Summer School Practice-Based Studies

July 2018

I have co-organized the 2018 Summer on Practice-Based Studies at Warwick Business School together with Davide Nicolini and Hari Tsoukas. This edition  explored the distinctive methodological features of practice and process research as well as their similitudes and differences. The key speakers were Elizabeth Shove (Lancaster) and Ann Langley (HEC Montreal) and the event also featured the participation of the WBS faculty involved in the Practice Process and Institutions (PPI) Research Programme.

One of the exercises in the school involved reading a classic paper by Trist and Bamforth from the Tavistock Institute on the industrialisation of the coal mining in the UK in the 50s. Participants then imagined and discussed how would a practice/process approach address the same questions posed by these authors. It was a great example of the power of earlier scholarship in inspiring discussions and pushing us to re-think assumptions about research.