Faculty
Andrew Van de Ven, Professor, Strategic Management and Organization, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota , USA & Majken Schultz, Professor, Department of Organization, CBS

Course Coordinator
Majken Schultz, Professor, Department of Organization, CBS

The PhD scholar must be working on an organizational research project and be willing to explore the relevance and implications of engaged scholarship on the project. The idea is not to push students into becoming engaged scholars, but to make them reflect upon their role and project from this perspective. The course addresses theoretical and methodological issues particularly relevant for empirical studies or studies that have the ambition to develop theory relevant to practice.

The PhD scholar is required to present a short (2- max. 3 pages) written presentation (in English) in which s/he relates the curriculum literature in the course to his or her project. The presentation must include specific references to the literature applied. Deadline for submission of presentations is Monday 22 October 2012.

The presentations will be used as material for short presentations and discussions during the course. The student must be willing to participate in discussions of other presentations. A precondition for receiving the course diploma is that the PhD scholar attends the whole course.

The aim is to raise awareness that scholars of organization and management have special opportunities to be engaged in the fields that they study and benefit from such engagement in their empirical and theoretical work.

The course departs from a classic research design and shows how ‘engaged scholarship’ opens a range of new research activities and ways of doing research. The course presents different ways in which students can engage others in conducting their research projects. It particularly shows how dialogue with practitioners and other stakeholders helps scholars define their research problem, build theory, design research, and disseminate research findings in multiple ways. Through conceptual discussions and case-stories the course seeks to motivate and inspire the participants to make their PhD projects even more relevant to practice.

The course follows the various stages in a research project and demonstrates how ’engaged scholarship’ is relevant in relation to problem formulation; theory building; research design; research application and dissemination of findings.

Preliminary lecture plan

Organizational theory and practice are often seen as separate endeavors following different methods and producing different types of knowledge. This course shows how practice can inform research in the problems we study, the ways we build our theories and how we communicate our findings. The course focuses on the relationship between theory and practice, research and action. In so doing it explores how research findings and knowledge can be useful for science, practice, and policy

Lectures with workshop, dialogues and student discussions

o Andrew Van de Ven: Engaged scholarship: A guide for organizational and social research, Oxford University Press, 2007.

o Andrew Van de Ven: Reflections on Research for Theory and Practice from an Engaged Scholarship Perspective. Chapter in S. A. Mohrman, E.E. Lawler III & Associates, 2011, Useful Research: Advancing Theory and Practice, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

o Amy Edmondson: Crossing Boundaries to Investigate Problems in the Field:An Approach to Useful Research. Chapter in S. A. Mohrman, E.E. Lawler III & Associates, 2011, Useful Research: Advancing Theory and Practice, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

o Sumantra Goshal (2005): Bad Management Theories are Destroying Good Management Practices. AMLE vol. 4: 75-91.

o Schultz, M. & Hatch, M. J. (2005) Building Theory from Practice, Strategic Organization. August: 337 – 348

o Schultz, M. (2010) Reconciling Pragmatism and Scientific Rigor. Journal of Management Inquiry: 273-277