Hi John, Thanks for the balancing archetype, all very fair. Perhaps in either
case there are prior questions emerging about where the impluse begins for a
piece of work, perceptions of 'owner' of the inquiry and how that feeds its way
into the locus of an authentically open space where all have that ownership for
the duration, the way the values and intentions then get realised, etc. (also
maybe we have a sidebar about national contexts, I have had more professional,
business-like enocunters with the consultancy teams working out of academia,
UK's institutions being very hybrid cultures and economy-driven these days...)
________________________________
From: john watkins <[email protected]>
To: ANNE BENNETT <[email protected]>; World wide Open Space
Technology email list <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, 9 October 2013, 16:08
Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space and Research
I'm US. I think an equally strong argument could be made that university folk
have pragmatic concerns and cultural norms that are more aligned with tenure
and publication than helping an outside organization with its own questions and
its own pragmatic concerns. At least that has been my experience. They are
often unprepared to support the real work of a non-academic institution in many
ways (type of research, means of engaging people collaboratively, timeliness of
reporting, type of products, language, capacity to be situated within
decision-making processes, degree to which their research has "catalytic
validity," etc.).
Sent from John's iPhone
On Oct 9, 2013, at 2:10 AM, ANNE BENNETT <[email protected]> wrote:
I agree the 'researcher' role is never 'non-participant' even s/he believes
they are. However, I would support (from a UK perspective at least) the
involvement of the higher education sector over the consulting one - the
economics of it and one of the primary products/motive of learning for its own
sake are likely to be at least espoused and so can be put to test - as
consultant of 30 years I greatly value the roots of policy and pratice that set
out in academia, however commercialised that environment has to be these days.
Wonder if John is US, Oz or elsewhere? Might make a difference
>
>
>________________________________
> From: john watkins <[email protected]>
>To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
><[email protected]>
>Sent: Wednesday, 9 October 2013, 6:24
>Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space and Research
>
>
>I don't know why you would need a university researcher to do this work.
>Plenty of consulting organizations do really high quality ethnographic
>research for organizational change initiatives. Some of us were trained in
>graduate school in ethnographic research as a change strategy, even ways to
>use it collaboratively with
people in open space like settings to study their own organizations for the
purpose of improvement.
>
>Sent from John's iPhone
>
>On Oct 8, 2013, at 6:06 PM, Michael Wood <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Is anyone aware of Open Space being used to support Social Sciences
>> Qualitative Research in organisations? I have an organisation that wants
>> to work on a particular question (how to attract and retrain 'older'
>> workers) and they want to work with a University to doing some evidenced
>> based internal research on this question. It seems to me that the Sponsor
>> could open up a space on the question with the university researcher being
>> part of the circle (with me facilitating the Open Space). As well as dealing
>> with any action plans that emerge from the day, the university researcher
>> could then sit down with
the Sponsor after the event
and do some systematic analysis of the Book of the Proceedings to identify
emergent themes and then decide how to design further research as required by
the Sponsor. In effect the Open Space would be a broad brush 'step 1' in the
research design. Of course all the normal conditions of Open Space would be
encouraged - voluntary participation and as
>mu
>> ch diversity in the room as possible.
>>
>> Anyone been involved in a project like this, particularly in the Health Care
>> industry, collaborating with a university researcher?
>>
>> Michael Wood
>> Perth, Western Australia
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