Today Oscar and Ola had the great news that their article “Liminal practice and reflection in professional education: police education and medical education” was accepted for publication in Studies in Continuing Education! You find the article here
This week it was Robert´s turn to arrange the ODD seminar. We discussed the paper “Orchestrating reforms” that Robert have written with Oscar, Ola and Markus. The paper deals with how multimodal resources are used in videos for sensegiving of the reform. As always a very nice way of ending the week!
The other week we had the absolute pleasure of welcoming professor David Buchanan to Umeå as part of the research exchange program financed by Riksbankens jubileumsfond.
During the visit David met with several people in the research group to discuss how to push articles and ideas forward. David also gave one seminar and one workshop related to methods used to overcome the challenge of studying extreme contexts. The workshop was about the use of fiction in studying management and organisation, most specifically movies, such as zombie movies. The seminar was related to the book he is about to publish with the late Alan Bryman. (link here). The book, “Unconventional Methodology in Organization and Management Research” deals with numerous less conventional methods (such as film) is used to access hard to access settings.
It is the absolute pleasure of TripleEd to invite you (again!) to a WORKSHOP with Professor Emeritus David Buchanan at Cranfield University, UK. David has a lot of experience in using and writing about unconventional methodology in management and organization studies. Take the chance of learning about doing things a little bit differently!
WHERE: S303
WHEN: Wednesday 7/3
TIME: 09.15-12
Bio and poster about the workshop attached. Please distribute the information to anyone that you think might be interested!
Everyone is most welcome!
David Buchanan WORKSHOP on the use of fiction in MOS – POSTER
During the previous week Ola, Oscar and Markus went to University of Akureyri (Iceland) to present their paper “Organizational challenges of criminal investigation in northern rural Sweden”. The paper was well-received and lots of interesting contacts were made. Looking forward seeing what will become of this!
Finally we are back to some kind of normality and the ODD seminars are once again arranged! The other week was however even a Odd seminar for a ODD seminar since we spent the time welcoming two new members of our small community, celebrating some achievements and planning for the spring.
The two new members are Malin Näsholm and Ulrica Nyhlén, both associate professors at the management section at the department of Business administration, USBE. They are both interested in identity work and expatriate police personnel. Ulrica have also done research on the healthcare system in Sweden. A closer presentation will follow later on…
The celebrations was concerning the recently accepted article by Robert, Oscar, Ola and Markus. It was Robert´s first so he deserved to pop the bubbles! (about the article see here)
The planning of the spring gave in hand a couple of occasions for Odd seminars, but also the coordination of activities as we have guests coming in. The two whose dates are set are professor emeritus David Buchanan at Cranfield University, and professor Daniel Geiger at Hamburg University. Both of them will give seminars based on recent work, and workshops on methods related to extreme contexts. Stay tuned, more information will follow!
The other day Markus Hällgren, Linda Rouleau´s and Mark de Rond´s paper “A Matter of Life or Death: How Extreme Context Research Matters for Management and Organization Studies” was published in the Academy of Management Annals journal. It was a lot of hard work so they are really pleased to finally see it in print. Hopefully it will make a difference in how we conceptualize, theorize and approach extreme contexts in the future.
You find the article here or you can email Markus on markus.hallgren(at)umu.se if you´d like a copy. Please share with others that you think might be interested!
Abstract
Organization scholarship has seen an escalation of interest in research into extremes. Comprising several interconnected domains, this growing body of research is decidedly fragmented. This fragmentation risks limiting its potential for advancing management and organization studies. Drawing on 138 articles published in top-tier journals between 1980 and 2015, the purpose of this review is to resolve some of this fragmentation by sharpening definitions and by developing a context-specific typology to help differentiate between contributions from research into riskycontexts, emergency contexts, and disrupted contexts. Doing so allows us to let the various literatures speak to each other and to outline ways to enhance the cumulative potential of extreme context research.
Igårkväll hade P4 ett inslag om tristess i våra liv. Markus hade förmånen att bli intervjuad om insikterna om hur expeditioner på Mount Everest hanterar det. http://t.sr.se/2ERBE4k
Today Ola, Robert, Ola and Markus had the pleasant news that their article “Negotiations and research bargains: Bending professional norms in the effort to gain field access” was accepted for publication in International Journal of Qualitative Methods.
Worth mentioning this was Robert´s first. More to come!
Abstract
The present study provides an auto-ethnographic account of the efforts to gain field access to a police organization, spanning more than two years. The aim is to describe a case of gaining access in relation to the professional norms of science put forward by Robert K. Merton. Aided by an organized record of notes, emails and other written communications regarding access (144 memos of various types), the study describes and discusses the negotiations with Mertonian norms that followed from the dissonance between ideals of research and practical reality. Opening up for further scholarly discussion, the article concludes that Merton’s norms are incongruent with both prevailing guidelines of research ethics as well as with the practical, short-term problems of access negotiations and research bargains.
What is already known?
Obtaining field access in organizations is an increasing problem for qualitative researchers. The literature on gaining access is providing strategies that researchers can use, as well as problematizing the ethical issues involved when bargaining with organizations. However, the literature has not hitherto engaged with the problem of how access negotiations affect the types of research questions asked, the way results are presented, and, consequently, what the role of research in society ought to be.
What this paper adds?
Using Merton’s norms of science (universalism, communalism, disinterestedness and organized skepticism) as a reference, the paper shows how the realities of research bargaining are at odds with research ideals such as impartiality, rationality and, in particular, freedom and autonomy from often competing societal interests. It also shows that prevailing ethical guidelines such as ‘informed consent’ might, in the effort to gain access, be problematic in relation to these ideals. With these arguments, the paper seeks to expand the debate on the problems of access to organizations to include the role of research in society.