Storytelling as Pedagogy for Management Development: A Collaborative Inquiry

Author(s):

Joan Walton(presenting / submitting)Gillian Bishop(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

01. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Format:

Paper

Session Information

01 SES 04 C, Approaches to Professional Development for School Leaders

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

09:00-10:30

Room:

OB-H2.12

Chair:

Agnes Turner

Contribution

Introduction

In this presentation, we will tell the story of our research journey, the overall aim of which is to research our own practice in order to learn how to better support full time MBA students in their development to become critically reflective, reflexive practitioners.

As co-researchers, we occupy different but complementary roles. Gill is the programme director of a group of international MBA students, and is also writing a PhD thesis about reflective practice. Joan is a doctoral supervisor (but not Gill’s supervisor) working with part-time PhD students who are grounding their research in their own professional practice. Both Gill and Joan have an interest in developing their research as a means of engaging in a morally-informed dialogue about how Higher Education can contribute to social and global wellbeing. In working with international students, their intention is to explore how they can more fully involve the students in this ongoing dialogue.

Research question

How can we, as co-researchers, work collaboratively to generate knowledge that will improve the learning experience of international postgraduate MBA students, through using storytelling as pedagogy for management development?

Objectives

To engage in, and learn about, collaborative inquiry as a means of researching and improving professional practice.
To encourage the active participation of postgraduate international MBA students in the process of reflecting on, evaluating and influencing the nature of their learning experiences in higher education.
To specifically explore storytelling as a form of learning, and as a method of enabling students to reflect on the significance of their life experiences to their ongoing professional development.
Individually and collectively, to develop our personal theories of practice about how our research can be developed as a means of contributing to the public good; and to encourage and support the students to do the same.

Conceptual framework

The co-researchers are members of a group of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who are enquiring into the question: ‘What does it take to develop communities of educational enquiry for social evolution?’ The project outlined in this proposal sits within the wider context, and is explicitly exploring storytelling as a means of developing an educational community as one response to the overall research question.

Storytelling is widely acknowledged as a form of learning and as a way of understanding the cultures, customs and practices of the organisations in which we work (Boyce, 1996; Fawcett and Fawcett, 2011; Gold, Holman and Thorpe, 2002; Morgan and Dennehy, 1997). In this research, storytelling was adopted as a pedagogical approach and as an assessment process to support full-time international postgraduate MBA students in developing the skills of critical reflection and reflexivity. A range of opportunities were used to explore how students engaged in reflective practice, which led to a deeper questioning of my (Gill’s) practices in terms of reflective practice, and gave me data to use to consider whether I was meeting the requirements of a reflective practitioner appropriate for teaching the subject.

One of the outcomes of this research was to question my own pedagogy in supporting MBA students to become reflective practitioners. It was at this point that I became involved in the wider project which was exploring how to develop communities of educational enquiry. We (Joan and Gill) agreed that we engage in a collaborative inquiry, bringing together Joan’s knowledge and experience of supporting research grounded in first person professional practice, and Gill’s experience with management students, in order to engage the MBA students in a process of evaluating and developing the role of storytelling to improve their learning experience, and to create communities of educational enquiry.

Method

We are participating in a collaborative inquiry - a form of action research - which is based on Heron’s (1996) principles of co-operative inquiry. Coming from different though related professional backgrounds, we are, through the dialogic sharing of our own experiences and research, generating knowledge which we contend is different and greater than that which either of us can achieve independently. Our collaborative inquiry has included a cyclical process of action-reflection cycles, in which we are creating an approach to action research that brings together first, second and third person forms of enquiry (Reason and McArdle 2004, Reason and Bradbury 2007). Although collaborative inquiry focuses on second person research (I-enquiring-with-you), we each bring our first person experiences and reflections to our dialogue; we use third person research to inform our individual and collaborative thinking and writing; and our aim is to disseminate the knowledge in a form that communicates clearly to a wider audience and is of social value. Hence we are arguing for the significance of integrating first, second and third person perspectives in our research. In our first and second person enquiries, we are exploring our subjective sense of being part of a relational (Thayer-Bacon 2003), and participatory (Heron 1996)) universe, in which we experience ourselves as a knowledge creators rather than knowledge-finders. We are then involving the MBA students in our dialogue, and actively inviting them to be co-researchers in a project which emphasises the relational and participatory nature of our interaction. Although historically I (Gill) have used methods such as focus groups, questionnaires and observation as methods of evaluating the process of working with students, we are now using focus groups and formal reflective sessions as a means of sharing our research with the students, and encouraging them to explore how they might work with us to become active researchers in their own practice. Thus we are researching how we develop our research to enable the students to become an integral part of our collaborative inquiry, and to contribute to learning how we can integrate first, second and third person forms of enquiry.

Expected Outcomes

This is a collaborative project which is ongoing. The paper presented at the ECER conference would report on the processes which led to the two co-writers working together on the development of the MBA programme, and on the initial work undertaken with the students, using storytelling as pedagogy for management development. At the time of writing, the evidence shows that the students feel more involved in their own learning processes. They have, for example, identified the value of dialogue as integral to the development of the skills of reflection (Collin and Karsenti, 2011; Cunliffe, 2002, 2004; Vygotsky, 1962). They have recognised that reflexivity and the ability to learn from experience is an essential skill required of managers today operating in a chaotic, complex and fast-changing global work environment; and are keen to improve these skills in themselves. Through the conversations that have taken place with the students, they are demonstrating that the introduction of storytelling as a method has facilitated the process of reflexivity and ability to learn from own experience. The next iteration in the action-reflection cycles is taking place this semester, and will have been completed and written up by the time of the ECER conference. This phase will encourage the managers to perceive themselves as researchers of their own practice, and to theorise what they do as a means of reflecting on and developing their knowledge and skills as managers in their various international professional contexts. The final paper will include the managers’ reflections on their experience of this process; and will also include a reflection and evaluation on our own experience of enquiring collaboratively, as we consider the value of developing a research methodology which integrates first, second and third person forms of enquiry within a specific teaching and learning context.

References

Boyce, M.E. (1996) ‘Organisational story and storytelling: a critical review’, Journal of Organizational Change Management 9 (5): 5–26. Bradbury, H. & Reason. P. (2003). Action Research: An Opportunity for Revitalizing Research Purpose and Practices, in Qualitative Social Work, 2(2): 155-175 Collin, S. and Karsenti, T. (2011) ‘The collective dimension of reflective practice: the how and why’, Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 12 (4): 569–581. Cunliffe, A. (2002) ‘Reflexive Dialogical Practice in Management Learning’, Management Learning 33 (1): 3–-61. Cunliffe, A. (2004) ‘On Becoming a Critically Reflexive Practitioner’, Journal of Management Education 28 (4): 407–426. Fawcett, S.E. and Fawcett, A.M. (2011) ‘The ‘Living’ Case: Structuring Storytelling to Increase Student Interest, Interaction, and Learning’, Journal of Innovative Education 9 (2): 87–298. Gold, J., Holman, D. and Thorpe, R. (2002) ‘The role of argument analysis and storytelling in facilitating critical thinking’, Management Learning 33 (3): 371–388. Heron, J. (1996) Co-operative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition, London: Sage. Morgan, S. and Dennehy, R.F. (1997) ‘The power of organizational storytelling: a management development perspective’, Journal of Management Development 16 (7): 494– 501. Reason, P & Bradbury, H. (2007) Introduction: Inquiry and Participation in Search of a World Worthy of Human Aspiration, in Reason, P & Bradbury, H. (Eds) The Sage Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice,( pp 1-14) London/Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Reason,P. McArdle,K (2004) ’ Brief notes on the theory and practice of Action Research’ In Becker,S Bryman,A (Eds) Understanding Research Methods for Social Policy and Practice. London: The Polity Press Thayer-Bacon, B. (2003) Relational “Epistemologies”, New York: Peter Lang. Vgotsky, L.S. (1962) Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Author Information

Joan Walton (presenting / submitting)

York St John University

Education & Theology

Wareham

Gillian Bishop (presenting)

York St John University

The business School

York

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