Helping at NASA: Guidelines for using process consultation to develop impactful research

Abstract

Management research has long been criticized for its perceived lack of relevance or impact beyond academia. How can we, as management scholars, create research that is more relevant and impactful? I argue that Edgar Schein's process consultation approach can be part of the answer. Process consultation's ultimate aim is to help client organizations. Key aspects of what is now recognized as engaged scholarship were fundamental to process consultation even before engaged scholarship was part of the management vocabulary. Based on my engagement process with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration since 2013, I argue that trust can fruitfully be seen as an outcome and an enabler of productive long-term helping relationships and of engaged scholarship; that what I call pragmatic bricolage is important in terms of offering help based on the client's needs as they develop at different junctures; and that unexpected dilemmas in such relationships are inevitable, but ways forward can be found by applying key principles of social systems. I conclude by outlining guidelines for impactful research and for disseminating research to wider audiences.