Emma Jeanes

Measuring Innovation - Applying the Literature-Based Innovation Output Indicator to Public Services

Governments have been encouraging public service organizations to innovate. However, little is known about the extent of innovation in public service organizations. A private sector approach to the measurement of innovation - the literature-based innovation output indicator (LBIOI) - is applied to public service organizations to address this significant information gap. The method is described and then explored in one public service sector, English housing associations. A sample of 257 innovations is constructed and then subject to analysis. This initial testing of the LBIOI indicates that the approach can be applied across public services to create longitudinal data sets, which will enhance the communication of good practice and the use of evidence in public policy, management and research. This methodology is demonstrated to offer initial insights to public service innovation and would allow relationships to be explored notably innovation and performance, a relationship central to governments promotion of innovation.

Questioning Consensus, Cultivating Conflict

This article puts into question the preoccupation with consensus and convergence that seems to characterize the field of organization and management theory (OMT). Much effort has been directed to providing a model of unification legitimating the political containment of conflictual diversity. Even potentially controversial debates (such as the “paradigm wars”) have taken on a rather tired quality as academics tend to look for middle ground or are happy to retreat into private language games. This article suggests that we should move beyond bridging or containment strategies and strive for a true repoliticization of the field. This presupposes that we learn to value notions of conflict and struggle again, rather than muffling them by referring to a common so-called professionalism. In developing the argument, the article connects with the thinking of Mikhail Bakhtin, offering a challenge to integration and/or consensus and fragmentation and/or incommensurability discourses that seem so prevalent in the field today.

Are we ethical? Approaches to ethics in management and organisation research

We are currently witnessing two concurrent trajectories in the field of research ethics, namely the increasingly explicit and formalised requirements of research governance and the ongoing debate around the implicit nature of ethics, which cannot be assured by these methods, and related—for some—the role that reflexivity can play in research ethics. This article seeks to address two questions. First, given the focus of these discussions is often theoretical rather than on practice, how do our colleagues engage with research ethics and what is their ethical position? Second, given reflexivity is typically focused on knowledge construction, to what extent does it influence (if at all) their ethics throughout the research process? Interviews were undertaken with senior colleagues who have established modes of research practice and ethical approaches. Drawing on understandings of reflexivity and ethics, this article explores an ethical subjectivity that was typically reflective and sometimes reflexive and was usually related to personal rather than procedural ethics. It demonstrates contrasting ethical concerns of society, participant and researcher community, and how some researchers saw their ethical obligation as focused on producing meaningful research at the expense of more traditional concerns for the research participant.

Critical Management Research : Reflections from the Field

The emergence of Critical Management Studies (CMS) reflects a growing body of scholars within the management research community who are recognised for their philosophical or theoretical work, as well as undertaking empirical research. The majority of published texts on research methods do not focus particularly on critical managementresearch, or if they do, they focus more on paradigms and perspectives rather than processes or practices ‘in the field’ and thus their reflections are often one stage removed from empirical work or lack reference to recent empirical experience. Furthermore, with the exception of feminist research within this critical community, CMS typically fails to demonstrate its reflexivity and ethical consideration in its empirical work(either leaving it implicit or absent), despite theoretical discussions within the community arguing for the same. Accordingly, the book is not just another methods book. Rather, it focuses on contemporary accounts of those engaged in fieldwork and managing the challenges in fieldwork (including the analysis and presentation of findings) when undertaking management research. It would aim to give contemporary accounts of undertaking research, and focus on the practical realities of the research process and how challenges faced can be negotiated. It focuses particularly on the challenges faced by ‘critical’ researchers in negotiating the tensions between giving voice, protecting identity, saying something meaningful and making a difference to people’s working lives.In doing so, it explores all aspects of the research process, including the development of the research question, data collection, ethical issues, analysis, and writing up the findings. It also explores the research process from an individual perspective (the default assumption of many texts on research methodology) and as part of a collaborative endeavour. This includes reflections on the nature and politics of working relationships, the dilemmas faced and ways of negotiating issues that arise. (Less)

Complexities, challenges and implications of collaborative work within a regime of performance measurement: the case of management and organisation studies

ABSTRACT The current demands on higher education institutions (HEIs) to become more efficient and effective have led to increasing performance pressures on researchers, and consequently on the practices and outcomes of researcher collaborations. In this paper, based on a qualitative study of collaborative experiences of management and organisation studies scholars, we explore the complexities and challenges of researcher collaborations under the current regime of academic performance measurement. Our study suggests that researcher collaborations are underpinned by four main rationalities: traditional-hierarchical, strategic-instrumental, scholarly-professional and relationship-orientated. We find that strategic-instrumental rationalities are the most prevalent and typically infuse other rationalities. Our research demonstrates that there are potential adverse consequences for the quality and purpose of outputs, the effects on collegial relationships and risks of exploitation and reinvoked hierarchies in collaborative relationships. The study reveals some of the problematic implications for academics and HEIs that emerge as a consequence of research productivity measurement.