Aliki Nicolaides

Inquiry in Action for Leadership in Turbulent Times Exploring the Connections Between Transformative Learning and Adaptive Leadership

This article discusses the theory and practices associated with a methodology for leadership capacity development that utilizes Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry to support adults in understanding the connections between transformative learning and adaptive leadership. Discussion is focused on transformative learning, ways of knowing, or action logics and single-, double-, and triple-loop learning.

Generative Learning: Adults Learning within Ambiguity.

This study explored the extent to which ambiguity can serve as a catalyst for adult learning. The purpose of this study is to understand learning that is generated when encountering ambiguity agitated by the complexity of liquid modernity. Ambiguity, in this study, describes an encounter with an appearance of reality that is at first unrecognizable, oblique, simultaneously evoking fear of “no-cognition” and the potential hope for multiple meanings irresolvable by reference to context alone. Specifically, this phenomenological study engaged nine adults who make meaning—cognitively, affectively, and interpersonally—with an extraordinary capacity for mastering complexity. The findings suggest that metaphor facilitates probing encounters with ambiguity, revealing three capacities for generative learning within ambiguity. Given the unprecedented demands for rapid change and adaptation confronting adults today, exploring the value of ambiguity may facilitate the capacity for vital learning and intelligent action.

A Conceptual Model for Developing Mindsets for Strategic Insight Under Conditions of Complexity and High Uncertainty

This article addresses an important, yet often underattended to, aspect of the strategy development process: fostering the use of strategic learning practices in the simultaneous practice of developing strategy and cultivating strategic mindset awareness. The need for addressing this aspect of the strategy development process is increasingly important because of the intensifying complexity of the task environment. Following a framing of this context in terms of a complex adaptive systems perspective, a conceptual model for addressing this strategic HRD challenge is presented. The model is based on two distinct, yet in terms of potential implications for HRD practice, interconnected streams of literature: strategic learning practices, and adult development theory (specifically, constructive developmental theory and developmental action inquiry). The implications for HRD practices seeking to address this need, along with implications for future research, are also discussed.

Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry An Opportunity for Transformative Learning to Occur

Life in the 21st century is increasingly complex, paradoxical, and ambiguous, bringing into question the ways that graduate adult education programs function. In this article, we describe an action research study involving the method of collaborative developmental action inquiry conducted with key stakeholders of a program in adult education at a research one university. Collaborative developmental action inquiry created opportunities for transformative learning to take place. The study process and outcomes suggest that the method and practices of collaborative developmental action inquiry could themselves create favorable conditions for transformative learning to occur.

Envisioning an Adult Learning Graduate Program for the Early 21st Century: A Developmental Action Inquiry Study.

The rapid pace of social and technological change in the early 21st century leaves many adults scrambling to meet the complexities that characterize their daily lives. Adult learners are faced with multiple, often competing, demands from work, education, family, and leisure, which requires adult education graduate programs to carefully consider how best to meet these changing needs of today’s students. Using a developmental action inquiry approach, the authors collected data using multiple rounds of mutual inquiry from diverse groups of stakeholders in adult education. We asked each group to explore the question, “How does adult education as a profession, field, and practice help adults, organizations, and society meet the demands of 21st century life?” The combined results indicate that responsive, dynamic graduate programs in adult education for the 21st century should support the cultivation of critical and timely reflection, create online learning environments predicated on intentional community and mutuality, and foreground the relationship between adult learning and developmental capacity to prepare adult education facilitators who stand confidently in the face of complexity and ambiguity.

Emerging Action Research Traditions: Rigor in Practice

The authors argue here that contemporary use of action research shares the exploratory, inductive nature of many qualitative research approaches-no matter the type of data collected-because the type of research problems studied are set in complex, dynamic, rapidly changing contexts and because action research is undertaken to support social and organizational change that requires buy-in from many stakeholders affected by the research problem. Action research serves as a critique and alternative to more traditional views of social science. In this article, the authors first describe action research as defined by Kurt Lewin, its originator. They show how two variants of action research-Action Science and Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry-advance insight into how action research can be used to develop personal capability to address system changes that action research seeks to unveil. By using the example of an innovative action research approach to doctoral research, the authors illustrate the context-rich, exploratory nature of action research that both generates knowledge for and in change, and developmentally engages collaborating researchers and participants. They conclude with reflections on criteria for rigor and relevance in action research in todays post-modern, complex world.