The mourning after Hillsborough

There are continuing claims that in our society death is a taboo subject, and that bereaved people have lost touch with mourning rituals. This view seems to be challenged by the extensive mourning rituals on Merseyside in the fortnight in April 1989 following the Hillsborough tragedy, and by the simultaneous media debates about what would constitute appropriate mourning. The article analyses both the media debates and the rituals in order to ascertain whether these contradict the ‘taboo’ thesis, or whether they were unique to Merseyside and/or to a particular disaster.     

Participatory Organizational Research: Examining Voice in the Co‐production of Knowledge

This paper advances participatory methods in management research. We propose the term participatory organizational research to describe this adjunct to action research. We illustrate the potential of the method to allow sometimes unheard organizational members to generate alternative perspectives that can offer the potential for the co‐production of new forms of knowledge that are locally relevant. Participatory methods originate from work with marginalized groups and have been used more commonly in community and organizational development. The aim of such research is, generally, to change the social and organizational conditions within which participants operate by using their perspectives as active participants to develop alternative possibilities. As such, this research method has significant potential for management researchers in providing the means for unheard organizational members to voice their perspectives: a central component, we argue, in knowledge co‐production. Based on a participatory study of care quality in elder care institutions, we examine in detail how participatory organizational research can enable voice and explore some of the structural limitations particularly in respect of research ethics.     

The theoretical underpinnings of Chicago sociology in the 1920s and 30s

This paper looks at the work of the Chicago School in the 1920s and 1930s from the standpoint of the debate between positivism and its critics within the discipline of sociology. It is argued that, despite appearances to the contrary, Chicago sociology at this time is based on a rejection of the principles of positivism. It is an attempt to apply the principles of interpretative understanding to the practical problems of empirical research.