Viva questions (Significance)

This blog is the first of two that address different questions about significance. This first is about ensuring nothing significant is missed. The second asks what is significant about the thesis. Both could be asked at conferences when doctoral peers want to know why they should trust your work or listen to what is being said.

Question: How can you be sure that you haven’t missed anything significant?

This question has many potential limbs. First, how can I know the problem being researched is significant and not resolved. This is addressed by a thorough review of the literature. I took an approach that canvassed the different fields of scholarship each with interest in the PPP and followed the origins of governance scholarship to surprisingly recent start-points. All were regularly returned to and over time I learned to follow the lead of those scholars who have already survey such literature and increasingly this became focused upon matters of governance of the PPP as relatable by these different scholars. At the same time, I became increasingly aware that much of this scholarship borrows from a few specific origins of governance thinking. My final literature review is therefore a broad canvas of what is known and noting contemporary literature tending to bring together disparate origins and concepts which was itself significant. By example, this included public administration, political science and accounting literatures which I identified as clearly public sector concerned and different to a literature originating from concern for private sector firms in their marketplace. A third origin was also differentiated as stemming from more philosophical origins and the notion of governmentality. I noted project management interests and matters of construction and operational concern borrow from all three origins. I was further buoyed by finding the most contemporary surveys of this literature, in public administration and project management context, both pointing to the nebulous nature of the term governance and pointing to gaps in understanding which research into the PPP per se is deemed capable of helping to fill.

Secondly, and I suspect more likely the intended framing of this question, are matters of significance which a poorly designed or executed methodology might otherwise allow in. There are four aspects to methodology which could be of concern for missing something significant (philosophical positioning, rigour, validity, and lack of awareness of where one’s research scope ends). Each concern has been addressed in the thesis submission, and all remained close-at-hand as I applied the overall research design in practice and each coherently selected method. Specifically, semi-structured interview to gather data and reflexive thematic analysis, all underpinned by hermeneutic reasoning and tenets of phenomenological philosophy.

From a philosophical perspective a broadly phenomenological and hermeneutic view was opted for, and I was impressed most by a Heideggerian view in addressing the research question. I raise this specifically because asking what is significant to whom has meaning by this thinker’s positioning. His opposition or claimed impoverishment of taking a Descartes-inspired dualism (i.e., between an individual who then extends outwards into a world) was a useful criticism that steered me away from all claims of subject-to-object clarity being a possible end or answer to the research question posed. Instead, I was guided toward considering the revealing of more of the referential totality of significance once all party-perspectives where more holistically revealed. In this sense, what is revealed by one party closes off aspects of another. In a way, the realisation that matters of human significance become this impoverished Descartes-inspired dualism (and constantly closing-off some other aspect of this totality of significance) was itself enlightening. Hence, when asked how one can be sure to have not missed something significant the answer is always a possibility that one has. The question is then, significant to whom? This gave me an access point to matters of power and influence I had initially deemed inaccessible to my research if taking this position. Clegg and co-authors (Hardy and Clegg, 2002) ask the question in whose eyes are matters power and influence illegitimate, and this aided my own questioning of who deems a particular intended outcome and the governance toward that as significant to themselves. My endeavours have been to seek the views of all party-perspectives and differentiate those from what the project itself was intended to do. It is in this context that the phenomenological framing of intentionality (the directedness of thoughts or actions) and intersubjectivity that differentiates two people or groups enabled this research question to be considered most fully. Notwithstanding, and as I explain at length in the limitations section of the thesis, there are limits to challenging such legitimacy of authority (as power and influence) by this approach. This is not to say I have therefore fully overcome this limitation, but more acknowledge and articulate the limits of what can be claimed from this overall philosophical underpinning.

Rigour, as meant by taking the hermeneutic reasoning I use as my underpinning, has to do with the address of meaning from between two understandings. The more plausible explanation from two opposing sides, or seeing the assumption made as the folly to uncover or wrestling with all such interpretations; these are all what I was keenly questioning and revisiting repeatedly throughout the research. Rigorous in the challenges to interpretations was the constant reframing and reworking the analysis of meaning of both data and how it applied to extant theory.

In qualitative research the notion of validity has long been understood as trustworthiness. For purposes of this question on missing something significant, the question is therefore asking what makes this research trustworthy in not missing something significant (or indeed made a significant claim that is not valid). Research design plays a significant part in this trustworthiness. The appropriate use of guidance in key aspects of that design each point to transparency as key—if more details is asked for this is specific to use of elite informants in the strategy literature (Aguinis and Solarino, 2019; Solarino and Aguinis, 2021), and strategy literature guidance more generally as also borrowed from by project management guidance from journal editors (Makadok et al., 2018; Müller and Klein, 2019). These guides point to ways of ensuring transparency and reporting findings with sufficient detail to enable the reader to make determinations themselves. The results chapter in the thesis offers extensive detail of the elite informant perspectives and the discussion chapter engages in detailed engagement with this collective of understanding and extant literature.

The scope limits of the research are also limiting the claims made to UK Private Finance Initiative. Significant differences are flagged between UK specifics and other countries applying PPP in broadly comparable forms. I make specific warning to be careful in applying such findings in other territories, and I am critical of literature not making these differences clear when making project-level comparison between countries. Opinion is also forwarded that remains critical of (and suspicious of much of significance missed) when such comparisons are made unduly. For example, when considering the dual role of contract and relationship management but remaining ignorant of the legislative inferences and governances applicable beyond the project-level per se. It became apparent quite early in my critiques of the literature that the PPP can be a source of significant confusion by such over-generalisations. This brings us full circle back to the opening comments I made in answering this question.

Question: Why is your thesis interesting (i.e., what is significant about it)?

I shall address this question next time.

…to be continued

References

Aguinis, H. and Solarino, A.M. 2019. Transparency and replicability in qualitative research : The case of interviews with elite informants. Strategic Management Journal. 40(40), pp.1291–1315.

Hardy, C. and Clegg, S. 2002. Some Dare Call It Power In: S. R. Clegg, C. Hardy and S. Nord, eds. Handbook of Organization Studies., pp.622–641.

Makadok, R., Burton, R. and Barney, J. 2018. A practical guide for making theory contributions in strategic management. Strategic Management Journal. 39(6), pp.1530–1545.

Müller, R. and Klein, G. 2019. Qualitative Research Submissions to Project Management Journal. Project Management Journal. 50(1), pp.3–5.

Solarino, A.M. and Aguinis, H. 2021. Challenges and Best-practice Recommendations for Designing and Conducting Interviews with Elite Informants. Journal of Management Studies. 58(3), pp.649–672.

Viva questions (General)

The type of questions which invite introductions from the researcher are thought through in this blog. All example questions below were posed by Bedwell and Butcher (2022, pp.135–138):

Question: Can you start by summarising your thesis?

My research explores a previously unexplored phenomenon I refer to as different intentions, which I relate to different parties involved in public-private partnership projects. In other words, exploring the different aims and objectives, goals or otherwise the reasoning behind why organisations become involved in this type of interorganisational project. I have shown how such intentions differ between public and private sectors but also vary by types of entity within such projects. Attributes of these different intentions then help to explain why all parties have potential to threaten the purpose of such projects in pursuit of self-interest. Surprisingly, this includes the elected government instigating such projects or their successors. I relate the different intentions to the many and varied governance structures and process directed at such projects, and furthermore find this relates to how latent tension can be created as a source of future conflict.

Question: Now, can you summarise that into a single sentence?

I show that parties enter PFI projects with different intentions and that this leads to a subjective and conflicted set of priorities of governance structures and processes which endures as a key threat to the project purpose(s) per se.

Question: What is the idea that binds your thesis together?

The idea that no single party-specific perspective has privilege over the rest. In other words, to understand the whole, it is important to not split the phenomenon in question. This is an idea argued by the thinker Martin Heidegger. In this research that means seeking out the totality of perspectives from all sides, meaning all sides being brought together on commercial grounds to achieve something bigger than the intentions of each.

Question: How did your research question emerge?

My research answers the question: how do different intentions of PPP parties relate to governance and conflict? This question became established following long deliberations through the first year of the PhD, but its origins started as a curiosity whilst a practitioner working within such projects. I was heavily involved in around 100 of these projects, providing insurance due diligence or services through bidding stage and construction. Thirty years of sitting in the middle of commercial conversations which would talk of collaboration between the parties we each represented, whilst simultaneously each tasked with the creation of contracts best suiting the organisations we each represented. On the one hand hoping all would remain collaborative, but on the other hand each knowing the other was tasked with defending one’s own side should all go wrong. I arrived at this PhD not knowing what that was as a research problem per se, just knowing it was problematic and needed to be understood differently.

I had a bumpy landing back into this academic forum as I reframed and refined that curiosity into something more firmly situated within extant literature and the contemporary discussions within it. During the first year in this PhD, that sense of a problem to be better understood became a wrestling between my experiences and the different literatures (e.g., organisational conflict literature, construction literature, organisational behaviour literatures, social psychology literature) to find the ideas and vocabulary addressing what I knew to be problematic in practice. Matters I also knew others in practice agreed to be problematic. Each aspect of different intentions, governance, and conflict (i.e., the three legs of the stool which my answered research question now rests upon) therein became solidified around this search to best articulate this problem. Only much later could I be more confident in saying that the literature did not address this problem. As such this became the gap in literature this research problem called into question.

Question: What is original about your work?

The notion of different intentions is a new framing. As a phenomenon it opposes the assumed goal-alignment between parties over time—i.e., as a premise which the literature tends toward. The revealed orientation problem this underpins now has both practical and academic implications. The dual orientation that splits public and private sectors, and directing interests in opposing directions which further split as party-types, is all new. This has implications in contextualising the observed deteriorating public-to-private sector relationship in UK PFI over time (as noted by recent government-sponsored reporting). It also points to different questions we can all ask of ourselves and our organisations as the practitioners creating future policy, or responding to such policy invitations, and rethinking some immediate challenges in the ongoing UK PFI era of asset hand-back now upon us. Academically, calls to explore PPP to understand overlaps between party-interests in governance are responded to, whilst also showing that much of the governance of interest starts at levels beyond the project. All of which returns to the exposed project governance fallacy we asset when presuming future goal alignment is the unconditional outcome of governance(s) at project level. In hindsight, much of this seems common-sense, however my empirical evidence is a first in highlighting how different intentions relate to both governance and the potential for future conflict when we falsely assume all will become aligned.

Question: Which aspects of your thesis are you proud of?

Three aspects come together to form my sense of pride. Firstly, the developed meaning of different intentions and the four attributes of difference which I have developed has future possibility. It offers a simplification of what is otherwise a rather nebulous and unwieldy phenomenon. Having intellectually wrestled with this from both the philosophical underpinnings which relate to intentionality, and with empirical evidence now showing it applied in practice, I see it having possibility elsewhere. I think that potentially useful to academics in other areas and with practical applications in the field. In the specific research context here, I have found it useful as a common language that connects different literatures by helping reveal which intentions they relate toward. At practitioner-level I also turn attention back to future policymakers, practitioners (as well as a source of future academic research). Notable specifically is the future address of a missing basis of governance which can now be explained as protecting the project purpose from all party-type intentions which can threaten it.

Secondly, I am particularly proud to have established an empirical case that now articulates something that now seems self-evidently true. I feel vindicated in my obsession to understand what I now know as different intentions better, and the coined orientation problem it exposes. That relates to, thirdly, the achievement in getting to this point of submission when I consider where this journey began. I can summarise that as so many moments of self-doubt and battles fought in establishing more plausible explanations. Those battlegrounds now sit across the UK PFI landscape of governance I have now created. Likewise, whilst my thesis seemed to be turning toward controversial claims at times (in pointing to limitations in any one perspective taken by theory or field of scholarship) that too turned into a potential means to bring more literature together. The literature I borrowed from is instead noting those different party-specific perspectives each takes. I look back along that path—from those initial seeds of sensing something different was there to be understood, to the more robust understanding now offered by this thesis—and there is much pride in that.

Question: What are the weakest aspects of your thesis?

I can address this in two ways. Firstly, weaknesses as limitations. Secondly, weakest as meaning the aspect of the thesis that needed the most effort to strengthen and retain form.

I divide limitations into scope limits and methodological constraints. Scope limits narrow these findings to UK-specific conclusions, notwithstanding PPP is now a global form of project procurement. Methodological limitations acknowledge compromises and priorities to which the unprioritised become weaknesses of sorts. Most notably limits to how far legitimacy of power could be considered and the inherent assumption that power had legitimacy. Other philosophical positions could have taken a more challenging approach to the orientation problem exposed. The upside of hermeneutic reasoning was the means to embrace bias from all sides and establish meaning from between each, however I accessed organisational intentions from an elite’s perspective, and as such I focused upon strategic-level interests and remained ambivalent to operational-level matters or other important framings of individual-to-individual per se. Whilst I therefore claim to have revealed something more of the referential totality of governing in a broad landscape, I also obscure some sense of the individual or the unempowered but affected.

The weakest aspect of the thesis is not addressed within the limitations per se because it relates to how the thesis came together. The most troubling aspect of the thesis was the vastness of the landscape of governance that came to be mapped. The mapping was always planned as an objective, but from a practical perspective I was at times overwhelmed by the amount of data and levels of governance needing to be addressed. The literatures at these different levels helped make sense of what I was looking at; giving guidance and confidence that I was right to be distinguishing levels of governance and to be keeping distinct the sectors but also digging within each. However, it was a concern at various times that I was attempting too much in bringing all this together. I was saved by the hermeneutic basis of reasoning which allowed both data and extant theory to be considered side-by-side and to be circled between. I doubt I would have established the clarity of levels and sides to the governance landscape without those returns to extant literature. The methodological limitations reference above are therefore aligned to how this was addressed and what limits the claims. It means my claims remain held-together by an authority that is either aligning with or deviating from extant theory. Again, the inherent acceptance of legitimacy of power is therefore retained by this research approach. This aspect was both the biggest threat to completing this PhD, and the compromise which most aided the claimed means to making sense of the whole.

Question: Has your view of the research topic changed over the course of your endeavours?

All three focal points of this research—i.e., intentions, governance, and conflict—all became differently framed as this research progressed. I began contemplating future shared intentions. Intentions also began as psychologically considered but shifted to sociological grounding as I moved from year one to year two. Governance began as a narrow framing of contracts and relationships, then project governance, and eventually it became apparent that much of what I was researching sat at levels beyond the project per se. Conflict also began as the focal point of interest but it later became clear that conflict was a means to reveal different intentions rather than be the focal point in-of-itself. The most surprising finding was that the elected government entity can become the threat to the project. Only once all three aspects of research became more nuanced and more fully understood did this revelation become clear. It seems obvious now, but it took significant analysis and shifts to see this.

–END–

Next time, some specific and in-depth questioning will begin to be unpacked.

…to be continued

References

Bedwell, S. and Butcher, I. 2022. How to Excel in your Doctoral Viva. Palgrave Macmillan.

A late developer or developments of late?

The stock PhD viva question pondered in this blog is what would be addressed differently, by me, if my PhD process was beginning again today.

My take on this question is to consider what it is really asking, because it has two potential framings (and one sand-trap to avoid). A first answer is reflecting upon what I have learned to show how I am now a trained and competent researcher. A second is more reflexive of both the research and the researcher. I think the second framing is important to discern, and I am minded to construct a different answer to the first as a product of writing this blog. The sand-trap to avoid is to turn this into a narrative about regrets and mistakes within the submitted research and only being realised at this late stage (to which, if I were the examiner, I would then be following up with “so why do you deem this thesis meriting a doctoral-level standard achieved”?). The two potential framings are next each considered in turn.

The late developer

A first answer (i.e., the one I had in mind as I began writing this blog-thought into being) now seems too shallow. I could, with some justification, point to going down every cul-de-sac I could find; unapologetically walking to each cul-de-sac dead-end, and learning something of why each leads no further. I know myself well enough to know that this is my way of learning. Therefore, I would do that again because it is how I come to be confident in my surroundings.

Stated otherwise, I emerge from the detail to be big picture, and I distrust everything until I’ve spent time with it enough to have context to then apply it (or justify not applying it) and useful for next time. If starting the PhD process again I would probably advocated walking down all such roads to nowhere all over again. However, this revelation is not new insight to me or anyone who knows me. Indeed, I trawled my blog archives to find me musing on such matters as I began examinations for my first MSc:

“Seeing the wood for the trees. Is that the wood 🪵 in trees 🌲 🌳 🌳 or trees in the wood?” (Self-citation from 2020)

The point of this answer would be to convey a clarity now understood which could point me more immediately to the best approach to take in conducting this research. If doing it again I could offer the justifications more immediately as to why this was the right approach to take. Throughout my PhD journey my supervisors would (regularly) point to another cul-de-sac walked and a few more months added to the whole. The other metaphor of note was to call these rabbit-holes-i.e., a country-walk made longer by the warrens I needed to pull my head out of. [My rabbit-related first name fits the research version of me well enough]. However, whilst this is all true, and the answer I had in mind as I started this blog, it misses that bigger-picture question. [It’s also a little conceited, reminiscent of a screenplay quote put into Gandalf’s mouth that JRR Tolkien never actually wrote: “A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to”].

The developing of late

With that answer dismissed, the newly-found researcher in me can answer this with a coherence to the pre-PhD version of me from 2020. The first answer is the wood-in-tree 🪵response, but misses the trees in the wood 🌲🌳🌳focal point that I now suspect this question really invites. The better answer acknowledges the invited demonstration of application of the learning, rather that just explain how it was learned.

The better answer starts with noting that I’ve come to appreciate the reasoning behind what is so important about seeking out the best practices in applied research. In other words, understanding how the best methods and guidance in their applications sit within the broader framing of methodology. This is not to say start with the methods or even the methodology and work outwards, on the contrary it is to start with the clarity of what is being asked and then apply the methodology that best fits that clearly demarcated question. From this start-point, the better methods and the most appropriate guidance in applying them becomes self-evident as well justified. In retrospect, this is what I have taken great care in being able to establish.

I look back upon my four years and I can now see me wrestling with distinct issues year-on-year. By example, what was the problem I was addressing, took me the whole of my first year. I see me wrestling with demands put upon me but also self-imposed in seeking the justifications in methodological choices. This need for justification characterises my entire second year. My third year was then wrestling with putting these justified decisions into practice. In the sense of gathering and then establishing meaning from my interview-derived data. Specifically using the adopted hermeneutic reasoning and chosen reflexive thematic analysis in tandem. Furthermore, working with this analytic approach alongside the complementary single data-gathering method (semi-structured interview) which I had carefully selected for this purpose in year 2. My fourth year—the extra year borne of cul-de-sacs walked or carrots collected from rabbit holes returned from—is where this all then came together. This fourth year, and specifically the second six months, has demanded I also have command of the literature I am engaging with in the most concrete of terms. To reinforce this latter-day point, the literature review I (re)wrote at the back-end of year four could then more precisely position my thesis as now submitted.

The question of what would be done differently next-time-around can now be addressed more specifically to my journey and my completed thesis. In each of these four years, I have wrestled meaning into shape. On countless occasions I did this the hard way. In countless ways I was establishing the detail, questioning the merits of what I was arguing, being unhappy with that answer and seeking academic supports that offered better reasoning and/or application in establishing new primary evidence. All of this hardship or dwelling upon the detail was directed towards best answering the research question I carefully constructed.

If I did this PhD again, I would have that clearer view of my surrounds. By example, I can tell you why there is much danger in applying a phenomenological approach and not being aware of the contested nature of using such philosophical methodology for empirical purposes. [This will be the topic of my next blog]. Another example, I spent much of my first three years noting how disparate and divided the governance literate can be [another future blog]. I found the authoritative scholars offering partial landscapes of that totality, and in doing so I could skip over thousands carefully crafted words and arguments I had made. This latter-day realisation revealed to me that my own work was complimentary to mapping that whole, but specific to my specific project-form (the public private partnership) as my research context.

The most foundational learning has also been the more rudimentary or foundational concerns for all social scientists as methodological matters, research design, and justifiable clarity behind the overall chosen research approach.

The trees-in-the-wood not the wood-in-the-tree

The foundational methodological learning merits further example. It could be another blog but I make this point in two paragraphs next because it sits with this question of what has been learned and how it has been applied. It is also relatable to many fellow PhD candidate I speak with. Knowing with precision what one’s level of analysis is, what application of the chosen unit of analysis then becomes, and how all is underpinned (and limited) by one’s assumed basis of reasoning and world-view taken; these are the fundamentals. I call them rudimentary not because they are simple, but because they are the rudiments to application as a doctoral-level researcher. These are matters of research design and as methodological questions they become paramount. Knowing what level(s) of analysis one is working at, and what unit of analysis one is applying, are skills and a knowledge I now apply critically to much I critique. They are matters I talk about at length with fellow PhD candidates struggling, much as I did. In my case my unit of analysis are the different intentions which organisations, interorganisational groups, or teams within organisations introduce into projects. The level of analysis is then the space between these entities (i.e., the space that differentiates parties by those different intentions).

Once one has command of methodology and what is important about discerning specifics of basis-of-reasoning and application to research design, important doors are unlocked. A panacea of better and more critical framing of academic rigour, challenges to research validity, and the means to consider the merits of reasoning behind why complementary guidance for specific areas and tasks requires expertly applied context These are learnings and researcher-framings I would apply much quicker if addressing my research problem again. This is trees-in-the-wood (🌲🌳🌳) focal point, not the wood-in-tree (🪵) error of choosing methods in methodology first. This is what I deem important to know if being self-reflexive and/or critiquing research conducted by/for fellow researchers. I present my thesis with confidence borne of applying this rigour and concerned for merited validity of the contribution to knowledge now submitted for examination.

In summary, if starting this research today, I would apply all that I have learned with the confidence of being the more capable researcher. Each of my four years wrestled with specific justifications in what is now presented as my thesis. This thesis is now presented as the researcher with access to the insights and knowledge I now have means to borrow from within the academe at large (and at will). I can justify all decisions made at the end of this four years, but I could get to such decisions more quickly the second-time-around. Such knowledge also now arms me with means to critique at length how my discussions fit alongside the discussions I am engaging in with others doing the same, applied to any academic task at hand.

to be continued…

Preparing for the Viva Voce

I defend my thesis on 17^th November. This blog introduces a series of future themed blogs as I gather my thoughts alongside likely questions to be asked. This series is for my benefit but is otherwise intended to share with my fellow cohort (and/or others interested in the academic specifics of the UK viva voce).

Geographic distinctions

For academic context, the modern-day viva voce is the name for the in-person defence of the PhD thesis. From the Latin, Viva Voce translates literally as live voice. Borrowing from the higher education literature, the UK version of the viva voce is categorised as a closed door approach (Kumar et al., 2021; Stephenson et al., 2024). Stephenson et al., (2024) review of this literature, with focus upon candidate experiences from the UK. If you are based in the UK (like I am) then for purposes of preparation this distinction helps frame the formality of this examination. By example, the possibility of failure at this late stage in the doctoral process is said to be different from hybrid approaches taken in other Anglo-relatable geographies. They reference US and Australia specifically, and relate those Anglo-relatable geographies more akin to European hybrids. The hybrid sits between the extremes of the formal UK closed-door viva and the opposing end where the viva is more processional than a determinant of passing through it (so to speak). Metaphorically, the UK closed door approach can therefore be a door that remains closed should the candidate fail to impress the examiners. This approach is furthermore distinguished by offering very limited grounds for appeal should the candidate feel unfairly treated in the process itself. The lack of transparency and potential subjectivity of this closed-door approach are therefore flagged as key criticism of it. The closed-door metaphor as used by these scholars is however more a reference it being “conducted in private” (Stephenson et al., 2024, p.2). By either framing of the closed-door, if facing the viva in the UK, there is therefore good reason to preparing thoroughly for this defence.

Candidate experiences and guides (UK specific)

The UK candidate experiences also vary significantly  (Stephenson et al., 2024). Based upon candidate experiences gathered in this literature, the length of the viva ranges from an hour or up to four hours. Some candidates were told from the outset what the outcome was (i.e., turning the viva into a more processional experience for those few). The experiences of candidates also ranges from surprising convivial but probing discussion on the one hand, to others who said to be left wondering if the examiners had read their thesis at all. Being on the defensive was also not necessarily bad. Some reporting that they thought the viva went terribly, with negative experience of the whole process, but then being surprised to be told they had passed.

The format of the viva can also vary. University of Leeds guidance seems to sit somewhere in the middle-ground of UK range of viva set-up—i.e., applicable to my cohort and my own preparations. Stephenson et al., (2024) suggests the typical UK format is chaired and can have supervisors present. The external and internal examiner set-up is standard. My own viva has a nominated chair on my records but I do not think they attend the viva and instead sign-off the reporting of it. The guidance within Leeds seems to vary by faculty (guidance states “if appointed”). Specific also within the school of civil engineering it has been my choice to have one of my two supervisor attend.

I have also opted for a fully remote option (where all attend online). The following rather foreboding words also accompany the guidance for University of Leeds PGRs (post-graduate researchers). Notwithstanding if the viva format is all-present, all on-line or hybrid, pastoral support must be “available to the PGR [post-graduate researcher] immediately after the viva, should this be necessary” (Policy and guidance on using video calls for a research degree transfer or viva | Students | University of Leeds).

Guidance from Examiners on LinkedIn (UK-relevant)

Yikes!! I guess with the mandatory availability of pastoral care we are now forewarned. Next, I turn to social media sources to guide my preparations for what questions might be posed. In truth, I have been preparing for the viva since the start of this journey. LinkedIn is a treasure-trove of academics offering benefit of their wisdom and in some cases experiences of being the viva examiner. What follows are insights picked up over four years of engaging with it and a few links back to those source posts will be included for anyone wanting to see those source posts.

Regardless of geography some advice is ubiquitous. For example, positioning oneself in the examiner’s shoes: “Start evaluating your work not as a writer but as an examiner. Because at the end, the question is not: “Did you write enough?” It is: “Can you defend what you wrote?” (Laraib Abbas, PhD March 2026). Furthermore, consider what the examiners are seeking to elicit from the candidate: “Two examiners sit down to establish three things: [1] that the work is yours; [2] that you understand what you did, and why; [3] That you know where it is weak” (Prof. Emmanuel Tsekleves, August 2026). Christopher Preece links the thesis to the viva because this is where the challenges are to be made. “When I examine a thesis, I reconstruct its argument: Problem → Questions → Method → Findings → Contribution”. Furthermore, “I examine whether those chapters make one defensible argument” (August 2026). Regardless of the category of viva voce being prepared for, these seem universally applicable concerns. The questioning seems to follow themes, and with this understood the thesis is perhaps where much of what is being questioned should already be addressed.

The UK-specific closed-door approach next helps select advice from the wealth of sources on LinkedIn. Emmanuel Tsekleves is based at Lancaster University and guides doctoral students in business administration. He has been an external examiner for fifteen years. By this experience, he asserts that most decision-making is concluded prior to the viva beginning. Reports are said to have already been shared between examiners, and therefore opinions are already formed. As the viva begins “the first 15 minutes decide if I change it”. Reading this in the context of the candidate experiences captured in the higher education literature (cf. Stephenson et al., 2024) adds different perspective on what the more difficult viva experiences might therefore relate to. The recommendations from the candidate perspective are then on the one hand, know what the examination is about—which UK and overseas academics all point to as bound to the quality of the thesis per se. On the other hand, preparing the candidate, ensuring the process is sufficiently transparent, or changing the closed door approach (Stephenson et al., 2024).

The future blogs in this series will address some of the questions being posed by these social media sourced prompts. Beginning with introductory framing, the motivation behind choosing this topic. Future blogs will further address the contribution made by addressing this topic, as theory, practice or methodological contribution. What did the extant literature state and what is now known differently? What do you understand of research methodology, what methods did you apply and consider but not use, and why opt for this methodology and specific methods? How did the research design develop? What were the key findings, how does this compare to prior understanding, what was unexpected? What is the impact of such findings and this research? What theory has been related to. Who benefits, what are the limitations and how does this restrict the contribution to knowledge claimed? Were objectives achieved, research question answered? What would you do differently if starting the PhD now? (Emmanuel Tsekleves 26 Feb 2025).

To be continued…

Academic References

Kumar, V., Sanderson, L.J. and Kaur, A. 2021. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education Investigating the role of convenors in the PhD viva Investigating the role of convenors in the PhD viva. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 46(7), pp.1080–1091.

Stephenson, Z., Jackson, A., Wilkes, V., Stephenson, Z., Jackson, A. and Wilkes, V. 2024. Student experiences of the ‘ closed-door ’ PhD and doctorate level viva voce : a systematic review of the literature. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 49(5), pp.601–615.

Further Reading and Academics to Follow

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Samina Amin

Caroline Dale

Ali Hindi

Submitted: the end?

My PhD candidate status now reads: submitted. My last blog optimistically suggested that submission was about six weeks away. That turned into six months.

How does it feel to submit? What took so long? Is this the end?

“A PhD is a process of transformation and the production of an output […] focus on finishing. That final point has been my recent dilemma, and one perhaps also awaiting you” (April 2026)

How does it feel to submit? It is quite a moment. Pressing submit and letting go of thesis to next be read by external examiners: it felt significant and a big commitment now made.

What took so long? The commitment made at the moment of submission, and the significance of it, helps explain why the optimism of six weeks away throughout my fourth year remained recurrently blind to what lay ahead. The output now submitted was not as I imagined. It includes 22 figures, it advances theory I was not well aware of until recently, and adds more to discussion with other fields than I envisaged. In reality, the transformations within me were still incoming and a few surprises were still to be sprung as I wrote those words in April. My absence from this blog of late tells its own tale.

What took so long was the (re)working to be done before submission. I think for most PhD candidates this task is substantial. For me, the move from reporting results and into the different framing of discussing and developing new theory from results reported is no small task. I also had to to return to methodology to explain what was done (i.e., in the past tense), and whilst a joyous rewrite this further exemplifies the time consuming extra writing I had not really planned for. Likewise, I rewrote my problem statement and literature review through different eyes in these last two months. The transformation within in April was incomplete. My insights and confidence in my own work, and the latter-realised authority in subjects I now own all found new voice with those eyes anew. None of that could have been foreseen as is now seen looking back.

Beware the new world bleeding into the old in this tough but joyous final few months! My funding stopped as scheduled at the time of writing that last blog in April. I have since been consulting a little whilst also (re)writing my thesis countless times. Applications for post-graduate funding are also exacting, time-consuming, and the odds of approval are generally not great. I experienced my first funding rejection in August. A funding proposal I would have been invited into as a nominated post-doc was unsuccessful in July. Nonetheless, such applications helped me focus the clarity of what contribution the PhD itself has made, and demanded I think upon what is then different about what might be researched next. I jokingly called the final months of a PhD the fluffy back-end; but, as predicted, it is not fluffy!

Is submission the end? No, but it is a big step forward. Furthermore, the fluffy back-end I joke about in this series is real in the sense of no self-evident moment of closure. Future focus is one example. The more important from a PhD perspective is what is next. I now prepare to defend by my own voice what I have claimed to have contributed to my field, i.e., viva voce (with the living voice). That defence decides if what I submitted as an output and merits doctoral award. I am not done transforming into an academic yet…

…to be continued

Start date	01 Oct 2022
Faculty/School Deadline for submission of FFPR (First Formal Progress Report)	28 Feb 2023
Deadline for decision on FFPR	01 Apr 2023
Faculty/School Deadline for submission of Transfer Report	31 Jul 2023
Deadline for decision on Transfer	30 Sept 2023
Faculty/School Deadline for submission of APR (Annual Progress Report)	31 Jul 2025
Deadline for decision on APR	30 Sept 2025
Expected thesis submission date	30 Sept 2025
Maximum time limit for thesis submission	30 Sept 2026