Rogat+-+Evolution+of+the+Thesis+Research

Michelle Rogat Evolution of the Thesis Research


 * First the thesis topic started out as looking at country clubs and golf courses and using them to analyze where issues and resistance to sustainability stems from and how to overcome those hurdles in order to move the sustainability movement along, kind of giving it a jumpstart
 * This then moved to being a case study of country clubs, golf courses, and restaurants - and a main piece of the research was going to be interviewing and carrying out a case study at the country club, utilizing my position to provide insight, with an emphasis on how sustainability works in the trenches of a country club
 * About the 2nd week in November it's changed to being about the hospitality industry as a whole being this low hanging unpicked fruit of the sustainability movement, and that I could look into the importance of studying the elite as well, the huge potential for the hospitality industry to decrease it's big impact on the environment
 * Now, 11/18/2013, the thesis has evolved to being a pretty big undertaking with multiple parts. It is still looking at the hospitality industry as low hanging fruit, and analyzes it using this business ecology model that lays out the variables for the success of a hospitality business to become sustainable. There's the business itself, the businesses it uses services from, it's members/customers, and the environmental consultants available to them for advise and help on becoming sustainable. The plan is to interview and study each of these sections of the business ecology model and to do a case study at the country club to being out emerging theories on what is creating this resistance to sustainability and how to over come that.
 * after writing grant proposal - 12/06, it became clearer that the primary site was the country club and the secondary sites would branch out from what was going on with the projects at the club. These secondary sites would be the other examples of hospitality businesses, other businesses involved in the club's network, the members, the env and sust professionals and organizations that could provide advice or a service to the club for going green, etc. so it's almost a 2-part research project, where there's a case study, and there is phenomenological research being done through interviews with numerous 2ndary sites where they have experienced sustainability projects before.