How to understand anything

Thesis Series #9

How to understand anything:

(And how I identified 292 drivers of transformation).

Every research paper begins with a research method.

At this point in my PhD, I had already defined market dominance and identified eleven firms that achieved it. The next task was much more complex.

I needed to identify the complete set of external drivers of transformation, reshaping the environment in which those firms operated.

This is where many strategies fail. Leaders rely on experience, intuition, or a small set of familiar ideas. Change is discussed, but rarely mapped systematically.

I chose a different approach.

I used a systematic review of the global research literature to identify every driver of transformation discussed across economics, technology, policy, medicine, the environment, geopolitics, and social change.

This is a standard method in doctoral research because it is comprehensive, transparent, and repeatable.

In practical terms, it means this:

First, I defined the exact question I was trying to answer. What drivers of transformation are reshaping how firms compete, and how can they be organised so leaders can act on them?

Second, I built a precise search logic. I did not rely on a handful of popular terms. I used a wide set of phrases that capture how transformation is described across different fields.

Third, I set strict selection rules. Only peer-reviewed work. Any time period. English language. Only articles where external change was the central focus.

Fourth, I filtered for relevance.

I applied this process across two major research databases.

The result was 1,234 serious research papers. More than 10 million words.

It was overwhelming.

I’ll explain tomorrow how I made sense of it.

Be sure to like this and follow me, Dr. Ian Hallett , so it shows up in your feed.

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This post is part of a series of notes I am writing on my PhD thesis, sharing how I approached it and what I learned. You can see the entire series on my website.