Experiencing emotion in conducting qualitative research as a PhD student

This article explores doctoral students’ emotional experience as they learn about conducting qualitative research. Emotions emerging from a shared learning experience provided doctoral students with opportunities to reflect on their experience as qualitative researchers and on the practice of qualitative research. Explicit links are made between students’ learning how to do research and their research as learning, to provide an example of experiential and engaged teaching practice within a doctoral program in management. A study of a module on qualitative research focused on the emotional experience of being a doctoral student, captured a range of emotions, and offered students the opportunity to understand the importance and value of emotional reflexivity within their qualitative research.</p

A Trip Down Memory Lane:How photograph insertion methods trigger emotional memory and enhance recall during interviews

The purpose of the paper is to explore the potential of photo‐elicitation as a data generating method. Photo-elicitation is rarely used for data generation, despite the considerable promise of this method. Our empirical investigation focused on people’s emotions and experiences of dual systems in Kazakhstan, a country currently undergoing change from the old-Soviet system to a new market economy. In addition to semi-structured interviews, we use photographs in order to enhance emotional connection and recall. We use the imagery as a device to generate data, and more specifically, data on individual and social perspectives that are integral to particular experiences. We argue that photo-elicitation can bring out peoples’ lived experiences of the social context being investigated. We explain why and how to use the method in practice

Mitigating Anxiety:The role of strategic leadership groups during radical organisational change

This paper examines the role of strategic leadership groups in radical organizational change. Previous research has focused on how ‘heroic’ individual leaders guide change. In contrast, we argue that strategic leadership groups are indispensable to understanding and supporting radical organizational change. Building on a longitudinal study in a global European company, our research identifies four phases of ‘negotiated order’ that shape group and organisational responses to change. Our findings reveal that strategic leadership groups help with the management of emotions, and with understanding the shifting authority relations that inevitably arise during periods of change. Drawing upon the psychoanalytic concept of ‘projective identification’, we develop a theoretical framework for understanding the tensions of change. The model shows how emotional coalitions that develop in strategic leadership groups afford a source of political and psychological containment against the anxieties of radical organisational change. These formations offer transitional spaces for change, providing opportunities for progress. The advantage of this new perspective on radical change is that it helps to move the organization beyond periods of ambivalence and conflict, with positive implications for leadership practice.Peer reviewe

The History Boys::Critical reflections on our contributions to management learning and their ongoing implications

In this reflective essay, written for the 50th anniversary of Management Learning, we look at the history of the journal from a unique vantage point, our interconnected, academic lived experience of publishing in the journal. Our aim is to undertake an historical review of our publications in Management Learning in order to identify the key themes of our work, to make connections with broader academic and social events of the time and to assert the continuing relevance of these themes for future scholarship. We review 27 papers that we have published in Management Learning since Volume 1 (1971) and identify four main themes from our papers. These are set in the context of the development of critical management education. We highlight the broader dimensions to our themes and suggest two areas with implications for future scholarship in Management Learning. In our conclusion, we use our findings and reflections to identify what we have learned about management learning, as well as making a call for action in relation to what we are labelling historical reflexivity

Towards a Theory of Historical Reflexivity

Researchers in the field of historical organization studies (HOS) have hinted at the role of reflexivity in history research. However, the benefits of merging ideas of reflexivity with history remain unexplored and theoretically under-developed. In this chapter, we introduce an initial theory of historical reflexivity that combines knowledge from HOS, emotion in organizations, and an intersubjective perspective on being reflexive. We explain and elaborate on the meaning and purpose of historical reflexivity as theory within HOS, and we illustrate the concept with an example of ‘faculty career achievement’ in the corporatized university. In the concluding section of the chapter, we consider the utility of our model for HOS and discuss implications for both research and practice

Bad Apples and Sour Grapes:How fruit and vegetable wholesalers' fantasy mediates experienced stigma

How do organisations that belong to a stigmatised industry manage negative perceptions? We contribute to answering this question by highlighting how organisational members turn external negative evaluations into positive self-idealisations. Our research offers a unique perspective on how stigmatised actors navigate their tarnished image, as well as how they remain attached to a group and its attributes despite its stigmatisation. The study reports findings from two French fruit and vegetable wholesalers, who are commonly perceived as thieves, bandits and unwanted intermediaries. We explain how organisational members were able to neutralise negative perceptions by mobilising and maintaining an idealised perception of their centrality. This structuring fantasy formed a powerful defence against stigmatised perceptions, transforming the stigma into self-idealisation that supported organisational stability. The organisations studied developed idealisation strategies based on members’ attachment to or distancing from nostalgic fantasies of the past. We suggest that awareness of the idealised construct that underpins a particular attachment to a stigmatised attribute may help organisations and their members free themselves from stigma.</p