Collaborative and Self-reflective Forms of Inquiry in Management Research

Creating Knowledge in and for Action

Many managers seeking learning find their way on to some form of postgraduate research programme. In this chapter we explore forms of research which are collaborative, self-reflective and action-oriented. These seem particularly likely to be useful to people wanting to develop knowledge in the service of more effective individual and organizational action. They have been influential in the management learning field under titles such as ‘new paradigm research’ and ‘action research’. They are founded on significantly different principles from mainstream traditional social science research and have gained much legitimacy and acceptance since the early 1980s. But they may still be seen as bold and challenging by many people.

This chapter is written as a selective, retrospective story told from our experience of working with ideas about and practices of research in the School of Management at Bath University. We have chosen this form because it is in the community we share with our postgraduate students that we have developed our own approaches and experimented with those of other people in this field. Also, we see developing inquiry as a continuing process in which ideas and practice are explored alongside each other, and are lived and tested among colleagues willing to support and challenge each other. Developing our educational approaches to working with postgraduate students has been a significant strand in this story. These ‘students’ are mainly mid-life people who register for part-time research degrees to explore issues which have strong professional and personal significance for them. Each one brings expertise, ideas and values to the research community that contribute and move our practice and thinking on.

As we tell this story we shall pause to explicate key features of the research approaches we are reviewing, to refer to key writings which have influenced us, and to note current challenges. But we do not want to freeze any exposition in time as if it is definitive. These are formulations in continual process. They are valuable to work with, but the issues they address — such as what is valid knowing — have to be engaged with anew and [Page 227]as an exercise in self-creation for any aspiring researcher. So, we feel that we are continually moving on, repeatedly replenished and tested out in mutually educative, alive encounters. It is important to state that this is not always easy or comfortable. We have recently advised prospective students that working as we do ‘will involve struggles as well as harmonious engagement’ and ‘will sometimes be delightful and sometimes uncomfortable or painful’. We note with interest that new generations of students seem to enter where we are; we do not have substantially to recap history for them. We take a tentative sense of validation from this, as if our development is in tune with some trends in a more widely evident, and growing, interest in action research approaches.

We do not intend this chapter to become self-congratulatory. We are pleased with much we have done and do. And this is not a perfect picture: there have been difficult, stuck or conflictual times; we have not been able to work well or fruitfully with everyone who has registered with us; and we have sometimes judged ourselves less than competent, or the situation impossible. We continue to learn — we hope.

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