" approach to offering subjective experiences as part of some larger "storytelling and narrative" function as justification for simply sharing experiences, Hughes (2007, pg. 27) notes that he kept a "learning journal." Hughes provides an unnecessary paragraph long explanation of what a "learning journal" means, yet fails to ever explain what "ICT" means.

This is not a small oversight; Hughes (2007) makes many and frequent references to "ICT" throughout the article, yet fails to not only define "ICT," but also goes the extra distance by refusing to even identify what the acronym ICT means. Vandervert (1988) writes of the importance of operationalizing and identifying terms in academic research and scholarly literature. Unfortunately, we are left to wonder what ICT means from a lack of term definition. For example, Hughes (2007, pg. 29) writes that "the communications orthodoxy is changing as we begin to understand the role of ICTs in terms of communications in general and more particularly communicating change. However, Hughes does not provide any elaboration to this statement and bounces to another subject entirely. Hughes sentence structure inhibits a "flow" the article and abrupt changes in subject from one sentence to another, from one paragraph to another, are par for the course. For precisely these reasons, Hughes (2007) article is a confusing amalgamation of off-topic research, irrelevant academic studies and tenuous connections between his personal experiences and the importance of "change communication." While Hughes (2007, pg. 25) writes that his "paper offers [his] account of how a faculty merger was communicated," he never communicates or attempts to explain why this is an appropriate research endeavor or how this research benefits a larger body of knowledge.

Significance of the study

It is interesting to note the dates involved with Hughes' research. For example, while the article was published in 2007, the "learning journal" Hughes kept contained his own perspectives of events as they occurred during 2001 through 2002. So basically what Hughes has submitted as research are his own interpretations of five-year-old events that he, himself, recorded in an effort to document how "change" occurred with merging academic departments at Brighton Business School. While the catalogued emails and copious notes Hughes utilizes may indeed be of interest to Hughes and his posterity, it is difficult to connect how this research is meaningful to anyone other than himself. Hughes (2007, pg. 34) does not explain the importance of his research, but concludes that while "an ICT-enabled future may be glimpsed from this paper, it is yet to be realized." Of course, we are left to wonder what an ICT-enabled future is as we still haven't read of any definition of ICT.

Conclusion

I believe that research must attempt to fill a gap in the scholarly literature. Research must serve important purposes toward explaining phenomena, hypothesizing, testing and, when possible replicating and building upon prior knowledge. The Hughes article does none of this. Instead, Hughes (2007) seemingly goes to great lengths to make much ado about nothing.

References:

Hughes, M. (2007). When faculties merge: Communicating change. Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change, 4(1), 25-38.

Vandervert, L. (1988). Operational definitions made simple, useful, and lasting. In M. Ware & C. Brewer (Eds.), Handbook for teaching statistics and research methods (pp. 132-134). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hartman, J.M., Forsen, J.W., Wallace, M.S., Neely, J.G. (2002). Tutorials in clinical research: Part IV: Recognizing and controlling bias. Laryngoscope, 112, 23-31.

Drapeau, M. (2002). Subjectivity in Research: Why Not ? But… The Qualitative Report, 7 (3) 1-16.