Tony Wall, Jayne Russell and Neil Moore
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role of positive emotions in generating workplace impacts and examine it through the application of an adapted appreciative inquiry…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role of positive emotions in generating workplace impacts and examine it through the application of an adapted appreciative inquiry process in the context of a work-based project aimed at promoting integrated working under challenging organisational circumstances.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a case study methodology which highlights how an organisation facing difficult circumstances (such as austerity measures, siloed cultures, constant threats of reorganisation, and requirement to work across occupational boundaries) adapted an appreciative inquiry intervention/method.
Findings
This paper found, first, that the utilisation of appreciative inquiry in the context of an adapted work-based project in difficult organisational circumstances generated positive emotions manifest through a compelling vision and action plans, second, that the impacts (such as a vision) can become entangled and therefore part of the wider ecological context which promotes pathways to such impact, but that, third, there are a various cultural and climate features which may limit the implementation of actions or the continuation of psychological states beyond the time-bound nature of the work-based project.
Practical implications
The paper illustrates how an organisation adapted a form of appreciative inquiry to facilitate organisational change and generated outcomes which were meaningful to the various occupational groupings involved.
Originality/value
This paper offers new evidence and insight into the adaptation of appreciative inquiry under challenging circumstances in the context of a work-based learning project. It also provides a richer picture of how positive emotion can manifest in ways which are meaningful to a localised context.
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Keywords
Tony Wall, Lawrence Bellamy, Victoria Evans and Sandra Hopkins
The purpose of this paper is to revisit the scholarly impact agenda in the context of work-based and workplace research, and to propose new directions for research and practice.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to revisit the scholarly impact agenda in the context of work-based and workplace research, and to propose new directions for research and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper combines a contemporary literature review with case vignettes and reflections from practice to develop more nuanced understandings, and highlights future directions for making sense of impact in the context of work-based learning research approaches.
Findings
This paper argues that three dimensions to making sense of impact need to be more nuanced in relation to workplace research: interactional elements of workplace research processes have the potential for discursive pathways to impact, presence (and perhaps non-action) can act as a pathway to impact, and the narrative nature of time means that there is instability in making sense of impact over time.
Research limitations/implications
The paper proposes a number of implications for practitioner-researchers, universities/research organisations, and focusses on three key areas: the amplification of research ethics in workplace research, the need for axiological shifts towards sustainability and the need to explicate axiological orientation in research.
Originality/value
This paper offers a contemporary review of the international impact debate in the specific context of work-based and workplace research approaches.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine how deeper psychosocial structures can be examined utilising a contemporary provocative theory within workplace reflection to generate more…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how deeper psychosocial structures can be examined utilising a contemporary provocative theory within workplace reflection to generate more radical insights and innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper outlines a provocative theory and then presents case examples of how deeper structures can be examined at the micro, meso and macro levels.
Findings
Deeper psychosocial structures are the forces that keep the status quo firmly in place, but deeper examination of these structures enable radical insights and therefore the possibility of innovation.
Research limitations/implications
Deep psychosocial structures shape and constitute daily action, and so work-based and practitioner researchers can be tricked into thinking they have identified new ways of working, but may be demonstrating the same workplace behaviours/outcomes. Workplace behaviours, including emotional responses to apparent change, are key indicators of deeper structures.
Practical implications
Ideas and processes for examining deeper structures can be integrated into daily reflective practices by individuals, within organisational processes, and wider, system processes. However, because deeper structures can appear in different forms, we can be tricked into reproducing old structures.
Social implications
Examining deeper structures increases the possibilities for more radical insights into workplace structures, and therefore, how to potentially mobilise innovations which may better serve people and planet.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to examine the work of Slavoj Žižek in the context of work-based learning.
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The purpose of this paper is to offer a humanistic perspective on practice and prompts us to think about some of the implications for a more connected perspective on work and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer a humanistic perspective on practice and prompts us to think about some of the implications for a more connected perspective on work and learning.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper takes literary and metaphoric approach to discussion to evoke and engage the audience. It uses the primary device of the thriving of forests to prompt reflection.
Findings
This paper prioritises concepts of sustainability and responsibility and aims to prompt the reader in thinking about connectedness in relation to their own life and work.
Originality/value
This paper attempts to challenge an overly economic concept of work and learning, and offers an alternative humanistic metaphor to evoke and engage the reader. It values and encourages an experimental form of writing.