Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Probing the Opportunity of Qualitative Research as `Disturbing Practice`
    The Bologna Process (Reichert & Tauch, 2004) represents one of the most recent transformations of the higher education landscape. Though there are as yet few critical investigations (Nóvoa, 2002), it can be reasonably objected that the Bologna Reform propels managerial rationalities such a quality, standardization or transparency (e.g. ENQA, 2005) and thus delineates the limits of science propre (Meier Sørensen, 2003). While establishing a configuration of thought that pinpoints a rational way of conducting higher education in the European context, it is anything but surprising that the Bologna Reform has (and will increasingly have) a significant impetus on the justification of (psychological) qualitative research. The present paper thus addresses the Bologna Reform as a process of educational restructuring (Lindblad & Popkewitz, 2004) in order to speculate on the relationship between the mentalities/logics proclaimed by educational policy documents and the space qualitative research does or can inhabit therein. The paper will culminate in the proclamation of the potential (though as yet not merited) tenets of qualitative research in prospective BA, MA and PhD programs. The argument of our writing will proceed as follows. Starting from the middle of things, so to speak, we will first provide anecdotal evidence accumulated during the course of our own doctorates in order to pinpoint the obstacles and hardship related with qualitative research. We will then construe these Odyssey-like journeys as a somewhat logic consequence of the contemporary scientific dogma of performativity (Lyotard, 1984). While referring to the current critique of higher education (e.g. Aronowitz, 2005) to contextualize our experiences, we will show that the marginal(ized) position of qualitative research becomes intelligible if one takes into account that the McUniversity (Parker, 2002) is increasingly occupied with the production and dissemination of ostensibly practical knowledge, that is, knowledge which can be translated into a code of dos and don'ts. Our inquiry is hence based on both political and economic arguments since we seek to show that higher education is on the one hand envisioned (through Bologna-related and other educational strategy documents) as a means to increase the employability and flexibility of national citizens (Fejes, 2005), and on the other hand construed as a "support device' for the business sector (Etzkowitz, 2003) and as a mechanism for leveraging the competitiveness of national economies (Lyotard, 1984). Positing that it has become mandatory for scholars to treat knowledge as a commodity (Jacobs, 2003) that can be sold either on the tertiary education market or through consultancy services, we will get to use these insights to exemplify how the performativity imperative in turn make it increasingly difficult for qualitative researchers to render visible the value of their work and, by implication, to legitimate their existence. In the last part of the paper we will probe the unique "promise' of qualitative research in the context of prospective BA, MA and PhD education. Though we refrain from promoting qualitative research as an antidote to mainstream research, we will nevertheless suggest that the heritage of qualitative research has much on offer when it comes to the non-economic justification of research. In particular, we conclude that qualitative research defies a consumerist attitude towards knowledge since it notably stresses that social life is more complex, paradoxical and undeterminable than assumed by normal science (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1992). We will further muse on the political implications of quality research so as to proclaim that qualitative research can be useful for unsettling the methodological conservatism of prevailing research (Lincoln, 2005). In full awareness of the utopian connotation of our plea, we will establish qualitative research as an ethical practice which nurtures a sensitivity for difference and alterity. References Aronowitz, S. (2005). Higher Education and Everyday Life. In P. P. Trifonas & M. A. Peters (eds.), Deconstructing Derrida: Tasks for the New Humanities. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ENQA (2005). Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area. Helsinki: European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. Etzkowitz, H. (2003). Research Groups as "Quasi-Firms': The Invention of the Entrepreneurial University. Research Policy, 32, 109 - 121. Fejes, A. (2005). The Bologna Process - Governing Higher Education in Europe through Standardisation. Paper presented at The Third Conference on Knowledge and Politics - The Bologna Process and the Shaping of the Future Knowledge Society, University of Bergen, Norway, 18 - 20 May, 2005. Funtowicz, S. O. & Ravetz, J. R. (1992). Three Types of Risk Assessment and the Emergence of Post-Normal Science. In S. Krimsky & D. Golding (eds.), Social Theories of Risk. Westport, CT: Prager. Jacob, M. (2003). Rethinking Science and Commodifying Knowledge. Policy Futures in Education,1, 125 - 142. Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Institutional Review Boards and Methodological Conservatism: The Challenge to and from Phenomenological Paradigms. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3 ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Lindblad, S. & Popkewitz, T. S. (2004). Education Restructuring: (Re)Thinking the Problematic of Reform. In S. Lindblad & T. S. Popkewitz (eds.), Educational Restructuring: International Perspectives on Traveling Policies. Greenwhich: Information Age Publishing. Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Meier Sørensen, B. (2003). Gilles Deleuze and the Intensification of Social Theory. Ephemera: Critical Dialogues on Organization, 3, 50 - 58. Nóvoa, A. (2002). Way of Thinking about Education in Europe. In A. Nóvoa & M. Lawn (eds.), Fabricating Europe: The Formation of an Education Space. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Parker, M. (2002). The Romance of Lonely Dissent: Intellectuals, Professionals and the McUniversity. In M. Dent & S. Whitehead (eds.), Managing Professional Identities. London: Routledge. Reichert, S. & Tauch, C. (2004). Bologna Four Years Later: Steps Towards Sustainable Reform of Higher Education in Europe. European Education, 36, 36 - 50.
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    Training Soft Skills in Organizations - Constructions of Individual Agency as Barriers to Change?
    ( 2007-05-10)
    The purpose of this paper is to illustrate, how applying individualistic discourses to social relations in organizations rather hinders than facilitates change in organizations. The initial idea was to find out how social relations are constructed in organizations, thus de-focussing from the increasing popularity of concepts such as 'soft skills' or 'social competences'. However, when the study was carried out, one of the main discourses of constructing social relations in organizations was the individualistic. This paper will show the functions and consequences of the individualistic discourse on social relations in organizations. The research is grounded in a social constructionist approach (Gergen, 1994), using discourse analysis as methodology (Grant, Hardy, Oswick, & Putnam, 2004). For gathering texts, 21 problem-centred interviews (Witzel, 2000) and 13 group discussions (Steyaert & Bouwen, 2004) with altogether 106 participants were carried out in two large Swiss organizations. The following analysis showed, that one of the main discourses constructing social relations is, that only one person renders responsible for the quality of the social relation, thus ignoring the feature of the 'in between' of the social situation. Investigating the functions and variations, stabilizing interpretive repertoires (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) are described. One repertoire is that soft skills are part of a persons 'character' rather than his or her 'abilities'. This 'character' gets constructed as originating in upbringing and school. When the person then enters the organizations (s)he is constructed as 'finished', thus the organization hardly gets any agency to train or change the social realities. Consequences of these results for organizations are to closely consider how they stage their training and education regarding 'soft skills' or 'team building'. In a second step discourses from the study which de-focus from the individual and thus offer a more flexible approach for changing realities of social relations within organizations will be offered.
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    De-Constructing the 'Soft Skills' Fashion in Organizations
    ( 2007-07-11)
    In recent years it has become increasingly popular in the German speaking part of Europe to train individuals in so called 'social competences' or 'soft skills', thus presumably enabling both individuals and organizations to better relate with each other and thus 'function' more efficiently and effectively - at least this seems to be the inherent promise. Yet, within this fashion of 'training soft skills', most notably promoted by HRM, the individualistic agency isn't questioned. I will thus take issue with this omission through a discursive study of two Swiss organizations. Based on problem-centred interviews and group-discussions I have been asking people in these organizations to talk about their 'social life' i.e. how they relate with each other in the context of their professional life. First going about deconstructing the popular individualistic discourse, interpretive repertoires could even offer explanations how these 'soft skills' are rendered that important, that they seem to have become a prerequisite for employment (even schools and universities include soft-skills trainings in their curricula). I will thus reveal that the talk of soft skills, when constructed as 'finished' after leaving parents home, seems to reify the idea of stable personalities - thus rather discouraging than enabling the much-lauded flexibility of the workforce. In an attempt to reflect individual utterances on the level of organizational metaphors, I used Morgan's scheme to inquire how the realities of 'the social' vary according to the organizational metaphor. Somewhat surprising however is that most accounts of the interviewees were construing organizations as machine - as a result of which 'the social' was placed either outside of the organization (and thus represented as disturbance) or inside the organization where it was conceived as a useful, instrumental element. On the face of it, the apparently 'hot fashion' of social skills could be reconnected to the rather 'old stories' of Taylorism and Human Relations. In view of the aim of the study, i.e. to analyse the construction and sensemaking of 'the social' within organizations, the results show how the growing popularity of 'social skills' trainings, on the one hand neglect the level of co-construction of contexts and on the other hand obscure that the supposedly 'altruistic social' is subject to a perspective which strongly stresses the utility function of human labour and thus helps to envisage the individual as 'useful workforce' for and within the organization.
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    Training Soft Skills in Retail Organizations
    (International Journal of Management Cases - IJMC, 2009-04-17)
    Within the increasing fashion of “training soft skills” in organizations, the individualistic agency isn’t questioned. This study shows how the individualistic discourse hinders rather than facilitates change in organizations. The study is grounded in a social constructionist approach (Gergen, 1994), using discourse analysis as methodology (Grant et al., 2004). For gathering text, 21 problem-centred interviews (Witzel, 2000) and 13 group discussions (Steyaert and Bouwen, 2004) with altogether 106 participants were carried out in two large retail-organizations. The following analysis showed, that one of the main discourses constructing social relations is, that only one person renders responsible for the quality of the social relation, thus ignoring the feature of the ‘in between’ of the social situation. Here soft skills get constructed as part of a person’s ‘character’ rather than his or her ‘abilities’. This ‘character’ is seen as originating in upbringing and school. When the person enters the organizations (s)he is constructed as ‘finished’, thus the organization hardly gets any agency to train or change the social realities. Consequences of these results for organizations are to closely consider how they stage their training and education regarding ‘soft skills’ or ‘team building’. In a second step discourses from the study which de-focus from the individual and thus offer a more flexible approach for changing realities of social relations within organizations will be offered. Key words: Soft skills,
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    Organizational Discourse as Determination of Social Relations in Organizations
    Introduction Social relations in organizations are predominantly discussed as either bonds between individuals or, alternatively as team-based matters. Moreover, social relations are often viewed as the objects to be improved by means of training and education, a view that is heavily influenced by the humanist ideal of personal development and growth. Neglected in these ideas on social relations are often the structures and discourses the organization itself produces. The co-dependence of the organizational and the social discourse is the main target of this study. Objective and Method To gain an understanding of the relation between organizational discourses and how those effectuate relations within the organization, an in-depth study encompassing two large organizations was carried out. The objective was to investigate both the organizational as well as the social discourses in the organization, whereby taking a special interest in the interrelation of the two. Based on problem-centred interviews and group discussions with over hundred participants within the organizations, a discourse analysis was carried out. Results This study shows how the level of organizational discourse interrelates with the social discourse of the organizations. Surprisingly, the results show that rather traditional discourse of the organizations such as Taylorism formed the pivotal reference point for the organizational discourse. This was posed in a sharp contrast with discourses of social relations, as those were very much inspired by humanist ideals. As the organizational discourse influencing the social was never discussed within the organizations, frictions between the two levels were carried out on individual level. Both the gap and the wider implications between constructions of organizational realities relying on pre-Human Relations concepts of organizations and claims on the social discourse very much based on just those humanist ideals became explicit through this study. Conclusion Inquiries of organizational discourses have a long tradition in the field of Organizational Psychology as is evident, in the debate on Taylorism or the Human Relations. Equally prominent in Organizational Psychology is the discussion of people's relational competencies in organizations. This study shows how organizational discourse en- and disables certain qualities of relations in organizations, thus bringing two traditionally separated fields of Organizational Psychology together. Implications for an integrative approach that focuses on both relational and organizational levels are discussed on the basis of empirical and theoretical arguments.