To narrate the organization: interactive research: in what way does it benefit the practitioners?

The purpose of this paper is to discuss in what way practi-tioners take advantage of and benefits from interactive and participatory research. In a more dramatic sense the author would like to illustrate when participants ―hijack‖ a re-search project. Looking back on an interactive research project focusing on health promotion at a ward unit in a Swedish hospital, one critical question could be raised: when and how did this project benefit to practice? The main focus was 5 ward managers and their subordinates (nurses and assistant nurses). The primary arena for data gathering was a forum for consultation. For the period of two years the researcher met the five ward managers un-der the topic ―leading and organizing for healthy work-places‖. The idea was to integrate the two action research questions: What happens here (R)? and What shall we do (P)? (Argyris, 1985). Although many interesting conclu-sions arose from the projects main theme, other more in-triguing questions emerged as well. The interest for the forum varied significantly depending on how the ward managers interpreted the situation in the organization. In times of crises the interest peaked, analogous the research question became less interesting for the ward managers. Instead they made use of the forum in another way, they used it as a resource for narrating the organization and their selves – with the objective to turn around the col-lapse of sensemaking to a situation in which they could answer the crucial question: what‘s the story here?