This book offers a unique solution to the shortage of more imaginative and engaging research by re-imagining the core elements of the research process. In contrast to existing methods, which mainly focus on standard ingredients in the research process, the metaphorical approach taken here offers a more varied and comprehensive platform for producing novel, influential and relevant research. The set of guiding principles suggested in the book provides researchers with the resources to break away from existing conventions and templates for conducting and writing research. Re-imagining the Research Process: Conventional and Alternative Metaphors is suitable for upper-undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers interested in challenging traditional views of the research process. Mats Alvesson holds a chair in the Business Administration department at Lund University in Sweden and is also a part-time professor at University of Queensland Business School, Australia and at Cass Business School, UK. Jorgen Sandberg is Professor at UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia, and Distinguished Research Environment Professor in Organization Studies at the Warwick Business School, UK.

This book offers a unique solution to the shortage of more imaginative and engaging research by re-imagining the core elements of the research process. In contrast to existing methods, which mainly focus on standard ingredients in the research process, the metaphorical approach taken here offers a more varied and comprehensive platform for producing novel, influential and relevant research. The set of guiding principles suggested in the book provides researchers with the resources to break away from existing conventions and templates for conducting and writing research. Re-imagining the Research Process: Conventional and Alternative Metaphors is suitable for upper-undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers interested in challenging traditional views of the research process. Mats Alvesson holds a chair in the Business Administration department at Lund University in Sweden and is also a part-time professor at University of Queensland Business School, Australia and at Cass Business School, UK. Jorgen Sandberg is Professor at UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia, and Distinguished Research Environment Professor in Organization Studies at the Warwick Business School, UK.

One of the most intriguing questions since the time of Plato concerns what defines skillful performance in terms of specific capabilities, knowledge, competence, and expertise. As Frederick Taylor famously noted, an answer to that question would enable us to know what to focus on and what to do to improve the performance of individuals, groups, and organizations. Although we have come to know a great deal about the 'properties' of capabilities, knowledge, competence, and expertise at large, we know significantly less about how they are enacted in skillful performance. Thus, how skillful performance draws on knowledge, how skills develop, and how competencies and capabilities are put to action are still eluding us. Process thinking has not sufficiently explored skillful performance. This book aims to address this gap. It brings together scholars from different backgrounds, traditions, and disciplines whose common perspective is distinctly process-oriented. They seek to rethink capabilities, knowledge, competence, and expertise, not as if these phenomena were already accomplished but, on the contrary, as processes in the making - as performative accomplishments. Such rethinking opens up several new conversations and extends the range of inquiry about how capabilities, knowledge, competence, and expertise are accomplished in practice, and, consequently, how they may be improved.

'An excellent and much needed contribution to the management literature' - Gareth Morgan 'Trough accurate examples and instructive accounts of what constitutes understanding at work, the Author leads us to the core link between understanding and managerial practicing. It is deeply informative, often witty and always elegant!' - Silvia Gherardi Research Unit on Communication, Organizational Learning, and Aesthetics dipartimento di sociologia e ricerca sociale 'The book provides an interesting, accessible and important contribution to the interpretive understanding of management and leadership and clearly shows its relevance also for practitioners' - Mats Alvesson Bringing a fresh perspective to the evaluation of management problems, this book draws upon interpretative research and builds upon existing interpretative studies to scrutinise the influence managers have on employees' understanding. It considers how managers use ideas and visions to frame their employees' internalised understanding of the external rules and instructions that govern their work. The book brings an interpretative perspective to the question of individual and group competence and look at how this is linked with understanding. Throughout Managing Understanding in Organizations refers to international case studies and considers the cross-cultural impact on management and understanding at work.