JOURNAL OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Special Issue on "Understanding Organizational Change through Phenomenon-Driven Research"
Guest Editors: Gavin Schwarz (UNSW) and Inger Stensaker (NHH)
Phenomenon-driven research (PDR) is problem-oriented research that focuses on capturing, documenting, and conceptualizing organizational and managerial phenomenon of interest in order to facilitate knowledge creation and advancement. With an emphasis on exploring issues and challenges that bother those experiencing observed problems, PDR aims to develop applied contributions to organizational debates. Generating new knowledge this way thereby allows for a variety of research paths and outcomes that may lead to a series of other debates and research opportunities. Yet despite its applied and emergent background, organizational research remains steadfastly dependent on theory-driven research – a devotion to theory and reinforcing an add-to-the literature norm. While the idea of using the phenomenon to drive our research is widely acknowledged, and despite broad debate on its value to our community, PDR is poorly executed (evident at the basic level in the growth and citation value of theory journals or review issues) and typically under-utilized.
The importance of phenomena as a means of addressing research on change is well-acknowledged. As Augier and March (2011) detail in their history of research in business schools this movement toward disciplinary knowledge is well established. Noting this evolution, this special issue encourages research using PDR. It is interested in research that is driven by a desire to understand and explain novel or unexpected empirical patterns and thus moves away from existing theory focus as the primary basis of progress and discovery. We are soliciting submissions that apply phenomenon-driven research to offer insights into organizational change. Doing so we invoke Paul Lawrence's 1992 challenge to management and organization researchers, when he contemplates how such research had "plateaued" to become methods-focused rather than ideas oriented. "We...must get over any lingering hang-ups about problem oriented, normative research. Ours is an applied discipline – let's be proud of it. We belong to the behavioral, not the physical sciences, and our methods should reflect that fact. Let's get over our identity crisis...Let's aggressively and boldly study...important problems" (p.142). It is this challenge that we pursue.
At its foundation, as Schwarz and Stensaker (2014) indicate, is that in the interim two decades since his observation, this call to arms typically has not been heeded, with researchers still believing in the need to continuously rely on theory or making the ubiquitous "theoretical contribution". Acknowledging this deficiency and what it represents for applied change research, this special issue seeks submissions incorporating PDR, with the longer-term intention of reintroducing and solidifying its place to change researchers. In this sense, PDR can be research grounded in:
1. Practitioners doing something different from what we would expect from extant theory
2. Practitioners doing something which we have no theory or literature about
3. An entirely novel or unprecedented phenomenon
The focus of the submission should be on the phenomenon and how it came about as the basis of constructing an emergent or applied contribution for advancing knowledge. While not discouraging submissions exploring PDR methods or the epistemology of PDR principles, we are not focused on method and process type elaborations of PDR. Instead, PDR should be central to the paper rather than serve as a backdrop or a frame that builds on established research. The submission should pay close attention to exploring and explaining what bothers those experiencing change as part of a broader conversation on a phenomenon. We encourage submissions that use innovative approaches to addressing phenomena, including multidisciplinary lenses, multiple theoretical lenses, and novel methodologies and data sources.
| Submission Process Papers (6000-8500 words) should be submitted as an email attachment with the subject heading "JCM Special Issue – Phenomenon Driven Research" to both guest editors at g.schwarz@unsw.edu.au and Inger.Stensaker@nhh.no. Submissions should follow the general guidelines of the Journal of Change Management (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rjcm). Refereeing and the selection of papers will be conducted according to the journal's normal procedures (double-blind review). Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. For further information contact the guest editors. |
| Submissions due: 31 October 2015 | Expected date of publication: 2016 |
References:
Augier, M., & March, J. G. 2011. The roots, rituals, and rhetorics of change : North American business schools after the Second World War. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lawrence, P. R. 1992. The challenge of problem-oriented research. Journal of Management Inquiry, 1(2): 139-142.
Schwarz, G., & Stensaker, I. 2014. Time to Take Off the Theoretical Straightjacket and (Re-) Introduce Phenomenon-Driven Research. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 50(4): 478-501