UNDERSTANDING REFORM PROJECT FAILURE IN THE UK; A MORPHOGENETIC APPROACH COLETTE RUSSELL Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements of the University of Liverpool for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy 11th July 2016 Contents List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ 9 List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. 9 Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 10 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 13 1.0 Introduction and background ............................................................................................. 13 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK.......................................... 16 2.0 Introduction: major projects, modernity and the projects’ paradox ................................... 16 2.1 Defining failure .................................................................................................................. 20 2.2 Project failure research ...................................................................................................... 21 2.3 Escalation of commitment to failing projects .................................................................... 22 2.4 Future perfect strategies ..................................................................................................... 23 2.5 Oversight and learning lessons after project failure .......................................................... 24 2.5 Summary of project research perspective .......................................................................... 26 2.7 Broad questions arising from the reform projects literature .............................................. 27 2.8 THEORETICAL AND ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORKS ................................................................. 28 2.8.0 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 28 2.8.1 Institutional theory: Towards answering the question, what is there? ........................... 29 2.7.2 Legitimacy ............................................................................................................... 32 2.7.3 Strategic legitimacy, discourse and rhetoric ............................................................ 33 2.7.4 Institutional legitimacy and new public management ............................................. 35 2.8 Realist Social Theory: Towards answering the question: How should we study it? ......... 41 2.9.0 An introduction to structure and agency .................................................................. 41 2.9.1 Realist social theory and Archer’s (1995) morphogenetic approach ...................... 44 2.9.2 Analytic dualism ...................................................................................................... 44 2.9.3 Culture ..................................................................................................................... 46 1 2.9.4 Structure................................................................................................................... 47 2.9.5 Agency ..................................................................................................................... 48 2.9.6 Corporate agency ..................................................................................................... 49 2.9.7 Emergent properties ................................................................................................. 51 2.9.8 Temporality and time cycles .................................................................................... 51 2.9.9 Summary .................................................................................................................. 52 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................... 55 3.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 55 3.1 Philosophical orientations of the research design .............................................................. 56 3.1.2 Ontology .................................................................................................................. 57 3.1.3 Epistemology ........................................................................................................... 57 3.1.4 Critical realism ........................................................................................................ 60 3.1.5 Mechanisms ............................................................................................................. 63 3.1.6 Structures ................................................................................................................. 63 3.1.7 Section Summary ..................................................................................................... 64 3.2 Phronetic orientations ........................................................................................................ 64 3.2.1 Who gains, who loses and by what mechanisms of power? * ................................. 66 3.3 Research design ................................................................................................................. 67 3.3.1 The intensive approach ............................................................................................ 67 3.3.2 Case study strategy in critical realism ..................................................................... 68 3.3.3 An exemplary case ................................................................................................... 69 3.3.4 Problematising for research questions ..................................................................... 70 3.3.5 Research Questions.................................................................................................. 72 3.3.6 The case: FiReControl: An English fire service reform project .............................. 72 3.3.7 Unit of analysis ........................................................................................................ 73 3.4 Data .................................................................................................................................... 73 3.4.1 Data selection .......................................................................................................... 75 2 3.4.2 Data analysis approach: A two-stage framework .................................................... 77 3.5 Data analysis methods........................................................................................................ 78 3.5.1 First (empirical/event level) framework of understanding: Critical hermeneutic analysis .................................................................................................................................................. 78 Stage 1: Choosing and initial reading of the texts ............................................................ 79 Stage 2: The contexts ........................................................................................................ 79 Stage 3: The hermeneutic circle, closing the hermeneutic circle and fusing horizons ..... 80 Stage 4: Conceptual bridge ............................................................................................... 80 3.5.2 Second (overarching) framework for explanation: Morphogenetic approach ................ 81 3.5.2.1 Operationalising morphogenetic theory ............................................................... 81 3.5.2.2 Social structure ..................................................................................................... 83 3.5.2.3 Cultural structure .................................................................................................. 84 3.5.2.4 Agents and agency ................................................................................................ 85 3.5.2.5 Situational logics .................................................................................................. 85 3.5.2.6 Retroduction ......................................................................................................... 88 3.5.2.7 The morphogenetic cycle for this study ............................................................... 89 3.5.2.8 Section summary .................................................................................................. 90 3.6 Managing the data analysis: Nvivo 10 ............................................................................... 92 3.7 Theory generation and generalisability .............................................................................. 93 3.8 Ensuring quality of the research findings .......................................................................... 94 3.8.1 Critical realist criteria .............................................................................................. 94 3.8.2 Objectivity ............................................................................................................... 94 3.8.3 Researcher reflexivity .............................................................................................