Artfulness as a dimension of professional practice in organizations and action research: Acknowledging sensory-aware and embodied attunement in professional organizations

The article addresses the importance of action research to provide approaches to emphasize and acknowledge artful aspects of professional practice in public sector organizations. To meet this end, the paper briefly explains how artful aspects of professional practices and knowing philosophically are conceptualized in the field of research in professions in works of K.E. Løgstrup and Kari Martinsen. Following this idea, the paper contributes with ways to regard action research processes as artful, participatory practices that enables creation of organizational and public knowledge on the artful aspects of professional practice. In this effort, a focus is on putting art works in play in workshops as the concrete methodological expression of participatory ideas of action research, to concentrate on the artful and co-creative aspects of the research process in articulating experiential, organizational knowing. The paper addresses questions of aesthetic dimensions of practice, the role of sensory awareness and embodiment in professional knowing in organizations, which are some of the main preconditions for contributing to creative, social change and scholarly weight.