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While Cooperrider (2001, p. 32) suggests that appreciative inquiry is about “the artful creation of positive imagery,” most of the literature that describes the process of artful creation explains it as one in which the organizational members simply talk about these new images, vs. actually engaging in the creation of artistic representations of the desired future. This chapter moves the appreciative inquiry literature beyond the metaphorical understanding of the “art of” appreciative inquiry in order to reveal and explain how practitioners are actually engaging organizations in the artful creation of positive anticipatory imagery. In this chapter, the literature that labels and describes the process of artful creation in organizations is reviewed, described, and synthesized into five propositions – ultimately creating a framework for understanding artful creation as a unique organizational discourse: an aesthetic discourse. These five propositions reveal the common characteristics of artful creation: (1) presentational knowledge/language; (2) mediated dialogue; (3) symbolic constructions that act as metaphorical representation; (4) collaborative inquiry/co-creation; and (5) window to the unconscious. The chapter concludes by addressing the implications, seeking to answer the question “What is the value of an organization engaging with the process of artful creation?” Finally, the chapter suggests that the five propositions may guide future research in two areas: (a) the practice of the artful creation of positive anticipatory imagery in appreciative inquiry; and (b) the further development of a theoretical framework for understanding the “art of” appreciative inquiry as aesthetic discourse.

The purpose of this paper is to consider how the drama space is a way of inquiry in its own right and as a complex “way of knowing” has a capacity to be a profitable location from which to artfully thread and critically interrogate the performances of lives-as-lived.

The autoethnographic discussion has an overlay of histography as it brings the “real-life” word to the drama space and builds on naturalistic and experimental research moving the reader through transformational inquiry to what they name as drama as a post-foundational research method.

In using drama as artful practices, intra-reflexivity – interior focused – felt as artistic “process” leads “psyche” to an empathic space for acceptance of the fugitive selves and demonstrates “queerness” through the narratives as monologues.

The vignettes presented as monologue attest to the authors’ life histories and their “fugitive” ways of being as gay men.

The authors consider how drama as methodological practice can re work the notion of text-to-life or life-to-text, as an expression of a will to knowledge, of the authors working dramatically with their participants and students to find a way to articulate experience and place at the centre of research an agentic voice in relation to psychological, socio-cultural and historical interpretations.

Drama, as a methodological approach, has, the authors suggest, the potential to move beyond disembodied and abstract mental processes and to draw out of the closets the interpersonal relationships that have historically been seen as dangerous or disturbing.

This chapter presents a form of both co-participation theory and artful inquiry methodology as useful approaches in carrying out research into the student experience. Participatory Pedagogy is predicated on repositioning participants as co-producers of knowledge by introducing them to important aspects of the research, providing a platform to foster expression and affording opportunities to co-shape the research process. Artful inquiry can take many different forms, but collage in particular has the capacity to bring new meanings to the surface even in well-researched fields, such as the student experience. In supporting a Participatory Pedagogy approach, collage can unpack powerful testimonies of personal experience. A practical application of this pairing is also presented based on research into the student experience. This gives readers an insight into how it can be applied to a study, what its limitations might be and especially how students, particularly those from under-represented backgrounds, can benefit from being involved.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the way in which pre-service teachers adopt ways of thinking critically about learning and practice. It highlights the unfolding of critical dialogue, knowledge and artful action as a way of “reading the scene” (Pahl and McKenna, 2015). The focus concerns mindshifts that occur while learning to be a teacher. The study sets out to seek factors that contribute towards development as professional practitioner.

As part of a much larger study involving ten pre-service teachers, this paper focusses on just one participant named Meredith, a pre-service teacher in her fourth year of her teacher education course. The design constructed draws on the data from Meredith’s interview and conversation, art making and gestural activity while painting and communicating her stories. These narratives from interviews exist in this paper as vignettes and privilege of the interplay of art making, interview and gestural responses. Implementing a framework by Denzin (2001) enables a way of reading to note learning and epiphanic moments that exist for Meredith.

Moment of learning and themes are indicated and suggest that from the original interview there are 11 important moments of epiphanic mindshifts for Meredith.

The method as practice intends to make cogent links to new levels of consciousness by presenting innovative ways in which qualitative research data can be gathered and analysed. Meredith engages in mindshifts that occur as learner and also embraces experiences of praxis as a means of understanding self and teacher identity.

The objective of this paper is to develop practice and theory from Augusto Boal's dialogue technique (Image Theatre) for organisational use. The paper aims to examine how the members in an organisation create dialogue together by using a dramaturgical storytelling framework where the dialogue emerges from storytelling facilitated by symbolic representations of still images.

The study follows the lines of participatory action and art‐based research. The data are collected from 13 dramaturgical work story storytelling sessions in four different organisations. The research design belongs to the tradition of research‐based theatre, which implies artful inquiry, scripting and performance in research.

The paper presents a model for organisational dialogue. The model illustrates the dramaturgical storytelling of work story which influences problem shifting in a positive way.

The limitations of this study are related to the scope of the research. The Scandinavian cultural context facilitates an open, bottom up process. More case studies in different kinds of environments should be conducted. In the future it might be advantageous to conduct more longitudinal studies on how organisations can nurture continuous dialogue.

Work story as a dialogue practice facilitated members from the same occupational groups to share experiences with each other and construct common interests by investigating unstructured and uncertain social situations at work.

The paper combines research fields that explore art‐based initiatives within organisations, workplace learning and innovation research.

The purpose of this chapter is to make visible the similarities and differences among narrative, self-study of teacher education practices, and autoethnographic methodologies to generate clarity about when each methodology might be most appropriate. Using Margery Wolf’s (1992) A Thrice Told Tale as a heuristic to support our exploration, we look at a selected slice of data as if standing within each methodology. As we do that we consider ways that we might engage each methodology to push forward our thinking about powerful research. Our goal is to critically examine the processes that researchers use for the study and to explore the ways using particular methodologies in appropriate ways that can strengthen our thinking about professional knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics of critical thinking (CT) in contrast with Six Sigma and the “5 Whys” approach that is used by many managers to conduct “Root cause analysis” in business process improvements.

The research integrates principles of traditional literature review with a reflective inquiry of a practitioner.

Six Sigma and its “5 Whys” methodology is insufficient in root cause analysis unless coupled with CT. The paper demonstrates that some extraordinary business successes were achieved by CT, while catastrophic failures were often the result of selective biases, rigid thinking, and/or tendencies to deal with steps of processes, isolated processes, and/or independent situations. Consequently, the paper identifies a new domain that can be added to training in Six Sigma and 5 Whys.

The study does not address specific ways to integrate CT into Six Sigma, 5 Whys, and/or root cause analysis in business process improvement initiatives. Future research is needed in this area.

The paper explores a new perspective to convalescing Six Sigma and 5 Whys methods. It provides a specific example and suggestions to help practitioners avoid faulty conclusions, while conducting investigations to improve business processes. It also opens the door for encompassing aspects of CT in Six Sigma training. As such, it benefits both practitioners and academics.

Examines the coherentist project for educational administration of professors Colin Evers and Gabriele Lakomski from a critical and pragmatic perspective. It is argued that Evers and Lakomski really have three projects going: the first project seeks to ground coherence as a solution to the problems of educational administration research upon the history of educational administration inquiry philosophies since the Second World War. The second project attempts to justify the worth of coherency as a research philosophy upon purely logical grounds. A third, and most recent, (practical) project draws upon evidence from leadership practice to prove coherentism’s usefulness for school administration. Concludes that, rather than supporting their post‐positivist philosophic underpinnings, Evers and Lakomski’s third project finds them moving toward a raw pragmatism. Also concludes that coherentism is best redescribed from a pragmatic aesthetic perspective, a point of view that provides a potentially more meaningful way of understanding the relationship of coherentist theorizing and leadership action in contemporary schooling.