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Within the developing exploration of the role of the scholar-practitioner, the situation in which scholar-practitioners engage in the scholarship of practice in their own organizational systems has not received much attention. This chapter adopts the position that scholar-practitioners are not merely practitioners who do research but rather that they integrate scholarship in their practice and generate actionable knowledge, that is, knowledge that is robust for scholars and actionable for practitioners. This chapter explores the phenomenon of scholar-practitioners engaging in the scholarship of practice in their own organizational systems as inside change agents. It discusses how scholar-practitioners engage in inquiry-in-action in first-, second-, and third-person modes of inquiry and practice in the present tense and provides a methodology and methods for such engagement that it be rigorous, reflective, and relevant.

This chapter provides two case studies of online graduate student engagement where a community of learning is fostered using Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 2001) ecological systems theory. The first case study explores an online graduate Sustainability Science course where students were provided with a space in VoiceThread to create video blogs (vlogs) and to extend course content with dialogue based on their values, relationships, and perspectives on issues like environmental degradation, social justice, and quality of life. The second case study surveys an online graduate course in Solar Energy, Technology, and Policy. These students completed a scholar-practitioner interview assignment of a solar energy expert, professional, entrepreneur, or policymaker. Both vlogging and scholar-practitioner interviews engaged graduate students in all of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 2001) ecological systems. For the vlogging assignment, the microsystem, mesosystem, and macrosystem were the most engaged; whereas for the scholar-practitioner interview assignment, the microsystem and exosystem were the most engaged. With respect to community building, both assignments fostered student-to-student interactions. The scholar-practitioner interview also fostered student-to-scholar-practitioner interactions, and, in some cases, student-to-alumni interactions. Innovative course assignments that engage professional, part-time graduate students with course content and other students, allow them to apply new knowledge, and broaden their professional connections are ideal.

This chapter presents case studies of two doctoral students in a program designed to develop leadership for social justice. Amidst criticisms that doctorate programs promote neither research nor professional expertise, the question of program relevance is addressed by asking a different question. How are urban school leaders uniquely positioned to conduct research that can transform schools? The tale of two scholar-practitioners illustrates the changes in site and district practices that result from collaborative, site-based studies. Inquiries were grounded in critical theory: by collaborating with those most affected by policy, school leaders and participants transformed inequitable practices at and beyond their schools.

This chapter informs current research and practice in organization development and change (ODC) with an actionable knowledge of the social science philosophies. It adds value to the scholarship of ODC by charting the progression of philosophies of social science, by showing how researchers in ODC structure their inquiry based on the inherent philosophical dimensions, and by offering useful and actionable knowledge for research and practice. The aim of the chapter is to reflect on the practice of ODC as a social science and to consolidate its social science philosophies so to provide solid philosophical and methodological foundations for the field.

Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, working in partnership with leading health science centers in Toronto, Ontario, has developed a unique second-degree entry Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) program called the Scholar Practitioner Program. This program is a response to the increasing demand for nursing programs which builds on prior university learning.

The program uses an educational model based on narrative inquiry and cognitive apprentice pedagogies. Narrative inquiry pedagogy is the overarching philosophical framework of the program, which embraces values that connect teachers and learners. A spirit of inquiry is cultivated in every student and a research culture embedded in the student’s practice.

The six-semester two-year full-time program occurs in a learner-driven environment which shapes how specific semester program objectives are met. A strong emphasis is placed on experiential learning within the Toronto-based academic health sciences centers.

A continuous interactive process involving teachers and learners encourages self-directed learning and participant accountability. Application of knowledge and skills in a professional, caring, and holistic manner is expected. This type of undergraduate learning environment which includes immersion in the employment milieu enables the future scholar practitioner to be relevant in the evolving profession of nursing.

Early in one’s career in psychology, certainly starting in graduate school, if not sooner as a psych major in college, a choice point gradually emerges between seeking a career as a scholar, a scientist, and perhaps as an academic versus pursuing the life of a practitioner, one who applies the work of the former, the scholar. We faculty will often cast this choice in the form of a “tension” between science and practice. Ironically, I have never felt such tension. The purpose of this chapter is to explore choices we make in life and career, the consequences of these choices, and what we can learn in the process, that is, along the way and the implications for organization change and development.

We review our work as collaborators over nearly 40 years as researchers and OD practitioners on the human, cultural, and organizational aspects of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). This chapter addresses (1) how our thinking, research methods, and practices developed over time, (2) accounts of deriving theory from practice and contrariwise of applying theory to practical matters, (3) how our respective shifts from academe toward scholarly-practice influenced our thinking and how we write, and (4) varieties of scholarly collaboration – ranging from intensive interchange to sequential pitch and catch. Early work covers a study of a “white-knight” acquisition and then advising on post-merger integration in a hostile takeover, revealing the stages of a deal, dynamics of buyers and sellers, and human factors that produce the “merger syndrome.”

Throughout we talk about confronting challenges of the scholar-practitioner divide as it pertains to role definition and boundary management as well to our theorizing, writing, and publication agenda. The chapter concludes with reflections on doing applied research in collaboration with a colleague (and friend).

This chapter examines the prisoners’ strike which took place throughout Great Britain in August 1972. The strike, the first of its kind in British penal history, took place against a background of sub-standard conditions in British prisons, with an outdated prison estate, overcrowding, ‘slopping out’, and a prison department preoccupied with secrecy. The strike was not a sporadic protest, rather it occurred during a year of social and political unrest both inside and outside prisons, and was led by an organisation of prisoners and ex-prisoners – the Union for the Preservation of the Rights of Prisoners (PROP). While the government recognised the need for improvements in prison conditions, it refused to recognise the right of prisoners to organise. An analysis of the 1972 strike and the role of PROP can inform contemporary penal reform and abolitionist debates among scholars, practitioners, activists, prisoners and ex-prisoners.

Whereas leadership has existed on the continent of Africa as long as African peoples therein, the study of the same is limited in scope, depth and availability. Even as African scholars decry this dearth of available literature, they are at the same time actively involved in remedying the situation. In this chapter, the author attempts to answer a couple of questions: what is African about African Leadership? How can we engage in radical scholarship of African leadership? The author concludes with an invitation to readers of the edited volume to answer those two questions for themselves, as well as allow the chapters to help them rethink their own position and practices, arguing that leadership scholarship is always about both theory building and enhanced practice.