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Enacting reflexivity in the process of strategy researching

2010-06-11 , Schumacher, Thomas , Ruoss, Sabine , Tuckermann, Harald

Empirical studies following a pProcess oriented approach seek to understand the "how" and "why" of organizational phenomena which evolve over time. Since the central part of studying processes is about understanding tacit, embedded and contextual phenomena and taken for granted assumptions a variety of perspectives and complementing approaches for the essential sense making could be expected. However the process oriented methodology focuses very much on traditional research methods like interviews and participating observations. This has been frequently criticized but few alternatives have been developed. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a complimentary method which is inspired by a social system theory perspective to doing research on organizing and strategizing. The "Learning Journey" is a specific combination of an insider/outsider research approach. Using practitioners in different roles not only as passive informants but as research partners and gaining thereby additional observations as well as sense making impulses elements the Learning Journey addresses some of the critiques which have been put to the existing methods. By introducing the Learning Journey as an additional method for studying processes in organizations we would like to complement existing methods on case study research, ethnographic approaches as well as some reflective approaches in action research. In addition to being just another method enriching the methodological repertoire the Learning Journey in addition raises some interesting fundamental questions in regard to doing process oriented research