Establishing a knowledgebased continuous leadership development program in rural municipal healthcare: an appreciative inquiry study
This is an action research project that aims to develop a knowledge-based continuous leadership development program for healthcare leaders in a rural arctic municipality. Through extensive work to develop the organisation, the municipality has identified a need to facilitate leaders' opportunities to develop their leadership skills, here also the collective leadership skills in the organisation. The action research project is carried out in line with these identified needs, as well as the municipality's value platform, vision and objectives.
In the research project, acknowledging participatory action research is chosen as the methodological approach (Cooperrider, Whitney & Stavros, 2008). This is a research methodology that is increasingly used in health science and nursing research. The value of the methodology is made visible through new knowledge, but also by the improvements that are achieved in the services on the basis that the participants' voices become governing, and that equality is worked out in power structures which can, for example, be related to education and position. Participatory research with an appreciative approach (Appreciative inquiry (AI)) has in other contexts shown the potential to mobilize the participants' resources, intentions and involvement in developing knowledge (Magnussen, Bondas, & Alteren, 2016), and thus represents a unique opportunity to find new insights in collaboration between researchers and the field of practice (Magnussen, Bondas, & Alteren, 2017).
Members:
Financial/grant information:
This study is funded by Vestvågøy Municipality and the Center for Care Sciences, North, UiT, The Arctic University of Norway.