Concepts and Transformation - Volume 7, Issue 3, 2002

The emergence of network society implies that all actors face new demands, research being no exception. In processes of interactive learning, together with other actors, research can no longer claim exclusive domains. Instead, it has to become a general innovation partner. Innovation partner is, however, not only an intellectual position. It refers, first and foremost, to specific forms of work in specific but variable contexts. The challenges are not only epistemological, but organizational. This article explores, on the basis of experience from workplace development programmes in Norway, the nature of some of these challenges, and the epistemological-organizational responses that need to be worked out to meet them.

This article discusses the role that social psychology can play in the face of violence problems and describes the process followed by an NGO (Non Governmental Organization) and a group of Indian peasants in the creation of a human rights movement in the Northern Highlands of Puebla. The narrative presents the most significant events that started the movement, the initial training, organizational and expansion phases. It describes the progress in observation, perception and reflection skills, as well as how the peasant group gradually comes to assume decision making. There have been successes and failures, yet the movement definitely tends toward self-reliance.

The focus of this article is a social entrepreneurship initiative in Ireland that aimed at training long term unemployed people from 11 deprived areas in the Dublin region for jobs in the information technology industry. The initiative comprised a partnership of industry, government, state training agencies and local communities. Adopting action research as the methodology, the paper describes the evolution and construction of the design and implementation of the project from the perspective of first, second and third person research practice. The paper reflects on the outcomes from the initiative to date and concludes with a description of a possible model for dealing with similar persistent social problems.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the relation between a communicative change programme and organisational development — how and to what extent can communicative change programmes be integrated with the change process in the organisation? In this article I present the Steel Plant Corp. (SPC) case, which indicates that if the process of change is legitimate and anchored in a communicative change program, it is possible to achieve comprehensive organisational developments without conflict but with peaceful dissent. I focus on the relation between two parties — the Union and management. I argue that there was a change in the union’s meaning construction during the process — the Union changed its opinion about company strategy and it changed its role and actions from conflict-oriented to constructive co-operation. I argue that perhaps the number and diversity of dialogues and events as such is an important factor in explaining the development from conflict to peaceful dissent. I further argue that if that is the case, we should consider that in order to have successful changes, the focus should not be on the instrumental efficiency of one particular discourse or communicative form, but the unfolding of a complexity of parallel communicative events, many of which will differ in structure. The SPC case indicates that if the process of change is legitimate and anchored in a communicative change program, it is possible to achieve comprehensive organisational developments without conflict but with peaceful dissent.