Summer Research Projects

Description

Researchers have produced some remarkable findings. They have claimed that hurricanes designated with female names are more deadly (Jung et al., 2014), that extrasensory perception is possible (Bem, 2011) and that the menstrual cycle is related to political attitudes (Durante et al., 2013). Such findings have generated publicity in both traditional and social media. When such research is found to be flawed or findings fail to generalize, it increases mistrust, scepticism, and denialism about science itself. Such negative reactions in the domain of sciences such as climate change or vaccinations can harm public safety efforts as well as to reduce the impact of scientific findings more generally.

By systematically studying scientific findings in relation to the media interest they generate, we aim to quantify and better understand the relationship between scientific findings, public dissemination (e.g., media exposure) and the public's perception of science. Scholars will be expected to work with lecturers active in research. They will help in collecting and analysing data towards research goals. This involves a systematic literature search, extracting data from publications, and data management.

Scholars will gain skills in data collection, including conducting a systematic literature review, conducting data analysis, and data management. Scholars can expect to work with data analysis tools such as Excel and R. Scholars may also expect to develop presentation skills, for example by contributing to conference presentations. This project is open to applications from students with a background in the social sciences, including psychology, business, economics, or those with an interest in these disciplines. Potential scholars should contact the supervisors via email (d.jang@uq.edu.au, j.brienza@uq.edu.au). Inquiries prior to submitting an application are welcome.

Investigators

Dr Daisung Jang and Dr Justin Brienza

Duration

10 weeks

Start date

29 November 2021

Description

In this project, I extend my work in the area of Physical Work Environment (see Ayoko & Ashkanasy, 2020; Monaghan & Ayoko, 2019; Irving, Ayoko & Ashkanasy, 2019; Ayoko & Ashkanasy (Eds), 2019; Ayoko, Ashkanasy, & Jehn, 2014; Ashkanasy, Ayoko, & Jehn, 2014) to investigate the impact of COVID-19 health crisis on employees’ virtual and physical work spaces (e.g. open-plan offices) productivity and wellbeing. 

More specifically, the current study moves the research in this area forward by qualitatively investigating employees’ experience of working in virtual and physical spaces (i.e. at home and at the office at work) in the context of a health crisis. Findings should be able to inform policy guidelines on the future of work and especially how employees’ experience during the pandemic is likely to shape the future of work- working from home, work-life balance and offices of the future. 

This project is critical for two reasons. First, the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has changed the way we work especially considering the need for involuntarily working from home (i.e. working virtually), with its attendant challenges of managing work-life balance, productivity, stress and physical/mental wellbeing. The current study aims at investigating how employees navigated the challenges of involuntary working from home during the lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. Secondly, there are suggestions that the transition back to the office for many employees may be equally traumatic. This is because the open-plan offices by design do not generally lend themselves to the social distancing rule. In fact, we anticipate that given social-distancing and increased virtual work that is driven by COVID-19, office workspaces (e.g. open plan office) might be changed for ever. The question then is, what should the open plan office of the future look like based on employees’ recent health crisis and how can we transition back safely to the office if there was another health crisis?

The current project aims at identifying qualitatively the employees’ perceptions of health crisis (e.g. COVID-19) and its impact on working involuntarily from home. Especially, the project will compare employees’ experience of their home office with their experience of working in the open-plan office at work before COVID-19 lockdown. It will also explore how the combined issues of COVID-19, virtual work (including the use of technology), work life balance and how these issues might impact employees’ productivity and wellbeing, while shaping their behaviours upon their return to offices at work.

The above culminates into 2 Research Questions: (1) What is the impact of COVID-19 crisis on employees’ virtual work, home and office physical workspaces, involuntary working from home, work processes and outcomes (e.g. productivity and wellbeing?), (2) How does the employees’ experience of COVID-19 shape their behaviours and interactions in their physical work environment (e.g. open plan office) upon return to work and after the COVID lockdown. Answers to the above questions should provide directions for managers and organisational leaders on how to manage the virtual and physical workspaces induced by a health crisis. 

Approach & Methodology 

Researchers have often employed quantitative approach to the study of open-plan offices (Ayoko et al., 2014). The current study departs from this practice by employing a qualitative approach to answer the research questions. In particular, the project will be conducted in two studies and will be anchored in grounded theory. This approach has been used by researchers (e.g. Robertson, Hershenfield, Grace & Stewart, 2004; Rambaldini, Wilson, Rath, Lin, Gold, Kapral & Straus, 2005) studying a similar health crisis- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

In the last proposal, we planned two studies. Study 1 (Stage 1) Data for Study 1 will be from social media posts and this will be done in 2 phases. In Phase 1, we will collect all posts in LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook/Instagram related to COVID during the lockdown in Australia in the period between March and July, 2020 when the restrictions are largely improved.  Then in phase 2, we planned to refine the data by focusing on online posts that are related to our constructs such as involuntary working from home, virtual working (e.g. telework with technology), workspaces at home employee productivity and wellbeing as well as the transition to work after COVID-19 lockdown. We have now collected data from the above sources. We collected 20,000 word-corpus. We discuss our preliminary results later in this document.

In study 2, and to complement the secondary data collected in Study 1, we will collect primary data using in-depth interview questions. Sample interview questions include:

1.            Please describe your experience of working from home during the C-19 lockdown

2.            Describe the process of getting started and nominating a physical workspace at home to continue to work.

3.            What were the main challenges you encountered in the early days of working at home? How did you overcome these challenges?

4.            How did you navigate the boundaries of working from home, work processes and particularly connecting with other team members?

5.            Please tell us how you think the crisis has impacted your work, productivity and wellbeing

6.            How would you like your office workspaces (e.g. open plan) to look like upon you return to work?

Sample

Data for Study 1 (Phases 1 and 2) will be about 250 conversation/comment points. We expect these points to yield about 20, 000 corpus. Data for Study 1 will be collected within a period of 2 weeks. Social media post is secondary data. No consent will be needed given that these posts (i.e. comments and conversations) are already in public domain.  As previously mentioned, we have now collected the data.

Data for Study 2 will be collected from 50 participants. This category of participants will be sourced from various organisation levels (Executives, middle level managers, and employees) and from a range of employees in a variety of industries including Higher Education, Healthcare and Financial /Consultancies in Australia. Additionally, while the interview questions are about the workplace, we are not going through organisations to collect the data for this study. The participants for interviews are going to be sourced through advertisement on social platforms and anyone who is willing to participate will be recruited. We will use the snowballing strategy to collect data. Participants will be between age 18-65 years and sample size will comprise of 50% male and 50% female and must have worked from home for more than 50% of the time during the COVID-19 lockdown. Once identified, the participants for Study 2 will be provided an information sheet about the study, and a consent form to sign. Also, once consent is obtained, the participants will be slated for interview based on their availability. Interviews will take place virtually using zoom. Each interview will take an average of about 30-40 minutes to complete. Interview data will be collected within a period of 6-8 weeks.  All the interviews are expected to be collected within 2 weeks after the completion of Study 1. We expect that data will have reached saturation by the time we collect 30-50 interviews. An ethics application for our preliminary research in this area has already been approved.  So far, we have not been able to conduct the interviews yet. The pandemic and snap lock downs across the nation are largely responsible. If successful with the current winter application, we plan to devote a significant amount of time to conducting these interviews.

Data Analysis

Leximancer® analyses textual corpora of any size using an automatic concept selection process, most often used by researchers as a starting point for focusing their research question. Researchers usually customize the automatic analysis using three linguistic strategies (McKenna & Waddell, 2007).  We will adopt a similar approach to analyse our data for Study 1.  Additionally, we will employ Nvivo further to reveal the nuances in the online conversation posts and interview data around C-19, working from home, virtual work, work life balance, employee productivity and wellbeing that Leximancer may have missed. 

Work has now begun with the qualitative analysis. Preliminary results from Leximancer show that the major themes include issues around working from home, risk management, managing employers’ expectation, productivity, mental health, back to the office, and professionalism and the role of time (See Figure 1 below).  We still need to refine the data analysis with Leximancer.  Plans are under way to continue further analysis and conduct more literature review and write up the Leximancer results. We have now checked that the Journal of Business Research (JBR) welcomes papers that adopt Leximancer as an analytical tool and we plan to submit the write-up of our results to JBR in the nearest future.

 In the upcoming winter research program, we plan to finalise the collection of our quantitative data also on COVID and its impact on the future of work and especially workspaces, employee safety, productivity and wellbeing. We also aim to begin the quantitative data analysis.  

Results, Outcomes and Future Plans 

We expect to publish immediate outcomes of the study in community media outlets such as Newspaper, Conversation, Radio and TV talks and accessible from public domains. In the long run, our outcomes will be published as articles in academic journals (e.g. Organization Studies- ABDC A*). This will provide insight into the latest influence of COVID-19 on employee productivity and wellbeing, and inform polices and guidelines on the management of future health crises especially on how to design and manage the open plan offices of the future to buffer health crises. We plan to follow up on the current project by investigating leadership and leading through a health crisis such as COVID-19. By participating in the project, scholars can expect to gain/learn skills related to:

•             Literature review skills– scholar will be involved in reviewing the recent literature in the area of open-plan office, physical and virtual environment of work, work life balance and wellbeing  

•             Development and refinement of interview questions for the study 

•             Development of interview skills and qualitative data collection approaches

•             Qualitative analytical skills (i.e. the use of Leximancer and Nvivo)

•             Possible opportunity to be involved in drafting and collaborating on a paper for presentation and publication.

Outcomes and Deliverables

•             Succinct review of recent literature in the area of Literature Review – e.g. of recent literature in the area of open-plan office, physical and virtual environment of work, work life balance and wellbeing  

•             Refinement of in-depth interview questions for data collection

•             Secondary data collection from social media platforms (e.g. LinkedIn)

•             Primary data collection involving interviews with about 50 participants on their Covid-19 experience and how this may have impacted their virtual working, work life balance and mental/physical wellbeing. • Contributions to data analysis and write up of results targeting a quality conference and or journal publication. A short paper will be written for presentation in Virtual ANZAM 2021 conference organised by Edith Cowan University (Australia) and or EGOS 2022.

•             Reflection report by the scholar on what has been gained while working on the project

•             Contributions to a paper developed from this study for JBR (ABDC A) and Organization Studies (ABDC A*)  This project is open to application from UQ Students ONLY such as Third year undergraduate, Honours, Masters, and PhD students enrolled in the faculty of Business, Law and Economics (BEL). Applicants must also have some basic interviewing skills and some familiarity with qualitative approach to data analysis (i.e. Leximancer and Nvivo) as well as quantitative data analysis such as Hayes Macros.  Contact supervisor on r.ayoko@business.uq.edu.au for more clarifications if need be.

Investigator

A/Prof Remi Ayoko

Duration

10 weeks

Start date

29 November 2021

Description

The project is part of a collaborative initiative between UQ and industry which supports Australia’s infrastructure industry to transition to circular economy principles. The summer research project investigates circular economy in the infrastructure industry via a review of literature and analysis of data from industry partners. Applicants will gain skills in systematic literature reviews, data collection and analysis and contributing to an academic paper for publication. This position is open to students of the BEL Faculty at either Bachelor or Masters level. Knowledge of civil engineering or the infrastructure industry will be well regarded. For further information please contact Dr Cristyn Meath at c.meath@business.uq.edu.au

Investigators

Dr Cristyn Meath & Dr Jurij Karlovsek

Duration

10 weeks (remote optional)

Start date

29 November 2021

This project is part of a collaborative initiative between UQ, the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) and Business Models Inc. (BMI). The initiative also involves representatives from the Queensland Government and numerous relevant industry associations and leading companies.

Description

The nature and scale of the COVID-19 pandemic make digital tracing necessary for the mitigation of one of the most widespread and deadly pandemics the world has ever seen. By now, we know COVID-19 spreads quickly through people who are contagious but not sick, which makes it difficult to contain through conventional manual tracing alone. Given the novelty and dynamism of the phenomenon and the rush in introducing remedial measures, little is known about how to effectively measure and understand the public’s views and determine their overall satisfaction with the government’s policies for controlling the spread of the virus. This research aims to identify the topics discussed in social media and validate their correlation with public satisfaction with the government’s pandemic management policies and strategies. To capture electronic word-of-mouth (eWoM), we use a proprietary panel dataset of more than 40,000 tweets (Twitter data) about Covid-19. Using text processing techniques we extract tweet features, and using deep learning techniques we estimate the linguistic similarities between tweets written by various users. We investigate the impact of the social influence, through analysis of tweet similarity and their order, on how people assess government regulations and what topics are more important to them at any particular time. The findings from this research inform public health policymakers in understanding public’ concerns associated with the pandemic management policies and their overall satisfaction. The efficiency and real-time nature of this approach can help policymakers in devising evidence-based strategies for the successful implementation of policies in the time of the pandemic.  The selected applicant will improve her/his technical and data analytics skills and use this project’s outcomes as evidence of successful teamwork in an impactful research project with practical implications. In collaboration with the selected applicant, we aim to publish the results of this multidisciplinary study in IS or health-informatics journals. The student will work closely with the supervisors in the coding of the data, conducting deep-learning analysis, topic modelling of social media, and writing the results in the form of research articles. To ensure research impact and to communicate the outcomes to a broader audience, including health executives and administrators, we plan to publish the results of this research in practitioner-oriented outlets, such as MIS Quarterly Executive and The Conversation.  This project is open to applications from students with a background in business and analytics. We are looking for 3rd – 4th year undergraduate or 2nd year postgraduate students who can apply machine learning on social media data in Python, RStudio, or similar environments (to the extent that machine learning and its tools are taught in the Business School).  Students can contact about the project via: m.namvar@business.uq.edu.au or s.akhlaghpour@business.uq.edu.au

Investigators

Dr Morteza Namvar & Dr Saeed Akhlaghpour

Duration

10 weeks

Start date

29 November 2021

Description

Scaling up is an inherently uncertain process for startups. Despite the importance of understanding how startups are established and scale, extant literature offers few insights and little evidence of how entrepreneurs navigate this process – the activities, sets of activities and patterns of activities which foster the transition from startup to scaleup.

Project description and aims

This project aims to identify how routines are formed and sustained, to support the scaleup process. This project will analyse different sets of routines in a circular economy business scaleup.

The tasks of the successful applicant will be to organise and assist in the analysis of primary data, such as interviews, observation notes, photographs, social media sources and other online material with a focus on determining the following research questions:

1)            What are the triggers for creating and changing routines?

2)            How are routines refined or changed?

3)            How do routines evolve and become stable or formalized?

Expected outcomes of this project:

•             A presentation of the data analysed and main findings from this analysis.

What the applicant may gain from the project:

•             Skills in qualitative methods

•             Nvivo core skills in preparing, importing and working with qualitative data (setting up an NVivo project)

•             Skills in research report writing

•             An opportunity to co-author or contribute to an academic publication with other leading academics in the field of entrepreneurship and strategy (depending on the nature and extent of your input)

Suitable for

This project is suitable for students who are interested in entrepreneurship and developing skills in qualitative methods. It is particularly suitable for students who are interested in pursuing an honours degree or a research component in a Master’s degree as the project provides training in research methods.

Prior experience in using NVivo is not required. The successful candidate will be closely mentored and trained in using NVivo through hands-on experience.

Investigator

Dr Anna Jenkins

Duration

10 weeks

Start date

29 November 2021