This study explores the integration of a Theory of Change (ToC) approach into Action Research (AR) to support systematic and collaborative organizational development. Based on a three-year project in Danish vocational education, the study draws on 15 workshops and rich qualitative data to examine how ToC helps participants articulate challenges, clarify activities, and visualize desired outcomes. While participants valued ToC’s capacity to foster reflection, structure dialogue, and make assumptions explicit, they also encountered tensions around prioritization, timing, and the perceived linearity of change. The analysis identifies two key conceptual tensions: (1) between locally developed and generalizing understandings of theory, and (2) between emergent and linear models of change. Framed through pragmatism, these tensions are treated as resources for inquiry rather than obstacles. The study outlines conditions for meaningful integration, showing how ToC can function as a living visualization that enhances AR’s methodological scaffolding while supporting transparent, context-sensitive, and collectively owned change processes.

Denne artikel undersøger, hvilke perspektiver der opstår når Collaborative Management Research (CMR) anvendes i en interorganisatorisk kontekst til at understøtte ledelsesudvikling og organisatorisk forandring i en verden præget af komplekse og dynamiske udfordringer. Med udgangspunkt i et dansk forskningsprojekt, hvor fem ledere fra offentlige og private organisationer samt to forskere deltog i et interorganisatorisk undersøgelsesfællesskab, analyseres, hvordan læringsmekanismer og refleksive processer kan styrke både ledere og organisationer. Artiklen fremhæver betydningen af psykologisk tryghed, diversitet i sparringsstile og tværorganisatoriske perspektiver som centrale elementer i at skabe effektive interorganisatoriske udviklings- og læringsrum. Artiklen bidrager med viden om potentialerne ved interorganisatorisk CMR.

This article explores the qualitative method of audio diaries and assesses their effectiveness in capturing ad-hoc tasks in Higher Education (HE), drawing on a single-case study. There is a shortage of studies linking audio diaries to ad-hoc tasks within the research field. This article contributes new methodological insights by exploring and expanding on previous uses of audio diaries. The focus is on the ad-hoc tasks performed by educational leaders outside the managerial line. This role is often overlooked, as it does not fit within traditional management structures or ordinary collegiality. To highlight the uniqueness of the organisational role, it becomes essential to understand its function, which essentially involves ad-hoc tasks. Methodologically, it is challenging to capture ad-hoc tasks. Participants can have difficulties remembering the momentary work in a later interview, and the researcher cannot be present and observe every moment. In conclusion, exploring the audio diary shows that the method can effectively capture the ad-hoc tasks of educational leaders and, from a single case, provide in-depth information on the educational leader's navigation between professionalism and collegiality. However, it is essential for future research to provide clarity on definitions and instructions.

This interview is a slightly modified transcript from the second Psyche Talk, hosted at the Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University, February 15, 2024. Psyche Talks are hosted as biannual events, where prominent psychological researchers are invited to discuss fundamental questions about the nature and subject matter of psychology through an interview-based format. The focus of this interview is on how people make sense of change on the personal, social and environmental level and the role of symbolic resources in making meaning of and transitioning through rupturing changes. In this interview, Professor of Sociocultural Psychology, Tania Zittoun, is interviewed by Associate Professor of Sociocultural Psychology, Sarah Awad.

What happens when the invitation to wonder off the beaten track is extended to the very act of criticalpeer review? This piece of performative writing is the peer review for x paper. The wandering andwondering presents a pluriversal way of peering, of being with, of relating to authors who are comingfrom another place, another world.

To explain broader social phenomena through human perspectives, sociologists closely analyse their qualitative data. As individuals’ actions and embeddedness into society may be subject to inquiry, biographical and narrative approaches can enable access to the other’s world, its social and material contexts. Yet sensitivity is seldom evident when communicating research findings. Traditionally researchers address a uniform, neutral academic readership, one at odds with current reality. Just as the researcher seeks to understand the interviewee, similar effort is needed to accommodate the reader. Good communication needs to consider complexity and address the human experience through multi-faceted but meaningful lenses. It requires creative thinking. I suggest that New Journalism and Portraiture, in combination, provide a good starting point for communicating the human experience and its surrounding conditions: New Journalism as it introduces devices from fiction into the field; Portraiture because it encourages the writer to bring creative aspects into the text. The article explores the considerations around writing up such a text from biographical research and demonstrates how this can be done.

Denne artikel diskuterer modsætninger og muligheder i kvalitativ forskning med forskning om ulighed i skolen som eksempel. På baggrund af en begrebsmæssig diskussion af hverdagslivets historiske dimensioner udforskes skolen som en social praksis hvor mange deltagere i situeret samspil med hinanden lever hverdagsliv og udgør betingelser for hinandens livsførelse. Artiklen vil pege på muligheden for gennem kvalitativ udforskning af skolens sociale situationer at fremanalysere sammenhænge mellem politiske konflikter i og om skolen, personlige konflikter i hverdagslivet og ulige betingelser for at deltage i skolelivet – det er netop sådanne sammenhænge kvalitativ metode kan bidrage til at forstå. Herigennem vil artiklen diskutere metodologiske udfordringer for kvalitativ psykologi særlig forholdet mellem forskere, og dem de forsker med - og både i relation til begrebsudvikling, situeret generalisering og mere praktiske guidelines for forskningssamarbejde og feltarbejde. Formålet er at bidrage til udviklingen af sprog, begreber og metodologi for kvalitativ psykologi.

I artiklen spørger jeg, hvad kvalitativ psykologi handler om. Jeg tager udgangspunkt i en tese om, at en psykologisk videnskab må have et normativt udgangspunkt, idet dens genstand er normativt bestemt. Psykologien studerer nemlig ikke blot, hvad der sker i verden, men hvordan levende mennesker agerer og retter sig intentionelt mod verden gennem deres tanker, handlinger og følelser, hvilket kun kan forstås, hvis man erkender, at disse fænomener er normativt konstitueret. Jeg vil hævde, at det, der nu kaldes kvalitativ psykologi, har de bedste forudsætninger for at begribe psykologiens normativitet og intentionalitet. Jeg vil argumentere for, at distinktionen mellem kvalitative og kvantitative metoder er mindre fundamental end en distinktion mellem en deltager- og tilskuerpsykologi, som anden del af artiklen udfolder.

The purpose of this article is to develop an account of existential suffering in youth. According to recent studies, a growing amount of young Westerners has come to suffer from mental disorders, stress, and a general lack of well-being. It is suggested however that the massive concern for young people's mental health might risk contributing to an increased pathologization of all kinds of suffering in youth. In continuation hereof the article aims at disclosing a suffering that is not pathological in kind but quite the contrary clings to existence. Based on interviews with three Danish high school students, regarding their experiences of bad conscience in their everyday lives, it is revealed how they suffer from matters conceivable as normative implications of fundamental conditions of existence such as freedom, finitude and the Other. In the end, critical concerns are raised regarding the normative evaluation of existential suffering as a necessity. That is, should we not always be against suffering?