Pär Mårtensson

While the field of management, spirituality and religion has developed greatly during the last decades with an increasingly number of publications in special outlets as well as in highly ranked journals, the bulk of the research on workplace spirituality still relies heavily on the use of quantitative methods. The field is struggling to find methods, which allow an in-depth, first- person understanding of how spirituality relates to work. With this paper, I hope to contribute to the advancement of alternative research methods by proposing a novel and innovative approach to data generation. The suggested approach takes departure in action research and, especially, the notion of clinical inquiry, defined by Edgar Schein as “gathering useful data in settings that are defined by 'clients' who are seeking help”. If the helping process is perceived as successful, the clients will be motivated to reveal more relevant, in-depth data, also when it comes to sensitive issues, which are usually not within research of traditional research methods. In order to illustrate the approach, I draw on a longitudinal study in which the approach was used to help business leaders to integrate insights from spiritual development into their working life. This paper focuses on (1) how a clinical group setting was created, (2) the design of the intervention, (3) a particular technique called “project discussions” was employed to help clients, and (4) how the use of these techniques provided an opportunity for data generation. It is concluded clinical group setting fulfills the function of a holding environment, a safe space in the borderland between spirituality and business, which allowed them to find support in their developments. As a consequence, in-depth data about how these developments came about could be generated. I also argue that the proposed approach may be a viable way for researchers’ with the dual vocation of both facilitating change and creating academic knowledge about that change. This means, in my case, to carry out research with a method that comes straight from the heart.

There are many ways to discuss research quality. This paper aims at presenting an actionable framework for research quality, which can be used as guiding principles for identifying important dimensions when evaluating research. The framework takes its starting point in prior suggestions that research should be rigorous, relevant and consumable. When examining the rigor aspect it is argued that this is a means rather than an end. By being rigorous, research strives to be credible. This also calls for consistency and transparency. Similarly, it is argued that relevance is a means for research to be contributory. To be contributory research also has to be original and generalizable. Research has to be consumable in order to be communicable, but to become a consumed piece of research it must also be accessible. Starting out with the agenda of discussing research being rigorous, relevant and consumable, the paper instead ends up with a call for research being credible, contributory and communicable. By using the dimensions presented in the paper, researchers may increase the quality of research efforts both in research design, as well as research execution and research presentation.

This paper outlines a general 2-loop model of action research in order to account for two important facets of action research that traditional cycle models do not explicitly account for. One facet concerns the interplay between the processes of action research (ie diagnosing, action planning, acting, evaluating, and learning) on one hand, and their conceptual outcomes (ie the perceived real world situation, the theoretical understanding, and the observed organizational response) on the other. The second facet concerns the dynamic exchange of knowledge between the world theory and the world of practice. Both types of knowledge are necessary, but none of them are sufficient to shape the result of an action research project. We argue that the dialectic between these two worlds manifests itself in a certain point which we call “the moment of truth”, where the theoretical understanding is challenged by practical facts, and where practice is scrutinized by theoretical knowledge. We believe that by acknowledging these facets, it is possible to enhance the quality of action research.