Experiences of Opening Up Communicative Spaces for Large-Scope Issues

Satu Kalliola and Tuula Heiskanen
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Satu Kalliola: Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, 33014 Tampere, Finland
Tuula Heiskanen: Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, 33014 Tampere, Finland

Challenges, 2021, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-16

Abstract: The continuously changing world creates new challenges, large-scope issues, both at the community and the organizational level. Currently, sustainable development is among the key issues demanding organizational learning and new ways of operation. The paper looks for the potential of Scandinavian communicative-oriented action research (AR), applied in dialogue forums, to enhance learning and planning of integrative solutions to meet the needs of various actor groups. The paper links two intertwined AR lines of a Finnish work research institute to the contexts of classic and current AR discussion and their original social conditions in the early 1990s, when they were challenged by a severe recession. The characteristics of communicative spaces applied in the two cases are analysed qualitatively. The data, consisting of case reports, are reread and interpreted in a framework that concretizes Habermasian ideals of free communication. The elements of organisational learning and power embedded in the organisational positions of the participants dealing with large-scope societal issues are made explicit. Free communication and joint agreements of concrete plans require active agency that can be learned in a psychologically and socially safe communicative space where Habermasian lifeworld and system interact. The research shows the malleability of dialogue-based communicative spaces that can be applied in versatile social and organizational conditions. A future option would be a continuous dialogue applied in permanent dialogue structures.

Keywords: societal challenges as large-scope issues; action research; communicative spaces; organizational learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A00 C00 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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