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Energy Megaprojects Working Group Meeting Record
Meeting held: Monday, 17 July 2012
Venue: Politecnico Di Milano
Present: Koloman, Mauro Mancini ( Group Leader), Nina Hampl, Louis-Francois Pau, Naomi Brookes,
Tomas Urbanovsky
Apologies: Gerald Adlbrecht, Daniela Spirikova, Giorgio Locatelli, Ruth Mourik
1.0) Overview Of Work Since Last Meeting
NJB gave an overview of the work undertaken by TU, GL and herself since the last Energy WG
meeting. NJB explained how the ‘post-its’ from the Bratislava Brainstorming Session had been
transcribed by TU. TU and GL had then operationalised those which were amenable and used a subset of cases (those concerned with nuclear new build) to capture the presence of the operationalised
construct within the cases. NJB explained how she had further refined this spreadsheet to separate
out dependant variables and how she had then applied these constructs to all of the current cases in
the Energy WG portfolio. The resulting spreadsheet is given in Annex A of this document.
NJB also alluded to the work undertaken by GL and TU using an Eisenhardt1 ‘Similarity and
Differences’ approach to proposition generation from case-study material. The results of this
exercise are given in Annex B of this document.
2.0) A ‘Semantically’ Based Approach to Hypothesis Generation
LFP presented a semantically based methodology that he had used within several consultancy
organisations to the generation and testing of hypotheses from case based material. He also
presented a trial application of the methodology to the results of the Bratisava Brainstorming
session. LFP highlighted the use of automated tools in this process. Annex C contains the
presentation that LFP gave to the meeting.
3.0) A ‘Triangulated’ Approach to Hypothesis Generation
The Energy WG reviewed the options available and determined to run three parallel approaches to
hypothesis/proposition generation, to test the hypotheses/propositions resulting from these
approaches and thence to ‘triangulate’ these and produce an overall list of supported hypotheses for
the Energy WG.
The Energy WG discussed the testing of the hypotheses and the setting of the levels of response
required to confirm or refute a hypothesis. In the case of the NJB/TU/GL methodology,
operationalisation meant that constructs were binary (either present or not present). The LFP
1
Building Theories From Case Study Research
Eisenhardt, Kathleen M.
Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review; Oct 1989; 14, 4; ABI/INFORM Global
pg. 532
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methodology would provide continuously distributed data. It was determined to live with these
inconsistencies during the testing phase and to resolve them at the triangulation phase.
The Energy WG then undertook to convert the results of the Bratislava Brainstorming session into
semantically correct propositions amenable to processing by LFP’s automated hypothesis generator.
The results of this exercise are given in Annex D of this document.
The resulting actions were determined as a result of this discussion:
By the end of August:
Action: NJB ( in conjunction with TU and GL) to review the current operationalised list of hypotheses
and propositions and to check that the operationalisation of constructs was clear, that the
propositions were grammatically correct and that they could not be further reduced or simplified.
Action: Case Owners to check that they are happy with the NJB attributions of case values in the
revised spreadsheet once she has circulated this.
Action: NJB to investigate further generation of hypotheses using an inductive (‘Eisenhardt’ ) based
approach
Action: LFP to process the list of grammatically correct propositions generated by the Energy WG
meeting using the automated tools that he has available and circulate the resulting list of
hypotheses to the whole working group.
Action: Individual case owners to confirm/refute if the hypotheses apply to their cases using the
rules provided by LFP.
By Mid-September
Action: LFP to have triangulated the three mechanisms of hypothesis generation (NJB, GL & TU
mechanisms, inductive mechanism, LFP semantic approach) and confirmation and to arrive at a
‘master’ list of supported hypotheses/propositions for the Energy WG for review by the whole
group.
NJB
24-07-12
Annex A: Spreadsheet to be provided by NJB
Annex B: Spreadsheet to be provided by NJB
Annex C: PPT presentation to be provided by LFP
Annex D: Spreadsheet to be provided by MM