The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Establishing Student/Researcher Credibility as Consultant

Personnel Review

Volumn 12, Issue 4, 1983, Pages 3-9

  Linstead, Steve ^a  

^a BUCKINGHAMSHIRE NEW UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0642361093     PISSN: 00483486     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/eb055484     Document Type: Review

References (32)

1. See, for example, Gill, J., “Consultant-Client Relationships”, in Management Review and Bibliography, MCB Books, Bradford, 1978; Cherns, A.B., “Can Behavioural Scientists Help Managers Improve their Organisations?”, Organisational Dynamics, Winter, 1973; Glidewell, J.C., “The Entry Problem in Consultation”, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 15 Part 2, 1959, pp. 51–9.
2. The CNAA MSc in Organisation Development of Sheffield City Polytechnic.
3. Cherns, A.B., op. cit.
4. Bauman, Z., Hermeneutics and Social Science, Hutchinson, London, 1978, p. 211.
5. This is termed the “double hermeneutic” by Giddens, A., New Rules of Sociological Method, Hutchinson, London, 1976, p. 162. ”…Sociology … deals with a universe which is already consistuted within frames of meaning by social actors themselves, and reinterprets these within its own theoretical schemes … This double hermeneutic is of considerable complexity, since the connection is not merely a one–way one … there is a continual ‘slippage’ Of the concepts constructed in sociology whereby these are appropriated by those whose conduct they were originally carried to analyse and hence tend to become integral features of that conduct…” It should be observed that these concepts can become integral features of social conduct by omission and rejection equally as much as by appropriation. Both would seem to be equally important in the case of management, “utilisation of research”.
6. Gill, J., “Research as Action—An Experiment in Utilising the Social Sciences”, Personnel Review, Vol. 11 No. 2, 1982, pp. 25–34 (p. 25).
7. Gill, J., op. cit., p. 25. “Most researchers choose their language and methods to impress their peer group”. Gill also refers to Scott Armstrong, V., “Unintelligible Management Research and Academic Prestige”, Interfaces, Vol. 10 No. 2, 1980, pp. 80–6.
8. Gill, J., op. cit., p. 25.
9. Gaskell, G. and Hampton, J., “A Note on Styles in Accounting”, in Douglas, M. (Ed.), Essays in the Sociology of Perception, RKP, London, 1982, pp. 103–11 (p. 103).
10. Woolf, J., Hermeneutic Philosophy and the Sociology of Art, RKP, London, 1975, p. 105, referring to the views of Gadamer, H-G., Truth and Method, Sheed Ward, London, 1976.
11. Saynor, J., “The Trainer as Consultant in Planned Organisational Problem Solving and Change”, unpublished paper, Sheffield City Polytechnic, 1977, p. 3.
12. See for example Simmons, M., in Basic Consultancy Skills for OD, Shepperd Moscow Associates/Sheffield City Polytechnic handbook, 1974, p. 11.
13. Berne, E., Games People Play, Penguin, London, 1970, p. 101.
14. The questionnaire was divided into the following areas: Children; Marital Arrangements; Main Earners or Second Earners; Travelling Arrangements; Type of Work; Supervisor’s Effect on Attendance; Sick Pay; Disciplinary Procedure. Between four and seven questions were asked in each area with little connection. In the presence of the supervisor, the honesty of the answers to questions like “How do you feel the work is supervised in your areas?” could only have been questionable.
15. Centre for Research for the Utilisation of Scientific Knowledge,— Machine-Scored Questionnaires, University of Michigan, 1971. Based on the ideas put forward by Likert, R., The Human Organization, McGraw Hill, New York, 1967.
16. Lévi Strauss, C.,Myth and Meaning, RKP, London, 1978, p. 19.
17. Cleverley, G., Managers and Magic, Pelican, London, 1971.
18. Ibid., p. 64.
19. Lévi Strauss, C., Structural Anthropology, Basic Books, London, 1963, p. 168.
20. Mauss, M., A General Theory of Magic, Translated by Brain, R., RKP, London, 1972, p. 40.
21. Ibid., p. 44.
22. Lévi Strauss, C, 1963, op. cit., p. 179.
23. Benedict, R., Patterns of Culture, RKP, London, 1971, p. 58.
24. Ibid., p. 86.
25. Douglas, M., Purity and Danger, RKP, London, 1980, p. 121.
26. Mair, L., quoted by Cleverley, G., op. cit., p. 56.
27. Van Gennep, A., The Rites of Passage, RKP, London, 1965, p. 11 and throughout.
28. Bailey, F.G., Morality and Expediency: The Folklore of Academic Politics, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1977, pp. 184–85. Also referred to by Gowler, D. and Legge, K., “Negation, Abomination and Synthesis in Rhetoric”, and Antaki C. (Ed.), The Psychology of Ordinary Explanations of Social Behaviour, Academic Press, London, 1981.
29. Lévi Strauss, C, 1963, op. cit., p. 176.
30. Ibid., p. 178.
31. The classic paper in this area is Schutz, A., “The Stranger”, in Broderson, A. (Ed.), Collected Papers No. 2”Studies in Social Theory, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1971. It is constructively discussed by Marriot, D., “A Sociologist Looks at Induction”, Personnel Review, Vol. 3, Winter, 1974, pp. 4–10.
32. Mauss, M., op. cit., p. 40.