This article draws parallels between my experience of undertaking insider research and the original sin the biblical Adam and Eve committed when they ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. I examine my motivation for undertaking research and consider how my focus shifted from my original research questions onto me and my role as both a senior executive and a researcher. I discuss my experience of the need to discover and develop my own interpretation distinct from the orthodoxy of the organization. I identify the influences that caused me to embrace the inherent conflict of being both an insider and a researcher and the consequences that ensued. Although ultimately I found I could not resolve this conflict, I have few regrets and I hope my article will do more to encourage others, rather than deter them from making a similar commitment to undertake insider research in their own organizations.
The author debates the concept of personalisation -choice and control to those who receive services -for housing providers in the current economic and political climate in the UK. It is suggested that a wholesale shift towards the culture of personalisation will be necessary for providers, but will also present challenges and additional demands on both providers and commissioners of services. The article offers two particular principles that the provider Hanover is using to guide its approach to changing its relationship with residents and to give them the power to exercise control.
Co., London. 8s. 6d. It might well have been an invidious task to review a book by the Editor of a Journal for which the review was meant, but in this instance no
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