Winter, 2011 Lessons Learned Reflection Paper Assignment,1

Lessons Learned Reflection Paper Dr. Kenneth Wall Submitted for Weekly Assignment March 6 March 12, 2011 Requirements for MGMT 801 Research and Writing I

By Rhonda E. McBride, MA, REM, CHMM Colorado Springs, Colorado March, 2011

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Abstract This paper discusses what I have learned from participating in the Research and Writing I Course. I have also shared some information regarding my research interest and highlighted some information that I gathered during my first/initial attempts of researching this topic accordingly.

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As I reflect on what I have learned from my participation in the Management #801 Course entitled, Research and Writing I, I must conclude that I have grasped numerous research and writing concepts, in addition to learning a significant amount about myself as a person. Firstly, on a personal note upon my acceptance into the Colorado Technical University (CTU) Doctorate Program for Environmental and Social Sustainability (ESS), I was anxious and somewhat unsure of myself. However, I began to relax when I met my other cohorts whom had expressed similar emotions when I met them at the Winter Symposium. I also left the Winter Symposium with a warm feeling in my heart, because I was honored to be chosen and afforded the opportunity to accompany them on this adventure of pursuing a doctorate degree. When I arrived home and was put into the throws of the course, my anxious feelings returned and often derailed me from completing my assignments in a timely manner. It took the support of my family, friends and fellow cohorts to get me back on track with their various pep talks. It was at this point and after finalizing my 5-Year Plan where I devised a plan-of-action (POA) with myself in order to get this done. Essentially, I found my recipe for success, so to speak, within my 5-Year Plan. A weekly review of this document helped to keep me focused and on the right track. The only thing I discovered that I had to master/refine was that of my time management skills if I was going to get everything that I planned on accomplishing within my five years. More specifically, I had an Aha Moment, where it was revealed to me that when I become consumed with completing my homework assignments and intentionally ignore not following through on my spiritual and exercise commitments (as cited in my 5-Year Plan) that is when everything seems so overwhelming to me. After, a good meditation session and praying session, I reasoned that God only gives us 24 hours within a day and 7 days within a week and that I must use this time wisely, because it was a gift from God.

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With that said, I resolved within myself to Run My Own Race and not to compete with others. Furthermore, I began to accept that this goal of mine was indeed achievable, but I will encounter some roadblocks along the way, because that is to be expected. The fact of the matter was that I needed to keep my eye on the prize, that is, what this achievement will do for my career and/or profession. I also reconciled that my desire to teach in academia will also help me to reach others and thereby permitting me to contribute to my professions body of knowledge---something that I desire to do within my lifetime. Bahaudins reasons for earning a doctorate degree in business and management can be summed up as follows: personal and intellectual development, recognition of contribution, entrance into academia (research, professorship. lecturing), better employment opportunities, and social mobilization or networking with professional colleagues. Of course, regardless of the reasons, earning such an achievement also depends on many other situational variables such as time, money, parental status, marital status, and overall family support. (Mujtaba et al., 2008). Deepening my spirituality, a goal identified within in my 5 year plan, helped me to pull myself from going into a deep depression when things did not go as planned in either my personal or professional life. Additionally, it helped me conjure up the strength to continue with the CTU Doctorate Program when my initial response was to drop out. I had numerous pity parties, but somehow I was able to see that achieving this degree was indeed obtainable and that perhaps God put it in my life to position me for bigger and better things. I went through this discernment often and it instilled within me to start again with completing my homework assignments. I imagine that I will continue to have these doubting/negative thoughts, but knowing this will prepare me to devise a plan on how to deal with them in a positive manner.

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Secondly, my current unemployment and its associated issues contributed to me falling behind in my schoolwork on numerous occasions. The process of looking for gainful employment is time consuming. There were times when I didnt want to do this activity at all and others when it was the only thing that I could focus on while participating in this course. My pursuit of my Project Management Professional (PMP) credential is also something that is a part of my future goals and studying for this exam also monopolized quite a significant amount of my available studying time. Lastly, the course content tested my stamina. In short, the writing part of this course reminded me of my undergraduate Rhetoric Class. We reviewed sentence structure, correct punctuation usage, writing styles and the like. It was a lot of material and I have relegated to utilize both textbooks (i.e., The Elements of Style and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association) as reference material. My review of these two books involved highlighting and tagging pertinent material for quick retrieval while composing my papers/assignments. For example, I learned that my summary writing format should involve writing a discussion and supporting it with evidence. (Strunk, W. & White, E., 2000, p. 32, par. 2). The APA Publication Manual was a lesson on presenting my research material in a professional manner that is consistent with the techniques utilized by experienced publishers. Overall, the 6th Edition APA Publication Manual is expanded guidance material on the following subjects: (1). Ethics (2) Statistics (3) Journal Article Reporting Standards (4) Electronic Reference Formats and (5) Construction of Tables and Figures. (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 3, par.3).

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In April of 2008, I returned from an overseas assignment with a US Navy Contractor located on the Island of Diego Garcia. More specifically, this British-owned island is located in the middle of the Indian Ocean and is surrounded by the continents of Asia, Africa and Australia. My experience there remains to be unforgettable in my mind and I was fortunate enough to garner some long-lasting friendships. I have recently returned from Japan (i.e., in February, 2010) where I was working as a Toxics Program Manager at a US Yokota Air Force Base located approximately 28 miles from Tokyo, Japan. All in all, the job was difficult, but when I found the time I participated in some incredible sight-seeing activities while living in Japan. I was retained as a Consultant to both the US Navy and Air Force to assist the Powers that Be with their task to bring each of these bases into environmental compliancy. These entities were ordered to accomplish these tasks by their Commander In Chief, Former President Clinton, Former President Bush and the now current President Obama. Essentially, this meant either revamping their environmental regimes in order to comply with more stringent environmental regulations or evaluating their current procedures were consistent and in compliance with existing environmental regulations that are enforced here in the USA. As you may have surmised by now that this was or could have been a huge task, then you are absolutely correct. Essentially, it warranted changing the mind-sets of those soldiers for the sole purpose of protecting public health, welfare and the environment. I quickly discovered that the existing procedures were followed merely because either the host country had no existing environmental regulations or few environmental regulations that were not comparable to those practiced in the USA. To say the least, I had my job cut out for me. Consequently, my research interests are as follows: In a time (i.e., the 21st Century) where society is now focused on taking extreme efforts to preserve the environment for future generations, what sustainability efforts

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have been undertaken by both the public and private sectors while present abroad? More specifically, do these efforts equal or exceed those taken here in the USA? I have itemized more information regarding my research interests in the table below: Areas where my knowledge is strong

Areas where I need to Learn more about

How my Research Interest are linked to my Goals I suspect that this will become a strong issue for the future and it will employ the expertise of various change agents, such as me, to assist both government officials and business executives when meeting these forthcoming challenges. To increase my knowledge in this area in order to formulate a set of recommendations for my future clients. Develop a working knowledge of the aforementioned areas and gather resources where I may go to for additional knowledge, when appropriate. I anticipate that I will need to maintain my expertise & keeping up with tried and true solutions is a must. I want to become an expert in this field, so I need to diversify my knowledge base from that of environmental compliance and be able to speak intelligently on how the aforementioned issues must be in balance in order to implement worthwhile sustainability efforts. Garnering this knowledge will make me even more invaluable to my future students and clients.

Environmental compliancy Environmental compliancy policies demonstrated by policies demonstrated by the US Government abroad. US-owned companies abroad.

Sustainability efforts implemented by the US Government abroad.

Sustainability efforts implemented by US-owned companies abroad.

Expertise with hazardous substance, waste, and Toxics regulations.

Limited knowledge on air and water environmental regulations.

The importance of protecting our natural resources and the consequences if our human impacts are not downgraded.

Specific sustainability efforts that incorporate energy resources, human consumption, food, manufacturing and the like.

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At first glance, I hope to answer the following questions upon the completion of my research efforts: 1. What approach is taken when aforementioned entities conduct business in countries where there are no on-going environmental regulations or active sustainability efforts? 2. I hope to identify what diplomatic methods are used when the aforementioned entities meet with pertinent government officials in both developed and un-developed countries. 3. What are the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies for the aforementioned entities? How has it evolved over the years and has consumerism affected such a change? 4. Are they any existing International Regulations (i.e. United Nations) that require such sustainability efforts from these entities? 5. What are the existing national or worldly organizations educational campaigns? These are my first approaches to my research efforts and I suspect that they will become more refined as I proceed with my doctoral studies. Upon returning from the Winter Symposium, I was still somewhat unclear on how to pursue my research efforts. So, I conducted some research on the schools ProQuest Database to gather additional information on how best to proceed. Performing research can be an overwhelming endeavor. Its easy to get confused just from collecting, reading and deciphering textbooks and journal articles. Getting organized and mapping out the entire process would be extremely helpful and more importantly provide a path for accomplishing the research Project. (Burian, et al, 2010). I learned from the authors of this article a more definitive approach to the overall research process. This information helped me to figure out what I should have accomplished during each year of the doctorate program. My understanding of the research process is that it is

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iterative. I have surmised that narrowing down the topic is the key to preparing a good dissertation paper. I believe that starting with an idea and then conducting the research by using various tools available to me will kick off this event for me. Furthermore, I recognize that I should remain flexible for the duration of this process, because this process may lead me to a more definitive topic where my research efforts will be more advantageous and/or directed. The authors further advised their audience to refer to ProQuests database for dissertations, so we could get an idea about what a final project should look like. My understanding of the research process is that it is iterative. I have surmised that narrowing down the topic is the key to preparing a good dissertation paper. I believe that starting with an idea and then conducting the research by using various tools available to me will kick off this event for me. Furthermore, I recognize that I should remain flexible for the duration of this process, because this process may lead me to a more definitive topic where my research efforts will be more advantageous and/or directed. I also began reviewing one of our textbooks, entitled Writing the Winning Thesis or Dissertation, at this time. The authors advised their readers to keep a research journal in order to record your ideas, feelings, and actions as they relate to your dissertation. The journal will provide a very useful source as you do your dissertation and reflect about your progress. (Glatthorn & Joyner, 2005, p.24). So, I have begun keeping a research journal. I used it to record any work that I may conduct on my research process as well as record any ideas that I may have about research topics and research sources that I may wish to pursue in the future. Initially, the course began with us reviewing the concepts of different research methodologies (i.e., qualitative, quantitative and action research). We were tasked to describe on the forum what we believed these research involved and the differences between them.

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Additionally, we had to give concrete examples for each of these research methodologies in our posts. In short, researchers who use qualitative research designs for their studies are interested in understanding, in exploring, and discovering. They use interviews, focus groups, analyz3 documents, observe behaviors in groups, investigate culture, and look for trends and patterns in the data they collect. (Burian, et al, 2010). I remember during high school when I had to participate in my schools annual science fair, the process that I followed was: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Ask a question; Conduct the background search; Construct a hypothesis; Create an experiment to test the hypothesis; Analyze the results of the data and draw conclusions; and Write about my findings in a Report.

I believe that the aforementioned accurately depicts the quantitative research process. Action research as defined by Herr & Anderson (2005) is oriented to some action or cycle of actions that organizational or community members have taken, are taking, or wish to take to address a particular problematic situation. The idea is that changes occur either within the setting and/or within the researchers themselves. The latter part of the course was dedicated to locating the following articles in the CTU Library Database System: 1. Practitioner 2. Academic 3. Literature Review 4. Dissertation Research Proposal I located during my earlier research efforts regarding researching for a dissertation paper an article that directed me to some environmental resources. I found the information contained in

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this article very helpful. There are many databases that index and provide access to environmental research and literature. Based on the qualitative and quantitative analyses described in this article, I recommend the following databases for researching environmental and alternative energy topics: Google Scholar, Scoupus and/or Web of Science; Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management; Environment Complete; WorldCat; Google Books; and general web search engines. (Brown, B., 2009). Once these articles were located we were tasked with composing an annotated bibliography (AB) that provides the authors abstract, your abstract and your identified strengths and weaknesses of such an article. This was a procedure to organize research information. Essentially, the AB illustrated that I read and understood the materials gathered. For example, I located articles in my interest topic of Sustainable Businesses. In particular, I reviewed an article entitled, Creating a sustainable environment for business. The authors abstract reads as follows: The article presents the different views of business leaders on ways to create a sustainable business environment. Paul Leinster affirms that it is important for businesses to act as a regulator and advisor to consumers on the things to do in order to integrate sustainability. Ray Baker states that sustainability is all about saving today's business in order for it to survive a longer time. Joe Franses notes that the proper use of resources is one way to be sustainable. (Creating a sustainable environment for business, 2010). Accordingly, my abstract reads as follows: The article provides the reader with background information on sustainability efforts. Additionally, the article cites the most current thinking behind creating sustainable initiatives by business leaders from various organizations. The AB was additionally utilized to identify critical research issues that directly support the study topic, such as research designs, methodology, samples and findings. (Burian, et al, 2010). We were instructed to record such

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important information in the Strengths and Weaknesses Section of the AB for each of our articles. The EndNote software was very helpful for providing a location to store all of our research information. EndNote is an online search tool----you can search online bibliographic resources and retrieve references directly into your EndNote library. You can also export references to EndNote from your favorite online resource (see Direct Export Providers in EndNote Help). (Thomson Reuters EndNote, 2010, p. 5). A practitioner article is one that is written by a practitioner (i.e., someone working in the profession) and has been edited by other experts in the profession. I learned from a practitioner article that building a sustainable business does not have to involve costly efforts. Essentially, an organization can start off small and increase their efforts accordingly. Almost all of us use more natural resources than we create. Thankfully, we dont have to be perfectly sustainable in order to promote sustainability: Like the camper in grizzly country, we dont have to run faster than a bear. We only have to run faster than the other campers. The sustainability discussion provides a great opportunity for getting ahead of your competitors. (Welch, B., 2010, p. 11, par. 5). This exercise in particular revealed to me that I have a published Practitioner Article to my credit. I wrote this article for the April, 1999 Issue of Environmental Protection Magazine. The article is entitled, A Phase I ESA Primer. I wrote this article for practitioners hired to conduct due diligence for property transfers. A change in property ownership frequently involves questions of compliance with environmental regulations, as well as the potential liabilities associated with real estate transfer. Buyers want to know if they are purchasing a contaminated site, and lenders want to know if they are lending money with a potential Superfund site as collateral. The possible presence of air pollution, contaminated surface or

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ground water, hazardous wastes, underground storage tanks (USTs) or a myriad of other pitfalls significantly affects the worth of the property. (McBride, R., 1999). In summary, the course was comprehensive and thought provoking. The Instructor, Dr. Kenneth Wall was both insightful and flexible. I believe his teaching method was that of learning by doing. His availability and down to-earth/approachable attitude ensured my success in this course. The Strunk and White Textbook and the Publication Manual of the APA were good reviews for me in terms of rhetoric and writing style. I found myself referring to them often and I know I will find them resourceful. The information on the Moodle for this course will also be good reference material for me. All in all, I believe this course provided me with a roadmap of the research process, common designs, and steps necessary to produce a solid research effort.

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WORKS CITED

Brown, B. N. (Nov/Dec 2009). Environmental and Alternative Energy Information Sources. Searcher, 17(10), 20-25, 54. Burian, P. E., Rogerson, L. and Maffei, III, F. (August, 2010). The Research Roadmap: A Primer To The Approach and Process. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 3(8), 43-57. Creating a sustainable environment for business. (2010). [Article]. Management Today, 54-58. Glatthorn, A. A. & Joyner, R.L. (2005). Writing the Winning Thesis or Dissertation (Second Edition ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press. Herr, K. & Anderson, G. L. (2005). The Action Research Dissertation. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. McBride, R. E. (April, 1999). A Phase I ESA Primer. [Practitioner]. Environmental Protection, 10(4), 30-32. Mujtaba, B.G., Scharff, M. M., Cavico, F.J. & Mujtaba, M.G. (November, 2008). Challenges and Joys of Earning a Doctorate Degree: Overcoming the "ABD" Phenomenon. Research in Higher Education Journal, 1, 9-26. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (2010). (Sixth Edition ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Reuters, T. (2010). Thomson Reuters Endnote. Getting Started Guide for Windows. Strunk, W. & White, E. (2000). The Elements of Style (Fourth Edition ed.). Needham Heights, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon. Welch, B. (2010, November). Being 'Green' Not a Priority? Publishing Executive, 25(6), 11-12. Retrieved February 25, 2011, from ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry. (Document ID: 2218944961).

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