Journal of Research Practice - JRP (Athabasca University Press)
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Integration Research for Natural Resource Management in Australia: An Introduction to New Challenges for Research Practice
Get PDFThis special issue of the Journal of Research Practice focuses on integration research, also known as integrated or integrative research. Integration between disciplines and between research and practice is increasingly recognised as essential to tackle complex problems more effectively. But there is little to guide researchers about how to undertake integration research. This special issue provides a number of case studies of how integration has been approached and exemplifies the challenges facing researchers seeking to embed integration in both existing and new organisations and make it acceptable and respectable. Documenting these developments provides a unique illustration of how integration research is evolving as a type of practice
Introduction of Social Sciences in Australian Natural Resource Management Agencies
Get PDFThis paper examines the integration, from 1978 to 2002, of six social scientists in five Australian natural resource management agencies: CSIRO Australia, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Murray Darling Basin Commission, the Western Australian Social Impact Unit, and the Queensland Social Impact Assessment Unit. All but one of the social scientists in the study occupied the first formal social science position in the respective agency. The organisational arrangements for integration, the roles of the social scientists and achievements of social science programs in those agencies illustrate a number of integration approaches and insights for effectively integrating social and natural science. Insights emanating from this research will be useful to inform future natural resource management that avoids integration failures. This paper illustrates both significant impediments to integration in practice and positive examples of integrated multidisciplinary approaches in natural resource management
Logic of Leadership Research: A Reflective Review of Geeks & Geezers by Bennis and Thomas
Get PDFLeadership has turned out to be one of those topics, which persistently slip out of scientific hands. The field of leadership research should be of interest to researchers in various other disciplines, because it serves as a source of examples of many common difficulties faced by researchers in general. These relate to difficulties in defining a research task, specifying quality criteria, choosing methods, ensuring that the research programme remains progressive (the criterion is from Lakatos, see Science and Pseudoscience, 2004; Worrall & Currie, 1978), etc. The book by well-known leadership researchers, Bennis and Thomas, gives us an occasion to critically appreciate the practice of leadership research so far and assess the book’s potential contribution. This will be done by first outlining the developments in leadership research since the 1930s. It will be shown that although the book’s focus is interestingly different, it does not go so far as to reframe the logic of research in the field
On Borges' Amnesia and Talmudic Understanding: Reviving Ancient Traditions in Re-Search
Get PDFThe paradigmatic bases, which sustain traditional western psychological interpretative efforts, need not be just a footnote to Plato. In this paper we introduce the Talmudic interpretative perspective, which we use to point at some weaknesses we identify in contemporary research imaginings. While the empiricist approach may be traced to Plato and the interpretative and the critical approaches may be traced to Heraclitus, we argue that the Talmudic approach is a differentiated and unique perspective that, because of its non-epistemic nature, its dialogical character, and its recognition of two intermingled levels of interpretation, can make an important contribution to new ways of thinking about understanding and meaning in research
Integration Research for Shaping Sustainable Regional Landscapes
Get PDFEcological and social systems are complex and entwined. Complex social-ecological systems interact in a multitude of ways at many spatial scales across time. Their interactions can contribute both positive and negative consequences in terms of sustainability and the context in which they exist affecting future landscape change. Non-metropolitan landscapes are the major theatre of interactions where large-scale alteration occurs precipitated by local to global forces of economic, social, and environmental change. Such regional landscape effects are critical also to local natural resource and social sustainability. The institutions contributing pressures and responses consequently shape future landscapes and in turn influence how social systems, resource users, governments, and policy makers perceive those landscapes and their future. Science and policy for "sustainable" futures need to be integrated at the applied "on-ground" level where products and effects of system interactions are fully included, even if unobserved. Government agencies and funding bodies often consider such research as "high-risk". This paper provides some examples of interdisciplinary research that has provided a level of holistic integration through close engagement with landholders and communities or through deliberately implementing integrative and innovative on-ground experimental models. In retrospect, such projects have to some degree integrated through spatial (if not temporal) synthesis, policy analysis, and (new or changed) institutional arrangements that are relevant locally and acceptable in business, as well as at broader levels of government and geography. This has provided transferable outcomes that can contribute real options and adaptive capacity for suitable positive futures
Investigating the Research Approaches for Examining Technology Adoption Issues
Get PDFAdoption of technology, a research topic within the Information Systems area, is usually studied at two levels: organizational level and user level. This paper examines the range of methods used for studying technology adoption issues at both these levels. The approaches were selected after conducting a review of 48 articles on technology adoption and usage, published in peer reviewed journals between 1985 and 2003. The journals reviewed include the MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, European Journal of Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, and other relevant journals in the IS area. The findings suggest that the survey method was used predominantly when investigating the topics of user adoption and the usage of technology. In contrast, the case study method is the most widely used when examining adoption issues at the organizational level
Integrative Research in the University Context: Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, The Australian National University
Get PDFAt a time of increasing interest and advocacy in integrated and policy-oriented research, this paper offers an empirically-based view of the intellectual and practical challenges of undertaking such research. It analyses the experience of a long-standing university research and postgraduate training centre from 1973-2004: the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at The Australian National University. The paper discusses staff development issues, cross-disciplinary understanding, organisational requirements for collaborative research, postgraduate and early career considerations, a range of integrative frameworks, and the tensions that arise for interdisciplinary research in the political and economic operating environments of modern universities
Revisiting Science in Culture: Science as Story Telling and Story Revising
Get PDFBoth science itself, and the human culture of which it is a part, would benefit from a story of science that encourages wider engagement with and participation in the processes of scientific exploration. Such a story, based on a close analysis of scientific method, is presented here. It is the story of science as story telling and story revising. The story of science as story suggests that science can and should serve three distinctive functions for humanity: providing stories that may increase (but never guarantee) human well-being, serving as a supportive nexus for human exploration and story telling in general, and exemplifying a commitment to skepticism and a resulting open-ended and continuing exploration of what might yet be. Some practical considerations that would further the development and acceptance of such a story of science as a widely shared nexus of human activity are described