The draft table of contents and scope statement for the First Year Report, the pre-reading for the FYA1 preliminary meeting. Target length is approximately 14,000 words including appendices. Working title: Toward a Theory of Organizational Evaluative Capacity under Transformative AI Engagement.
Opens with the empirical puzzle: large AI capital expenditure and confident organizational narratives set against productivity gains that do not show up in the results. Establishes the puzzle as cross-domain and multi-level from the outset, rather than resting on any single case.
The three objectives that follow from the central question, stated as tasks rather than findings. The worked account of the mechanism sits in the theoretical framework paper (working draft), with its tables reproduced in the appendices.
Begins with how the literature was gathered and synthesized (a structured Scopus search across four blocks, tracked in a Zotero library), then runs the problematization that surfaces the continuity assumption across four literatures and sets out the resources PSF integrates across levels. Detailed on its own page: Literature Review.
Sets out a five-step sequence that alternates between theoretical and empirical work, each step refining the next: theory building, first empirical study, framework refinement, second empirical study, and theory development, with the dissertation integrating all five. The reflexive design choices are carried on the Methodology page, and Study 1 is specified in the Study 1 Research Design.
By the 28 August 2026 deadline the primary deliverable is the theoretical work and supporting documentation, plus the infrastructure for the fieldwork, which formally occurs in August and September 2026.
Situates the theoretical work within the PhD programme rather than restating the contributions. It states what the year-one theoretical work establishes for the programme: the framework, its mechanism, and the contrasts with competing explanations.
Framework-level risks are the open questions the empirical work needs to settle. Objections the framework already addresses (anthropomorphism, the Goodhart "with extra steps" challenge, the determinism worry around material braking, and the so-what challenge) are answered in the theoretical framework rather than relitigated here.
Walks through the dependencies the Gantt cannot show on its own: how each key deliverable depends on the prior step landing, and the cascade risk between tightly sequenced milestones. See the Research Timeline.
Considers the transition from practitioner to researcher and locates the puzzle in the gap between confident AI narratives and productivity gains that do not show up as expected, including the difficulty of theorizing a phenomenon hard to observe from inside the technology.
Counted within the total word budget. Reproduce the framework paper's tables and supporting exhibits.
Not included in the FYR word count.