Prof. Em. Devi Jankowicz

About the speaker:

Devi Jankowicz is Emeritus Professor in Constructivist Managerial Psychology at the Graduate Business School of the University of Bedfordshire UK, and is Visiting Professor at Heriot-Watt University. On completion of his first degree in Psychology at Brunel University, 1969, followed by a Doctorate in Management Cybernetics at the same university, 1975, he taught Organisational Behaviour and a variety of related subjects at universities in the UK, Ireland, Poland and the USA. He has developed a DBA programme and 3 MBA programmes, including the first one to be offered in southern Poland.

His special interests include research methods in business and management (especially those reflecting a constructivist epistemology); personal construct psychology; and the transfer of knowledge across cultural boundaries, with particular reference to the post-command economies of central Europe. More recently his interests have included the construction of identity, at both organizational level (corporate branding) and the individual level (the personal identity of the avatar used to represent participants in synthetic environments used in teaching and in leisure applications). He has published widely in all these fields.

His books include a major text on Business Research Methods in 5 editions and a definitive text on Repertory Grid Technique; he has over 100 items given at  conferences and in journals such as  Organization Studies, Management Learning, Journal of Intellectual Capital, and International Journal of Human Resource Management. He is an ex-editor of Human Resource Development International.

Topic: How can psychologists create knowledge that’s true to management experience?

1. The topic deals with the ways in which, as psychologists, we might create knowledge that managers can use because it draws on their own language– not ours, as researchers.
2. And the argument is as follows:
   • As scientists, we know how to create knowledge; we subscribe to a particular epistemology, or theory about how knowledge is created– the positivist approach.
   • When we address our managers, we find that as practitioners, they may not subscribe to that epistemology, and may find its outcomes unhelpful.
   • And so we need to adopt an epistemology that suits their circumstances– consructivism…
   • …which must be equally as rigorous as the one we have set aside.
3. I hope to support that argument with a practical demonstration, so it would be useful if participants had a scrap of paper and pencil available. Even the back of an old envelope will do!