Research Diary Visual Mapping : a reflective methodological tool for process and strategy-as-practice studies

Balogun, Huff and Johnson (2003) highlight the growing paradox for researchers who must focus on context and details while favouring general lines of research. These authors focus their reflection around the collection of qualitative data, particularly those of discussion groups, collaborative research and of research journal redaction techniques. We propose, in the context of collaborative research, a new utilisation of the personal diary, fuelled by our doctoral experiences in collaborative research. While the personal diary in its usual form increases the level of reflectivity on an intervening process, it is nevertheless difficult to exploit for the work of interpreting and legitimizing research. We therefore propose personal diary mapping. In addition to the advantages of personal diary mapping as a methodological tool for viewing the phenomenon, it allows a process to be described by highlighting specifics that are not obvious in reading a text. Moreover, the process of personal diary mapping provides a contribution to the epistemic work in a constructivist reference because it helps make the relationship between knowledge and empirical information explicit (Martinet 2007). After a summary bringing process studies closer to SaP and a review of the modalities of action research and their implications in terms of ethics and researcher responsibility, we present the origins, principles and benefits of visual mapping as regards the researcher's responsibility. In a second step, we illustrate the normative elements of this approach through a case study on strategic competence development based on personal diary mapping.