مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

۱٫۱٫ Background A fundamental question that can be posed within any field of research is ‘What constitutes good or high quality research (or scientific) practice?’. This question is relevant for research both in a university context and in an organizational or innovation context for research and development activities. However, before such criteria can be formulated, we need a reasonably common understanding of what research itself really is.

Science and research are ontologically challenging, and previous research reveals different views and remains ambiguous. A recent definition of science was proposed by the British Science Council: “Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence” (Science Council, 2009: www.sciencecouncil. org/definition). Based on somewhat similar definitions, several studies have explored the concept of research. In this respect Israel (2005) acknowledged and explored the complexity of science, Patton (1990)mentioned thatitis importantto identify the purpose of research, and Gall et al. (1996) discussed how research might contribute in the field of education. In the medical domain, Grinnell (1990) argued that the endings of clinical research protocols are of importance in distinguishing therapy from research. In 2000 the same author stated that the everyday practice of science is neither realism nor social constructivism, but rather is balanced on a contextual ledge between the two, and said that he considered discovery and credibility to be the two central features of research (Grinnell, 2000). Ulrich (2006) has analysed different traps that are currently common and that lead to a somewhat limited reflective research practice, and he describes a rethinking approach. Further, Quaye (2007) argues for extending what counts as research within the social sciences so that it is more likely to include different methodologies and writing genres. Nickelsen (2009), in a similar approach, supports the notion of interventionist research that is not just focused on simple one-way causation in the field that is being studied. In parallel with this, there has been ongoing discussion about rethinking knowledge production in general (e.g. Hessels and van Lente, 2008; Tsao et al., 2008). In this new mode of knowledge production, often referred to as Mode 2, knowledge is produced in the context of an application (Gibbons et al., 1994). Knowledge can be produced in different contexts, and the concepts of ‘knowing in action’(Amin and Roberts, 2008) and ‘situated learning’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991) highlight the importance of a variety of contextual factors. It is important to keep this in mind, not least in the light of the considerable amount of knowledge production taking place in Research and Development (R&D) departments in companies.

In summary, there is broad criticism of the so-called linear model of science, and it is argued that concepts such as intuition and passion have become just as important as objectivity and logic (Dash, 2009; Grinnell, 2009), and there are several very different views on, and definitions of, research practice. In our paper we therefore concentrate our efforts on working towards a generic definition (or model) of what research is. Then, based on this model, it may be possible to define the generic components of quality of research practice.