Publications

Summary

Although reflective approaches promote a return to the philosophical foundations that guided research (Creswell, 2013), little attention is given to axiology – “what can be the subject of a value judgment” (Universalis, 2015). Since project management practices are the subject of such judgment (Cicmil, 2006), the practitioner-researcher is faced with influences from various value systems that can turn into tensions. While being torn between practitioner and researcher values, the practitioner-researcher, in the interpretation of participants’ practices, confronts their value system with those of the participants. The theory of justification by Boltanski & Thévenot (1991) helps understand the formation of tensions arising from distinct value systems. They represent society using six worlds with their own characteristics, and we propose that the practitioner-researcher experiences tensions arising from the encounter between worlds linked, on the one hand, to research and, on the other hand, to practice. This presentation offers a dual contribution. Firstly, we present the two orders of methodological reflexivity (identified by Alvesson & Skoldberg (2009) and Cunliffe (2003)), situating axiological tensions within them. Secondly, by mobilizing the theory of justification, we theorize these tensions and how to turn them into second-order reflexive levers.