Idea Work is set within a tradition of action research. We use research to facilitate systematic experienced based learning and we pay particular attention to what works well and how such seeds of the extraordinary can be leveraged.
Attending to the extraordinary means attending to the forces that creates positive deviance. In this, Idea Work collaborates closely with world leading researchers within the tradition of Positive Organizational Scholarship.
Our research also strives to be co-generative: We do research with our partners, not on them. We believe reflective practitioners are valuable co-creators of theory and that researchers have responsibilities for creating theories that have an impact on local practices, the languages of local practices and the realms of possibilities for action and becoming that people see in their work.
So we take care to test theoretical insights and research findings in practice. This includes designing and facilitating a variety processes for improving and accelerating idea generation and implementation (see methods section)
Our research is informed by four sets of literature:
1) A recently strengthened stream of research that has an explicit focus on creativity and imagination inherent in everyday work.
2) Contributions from the practice-based approaches within organization studies and anthropology. What do people in organizations actually do when doing idea work?
3) A set of literatures dealing with sources of energy, meaning and positive identity construction enabling and emanating from idea work. What are the motivational drivers of idea work? What energizes people doing idea work?
4) Literature on aesthetic-, and arts-based research practices, including film ethnography, dramaturgy, positive imagery and metaphor theory.
See also
- About Idea Work
- Some of the questions we pursue
- Idea work – what’s that?
- Why is idea work important?
- How to kill/unleash creativity