This wednesday I was visiting Greenclaim to interview a couple of their employees about the way they use their social network for the company. I did the same at the facility of Mr Prezident on Thursday. So now I’ve got some new data to analyse for my third article.
Last week I was visiting the Simon and Garfunkel story in the theatre and heard the song “Homeward bound” again. It was one of the first songs I learned to play on my guitar, so I thaught I’d play a part of it for my vlog. The phrase “I’m heading for my destination” is one I want to label to the phase I am in right now. My second article almost finished and starting with the data collection for my third article gives me the impression I’m heading somewhere. Still “I am a poet and a one man band” so I have to make a couple of miles…
Last week I was busy reading new articles and making my interview list for the employees I’m going to meet of Greenclaim and Mrprezident. I also looked into tools for transcripting these interviews and started to work on the transcription of an earlier interview using MaxQDA12. On the 25th of April I will have my next meeting with my promotors to make the interview list definitive so I can start interviewing.
Last week I did a lot of reading for my third article and a I adjusted my research framework and my research questions. I also made a new version of my second article and sent it to my promotors. The will adjust it now in a way that it can be submitted to a journal. I also talked to the entrepreneurs that are subject of my study and they gave me permission to interview there employees for my third article.
So my research question will be this: “How do student entrepreneurs build trust and associability in order to make their employees use their social network to find resources for the company?”
This is the conceptual model I will use to build my third article around:
This week I worked mostly on literature research for my third article and I had a conversation with my promotors about the work I delivered. I handed in the fifth version of my second article but according to my promotors still didn’t hit the nail on the head. I must be more specific about the contribution I’m making to the literature of social networks. So within two weeks I will deliver a new version in which I will put in some extra data to make a stronger case. My promotors will help me with the last step and contribute to the final version so that it can be published in a scientific journal.
Also my groundwork for my third article needs some work and I will look into the literature to make sure that the conceptual model I want to use is strong enough to build my research upon.
This week I put a lot of effort in writing a new version of my second article.
I also made a new conceptual model for my third article and hope my supervisors will accept it so that I can move on.
Last week I discussed my first research proposal about my third article with my supervisor. We came to the conclusion that it still needed some work. My focus was on the social network of the employees and not on the way student entrepreneurs make use of this network. So I worked on a new proposal and also did some new deskresearch using Vosviewer With this tool you are able to find the most quoted article on the topics your doing research in.
On 23th of February Pieter Bosschaart told a couple of students of the university of applied sciences how he started in 2011 his company during his bachelor study with Paul van Hattem.
Nowadays www.mrprezident.com is a global operating company working for mayor brands and situated in Amsterdam, New York and SIngapore.
This week I finished the design of my third article. It was fun to make it and I hope it will help to make a good start with the path to the next milestone of my thesis. I want to write about the way employees of companies started by student entrepreneurs use their social network in favor of the company they are working for.
My conceptual model deals with mechanisms of rewards and reciprocity, but also with the different kind of topics that are related to this topic e.g. introducing new employees, finding possible clients, information about competitors,…
I hope that three of my former students will give me access to their company to interview their employees.
I will continue to inform you about my progress!
This week I delivered a new version of my second article I was quite satisfied about the story line and the proposed contribution to the literature. I also started with making my design for the next article. I want to research the way employees contribute to their company by using their social network. I want to do a qualitative research in three former student companies. One company in het B2B sector, One company in the B2C sector and one company in the B2B-B2C sector. Next weeks I will tell you more about the design of the research and the research questions.