Background
This paper is a progress report of an ongoing action enquiry, as part of my Masters programme of study. The aim is to offer explanations for how and why I am hoping to contribute to and support the work of practitioners in education and health care by helping them share and improve their practice-based skills and knowledge through networking; and to link diverse communities of practice for mutual support in managing processes of organisational improvement. The research therefore operates at two levels: (1) supporting practitioners in managing their own processes of change while (2) learning myself how to manage processes of managing change in collaboration with the people I am supporting.
Research questions
The research questions are, ‘How can I help practitioners appreciate that they can and should contribute to organisational and professional development? How can I help them link with one another to share stories of good practice and re-legitimise their professional status?’
My context is that I work in a small international educational consultancy and publishing business. My background is in healthcare management, and my interest is in supporting healthcare and education practitioners to learn from one another in order to benefit their own work.
Many of the professionals I work with are experiencing unprecedented, often externally imposed change, exacerbated by the effects of the international economic downturn. Because strong links frequently exist between political policy and the education and health sectors (Ball 2007; Pollock 2005), governments often seize opportunities for savings within the sectors through promoting potentially divisive discourses and practices. These currently include:
· international market-driven policies that orient education and health care towards privatisation and managerialist practices (Ball 2007; Player and Leys 2011) and often position providers and clients as separate entities;
· theorising management practices as hierarchical and top down (Storey et al 2010), contrary to calls for greater practitioner involvement in organisational change (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995; Senge 1990);
· theory and practice are maintained as separate fields of discourse, contrary to a view that they should be complementary aspects of the same practice (Allmark, 1995).
Objectives
My research focuses on how I can encourage practitioners to critically interrogate these discourses and practices and develop new ones, through linking practitioners in different professions to share and adapt others’ ideas to their own circumstances. I encourage the development of communities of practice (Wenger 1999) and the linking of diverse communities of practice. This may encourage practitioners to appreciate how they can play an activist role in the way their professions operate.