Clinical Management Research: Interventionist and Collaborative Approaches

This chapter describes clinical approaches to management research and positions them in relation to other field research approaches. It builds on the preceding approaches of case, longitudinal field and action research. There are different versions and concepts that are overlapping or very similar, such as interventionist and collaborative research. Clinical inquiry is synonymous with process consultation. Collaborative management research is viewed as 'an emergent systematic inquiry process, embedded in a true partnership between researchers and members of a living system for the purpose of generating actionable scientific knowledge. Intervention research entails the empirical study of professional intervention behaviour in human services. Participatory research focuses on a process of sequential reflection and action, earned out with and by local people rather than on them. Clinical research approaches offer an opportunity to organizations and their management to achieve deeper and richer insights into particular issues, and for researchers to study causal relations.