Silvio Carlo Ripamonti

Pushing Action Research Toward Reflexive Practice

Managers today increasingly find themselves facing unexpected problems, needing to learn how to cope with complex environments and to take action in an often chaotic flow of events. This article discusses how researchers can engage managers in a form of dialogical action research, capable of nurturing knowledge and change. This is achieved by creating space for collaborative dialogue between managers and researchers, and supplementing it with the integration of a reflexive writing practice. We first present methodological reflections related to the challenges of sustaining management practice through action research. Second, we explicate dialogical action research and illustrate the reflexive writing practice through two vignettes which provide opportunities to reflexively explore “how things work” in managers’ organizational contexts. This forms the basis for sustaining participation and learning at individual and collective levels. Finally, we identify and discuss the specific conditions and limits of such an approach.

The power of professionally situated practice analysis in redesigning organisations: A psychosociological approach

Purpose – This paper seeks to provoke thoughts around the possibility of using the lever of practices and situated knowledge to trigger organisational change and to redesign it with the involvement of the whole organisation.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents connections between a psychosociological approach and a practice‐based approach. The use of ethnomethodology is offered as a way to detect situated practice and meaning at works.Findings – This contribution underlines how change and learning in organisations can find support in investing in local knowledge and in detecting and reflecting around the living practices of daily activities. Knowing in practice requires the involvement and continuous work of connecting among individuals, groups, organisations and institutions in situated contexts. The paper shows how strategic a process this is, presenting a way to work on situated data.Practical implications – The paper represents a way to work on organisational change grounded on action rese...

Weak knowledge for strengthening competences: a practice-based approach in assessment management

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the importance of local knowledge for the design of assessment tools intended to develop and enhance human resources in organizations. With respect to the standardization of assessment procedures brought about by the application of universal and global reference models, the article uses a case study to illustrate the potentialities and shortcomings of using a local approach. After a brief survey of the main theoretical frames of reference, the article describes how local knowledge was used at an assessment centre set up at a multinational operating in the maritime transport sector, with a view to developing the competences required by the company. The article describes and discusses the ways in which certain classic knowledge management situations were adapted at the assessment centre to local needs and conditions, and the main results obtained. Finally discussed are the practical and social implications, as well as the limitations and the transferability, of a local approach to assessment.

The social relevance and social impact of knowledge and knowing

The concept of the relevance of knowledge and the relationship between theory and practice has been widely addressed and discussed, for example, in a number of journal Special Issues including Organization Studies (2009 and 2010), the Journal of Management Studies (2009), and the British Journal of Management (2011). In the search to balance “scientific rigour” with “practical relevance” (Eikeland and Nicolini, 2011), various modes of knowledge have been proposed: Mode 1 scientific, Mode 2 contextual (Gibbons et al., 1994), Mode 3 diverse stakeholders (Huff and Huff, 2001), and Mode 0 patronage (Bresnen and Burrell, 2012). The question lying at the heart of this debate seems to be whether organization studies has anything meaningful and relevant to say (Alvesson, 2012).

Work transformation following the implementation of an ERP system: an activity-theoretical perspective

Purpose The purpose of this study is to introduce the Human Resources (HR) module of the SAP suite in the Italian branch of a leading multinational pharmaceutical company. This study can be re-conducted within the interpretive tradition of information technology studies focusing on the attempt to understand and describe how software users in the HR department interpreted the enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology, how they changed their work practices and the changes that occurred in organizational discourses and meanings alongside the process. Design/methodology/approach The case study/intervention took start with the impulse of the Italian HR department manager, who was struck by the way that the ERP system technology implementation was affecting work life of the employees in the department. This research/intervention used interviews, focus groups and internal documents as sources of data. The authors conducted and analyzed 20 narrative interviews and 3 focus groups with middle managers, and they analyzed about 120 pages of internal memos. Findings The implementation of ERP systems is almost invariably accompanied by great expectations of increased process rationalization, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and upper managers’ discourses make large use of what Engestrom et al., 2010 have called process efficiency rhetoric. But the ERP technology, most likely, will neither revolutionize management nor will it become a “complete calculation machine” that runs an entire work organization (Quattrone and Hopper, 2005, p. 731). Originality/value The implementation of the ERP system has caused conflicts and disturbances, aggravating contradictions that already existed between activity systems and introducing new types of contradictions. Pre-existent contradictions become clearer; there is a stronger interconnection between activity systems. The individual agents could experiment an expansion in their activities if only they will initiate a movement of expansive learning and if they are not prevented from doing so by coercive control. The natural expansion of the subjects’ scope of activity and horizons of possibilities could be sustained by the ERP technology if it is not used as a tool for domination and if the upper management does not try and separate what cannot in actuality be separated: The actors’ capabilities of improvised learning, which makes the institution of a new mode of the activity possible, and their capacity to assume collective control of the meaning and direction of the transformation of the activity. ERPs are technologies that can naturally bring transformations in the activity system and networks where they are introduced, but in some cases, they can easily and in a non reflective manner be intended as tools for oppression by the upper management.

Reconstructing the internship program as a critical reflexive practice: the role of tutorship

ABSTRACT Critical reflexivity has been acknowledged as fundamental in higher education. For facing complex situations in turbulent environments, students nowadays need not only to be taught technical knowledge, but also to be helped develop “relevant” learning for their future professional practice. In recent years, scholars have concentrated on what makes the internship experience a successful opportunity for the parties involved, and have also discussed the crucial role of a mentor/tutor in sustaining relevant and effective learning. However, the specific conditions that make tutorship successful in promoting critical reflexivity in such a boundary crossing experience need to be further explored. Aim of this paper is therefore to analyze what tutorship conditions sustain the development of critical reflexivity in internship. For this purpose, we will present the case study of an internship program run by one of the largest universities in northern Italy.

Safety Learning, Organizational Contradictions and the Dynamics of Safety Practice.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the enactment of safety routines in a transshipment port. Research on work safety and reliability has largely neglected the role of the workers’ knowledge in practice in the enactment of organisational safety. The workers’ lack of compliance with safety regulations represents an enduring problem that often involves first-level managers, who are willing to turn a blind eye toward divergent practices. The CHAT conceptual vocabulary and theoretical model is used to explore this issue. Design/methodology/approach – A grounded, empirical study in a large transshipment port in the Mediterranean area is conducted. Ethnographic methods including participant observation and interviews are used, and emerging data are analyzed through an interpretive methodology. The paper explores 30 employees’ narrated accounts of how safety rules are enacted or infringed while living and working in the field in a transshipment port. Data obtained through organisational shadowing p...

Change and Management of Complex Services: The Ethno-narrative Form to Support Good Living and Working Together

Nowadays, managing change in complex services requires that middle management re-designs its objects and professional practices, in order to cope with new needs. It seems therefore crucial to activate training settings that allow managers to: (1) develop research and analytical skills on their own work practices and professional objects; (2) face and manage conflict, related to every change, that represents an opportunity to reflect and review ones own practices; and (3) build new and shared repertories of managerial practices, able to support a better form of living and working together within the management community. Moving from these hypotheses, inside the setting of a training intervention conducted in an educational service, the article discusses a specific tool used to generate opportunity of exchange, and reflection, within a challenging framework of change.

Nuove prospettive della ricerca-azione

Il contributo riprende le principali traiettorie ed esiti di un percorso di studio che ha coinvolto ricercatori di diverse Universita italiane, accomunati da una convergente riflessione sulla complessita e sulle implicazioni relative al produrre conoscenza e cambiamento oggi nelle organizzazioni. A partire da domande relative al cosa significa essere e fare lo psicologo del lavoro e delle organizzazioni e al come concepire il perimetro tra ricerca, formazione e professione sul campo, il contributo approfondisce le coordinate di un approccio orientato alla produzione di conoscenza significativa (rilevante, valida, efficace), a partire dai problemi reali delle persone in situazione organizzativa. Vengono in tal modo riletti i modi di concepire e praticare la ricerca-azione, evidenziandone i tratti costitutivi ed esplorando le implicazioni epistemologiche, metodologiche e operative di una rinnovata visione della ricerca applicata alle organizzazioni.

Designing reorganization by studying professional situated practice: An ethnomethodological perspective

In this study, we test a theoretical model that applies insights of socio-emotional selectivity theory 562 Thursday 24th July 2008 (Carstensen, 1995) and the achievement goal approach (Dweck, 1986) to work motivation and behavior of older workers. As known from life-span psychology, both the tendency toward affiliation and avoidance goals increase with age. We expect older workers to have a tendency to adopt mastery-avoidance instead of mastery-approach goals, and will present data from N = 172 post-retired workers (aged 61 to 79) who voluntarily continue to work to illustrate relations between time perspective, work goals, and outcomes such as work engagement and job performance.The objective was to study elements forming students’ professional identity and experience ofdental education. Focus was on how students cope with conflicting demands and the interaction between a ...