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Organisations
are complex, dynamic, negotiated constructions. It is therefore difficult,
if not impossible, to use the methods of the natural sciences to enquire
into them. For example, it would be difficult to design an experiment with
adequately controlled variables, which would still be seen as a realistic
simulation of a real-life organisation. Instead researchers often have to
enter into the complicated, messy, unstructured situations of
organisations. Action research is one approach for studying organisations.
It involves the researchers taking action in a situation, seeking
practical outcomes as well as theoretical ones, and reflecting on both the
process and the product. It lies midway on a spectrum between pure
scientific research (such as mathematics and physics) and pure action (Mansell,
1991), and in its broadest sense can be characterised as researchers
conducting a highly unstructured field experiment on themselves and others
(Baskerville & Wood-Harper, 1998). It is research based in a complex,
multi-variable real-world situation, and can be both observational and
interventionist (Baskerville & Wood-Harper, 1998).
Many academic
researchers seek to collaborate with others, either with those employed in
organisations, or with their students, for example postgraduates trying
out the ideas of their supervisors. However, working with others brings
problems of power: who designs the research, interprets the data and
assesses the findings’ validity? Co-operative inquiry (CI) is a form of
action research which emphasises participation: all those involved
contribute to the decisions about what is to be looked at, the inquiry
methods to be used, the interpretation of what is discovered and the
action which is the subject of the research. In its fullest form the
researcher-subject distinction disappears and all participants are both
co-researchers and co-subjects. It is research with people, not
on or about people (Heron, 1996; Heron & Reason, 2001; Reason,
1988; Reason, 1994; Reason & Heron, 1999).
This paper
discusses and reflects upon CI as a research methodology. An overview of
CI is given, including its emphasis on both political and epistemic
participation, its four-stage, iterative research process and its extended
epistemology which recognises four types of knowledge. A description is
given of the use of CI in a particular research study, whose research
objective was to explore the extent to which conventionally-educated
information systems developers could adopt a richer model of organisations
by using metaphors (derived in the main from Morgan, 1986; 1993) as
cognitive structuring devices. The study involved collaboration with
student researchers, and the use of CI helped to mitigate the problems of
power and democracy inherent in such a supervisor-student context. This
account of CI-in-use can be taken as an exemplar for others to emulate,
adapting it as necessary to suit their particular situation. Arising from
this experience of using CI, some critical reflections are given,
including the challenges the use of CI as a research methodology poses for
both individual researchers and the wider academic community.
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