The development of research cultures within a Pakistani university: Analysing structure and agency AHMAD SOHAIL LODHI Lecturer at University of the Punjab, Pakistan PhD candidate, University of Leeds, UK ahamd.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

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 element Striving to promote research under the influence and support of HEC

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.

In search of the recipe Organisational culture Committed 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’

Understanding the Recipe Difficult language and vocabulary Interconnected concepts Few empirical studies that used the morphogenetic approach 1 Building argument for theory . There is a need for a workbook for those who want to apply in other filed 2. Clear from name … communicate to other 3. Social theory …In other discipline 4. Interlinking concept ……difficult determining scope according to problem 4.

Nutritional value of the recipe 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 Analytical distinction between culture and structure

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 How they shape the agential actions, Official documents how agent shaped context I have adequate time to conduct research (e.g., writing articles, books and presenting conference papers etc.)…................................ SD D N A SA

Nutritional value of the recipe Conceptualizing the notion of research culture Choosing and developing instruments for data collection Analyzing empirical data the morphogenetic framework as template

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)

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 I deal it with cultural domain because present polices do not determine particular time for research as teaching Indirect

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

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

Questions Please ! ! !