Towards Best or Better Practice in Corporate Leadership Development: Operational Issues in Mode 2 and Design Science Research

The research reported here was part of a UK government initiative to improve management and leadership capability. Corporate leadership development was one element of this initiative. The researchers, also the authors of this paper, were tasked with developing a best practice guide in leadership development. The aim was to establish current best UK corporate practice in order to inform similar organizations striving to improve their approach to leadership development. The aim of this paper is to present the findings of this inquiry as an example of Mode 2 research, i.e. that which is co-produced with practitioners in a rigorous yet actionable way. The paper addresses operational issues by exploring the tensions inherent in Mode 2 research and makes some additions to previous literature on conducting Mode 2 research. It introduces the notion of technological rules derived from the concept of management research as design science, which enables the authors to articulate the way in which output can be developed in a form readily acceptable to end users of Mode 2 research. Actionable research products and accompanying dissemination issues are proposed as central operational concerns for Mode 2 research.

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