Summary
Contents
Subject index
This handbook provides the latest thinking, methodologies and cases in the rapidly growing area of collaborative management research. What makes collaborative management research different is its emphasis on creating a close partnership between scholars and practitioners in the search for knowledge concerning organizations and complex systems. In the ideal situation, scholars and their managerial partners would work together to define the research focus, develop the methods to be used for data collection, participate equally in the analysis of data, and work together in the application and dissemination of knowledge. The handbook contains insightful reflections on the state of the art as well as detailed descriptions of the collaborative efforts of an international group of leading edge academics and their practitioner counterparts. The applications of collaborative research methods included in this volume include those aimed at individual development, organizational development, regional development efforts and economic policy. The insights from the cases suggest that collaborative management research has been a highly effective means of getting at issues that other research methods and intervention techniques have failed to address. The rationale for conducting this highly engaging type of research is explored in the first section of the handbook, followed by sections that offer new methodologies, descriptive cases, views from those directly involved, and issues and enablers about the use of this approach in advancing knowledge and practice. The handbook does appeal to scholarly practitioners as well as practical scholars.
Toward Building a Collaborative Research Community
Toward Building a Collaborative Research Community
We arrive at the end of our journey in a very different place than we began, which is one measure of a successful trip. In undertaking the creation of this volume, we expected to learn a great deal about the current state of the art in collaborative management research, and we have. We were also prepared to be impressed by the thoughtful and dedicated efforts of our colleagues, and we are. What we didn't anticipate, and where we turn our attention now, is how difficult it would be to define the parameters of collaborative management research. Without alignment at a fundamental level concerning what constitutes collaborative management research and a shared vision for the role it can play in advancing practice and theory, it is difficult to sustain the healthy dialogue that is necessary among members of a community of interest for the continuing evolution of this methodology.
We can now, with the benefit of the views of our contributors here, do a better job of defining what it is that we know, and get a better sense of the range of activities that are offered as collaborative management research. The book has presented many examples and a variety of approaches, in many cases employing sophisticated intervention and learning approaches to address important managerial and organizational issues as well as to challenge dominant approaches and frameworks. We are able to get a sense of what their impact has been, and of their potential. We are also more able to see into the dark spaces where progress may have stalled and where additional work is necessary to illuminate the path to further progress. The rich material in this book can be used to reflect on what truly constitutes collaborative management research. In our opinion, at least, this has the feel of making headway.
It is clear from many of the chapters that enacting collaborative management research in a complex setting is a challenging task, although one with great potential to improve both the knowledge and the practice of managing and organizing. It is also clear that collaborative management research brings an exciting potential to address major boundary-spanning challenges that necessitate joint efforts by different groups of stakeholders driven by different governing logics. If, despite the many difficulties that have been recounted in this volume, there is still as large an appetite for undertaking this kind of work as there appears to be, there must truly be something of great value here. In this final chapter, we hope to make clear what we have gained from efforts to date as well as the many challenges and exciting opportunities that lie ahead.
Definitional Issues
We start with our definition that collaborative management research involves collaboration between scholars and practitioners to yield knowledge to inform practice and the theoretical understandings that pertain to the academic field of management and organization studies. The approaches and examples described in this volume are quite diverse, and indeed, appear to constitute a tool chest that can be used to yield knowledge about different kinds of systems, different levels of analysis, and different theoretical foci, as well as to deal with the very different practice foci of a wide variety of actors. We describe the following three approaches not as a typology, but to give a sense for the range of activity.
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