Interactions Enhancing the Impact of the Interventionist Research: Cases on Business Development

Interventionist research (IVR) approach can make a difference at scientific, societal and practical levels, similarly to other approaches. However, by taking advantage of certain distinctive features of the IVR approach, the impact of IVR projects may become remarkably greater and more easily communicated. IVR projects may identify to-the-point research questions and answer them with the help of unique access because these projects involve several actors. This paper focuses on interaction (among the researchers and managerial actors) as a remarkable feature of some IVR projects, underlying their contribution potential. The paper aims to answer the following research questions: What kind of interactions do take place in IVR projects? How do these interactions affect the identification and realization of IVR projects' contribution potential? The paper uses conceptual analysis on the recent IVR literature stream and 20 years of experience of the authors on IVR in management accounting, and reflects upon case studies of two industrial companies on management accounting supporting business development. The paper understands that IVR projects feature different types of interactions, e.g., i) interviewing managers, ii) observing interactions among managers, iii) facilitating interactions among managers, and iv) intentionally and reflectively using many of these forms of interaction. Based on these interaction types, the paper shows that in the first case study (A), service business development benefited from interactions in IVR in researcher-facilitated workshops that were initiated by the company. In these workshops, interaction took place among managers and researchers as collaborative construction of business impact analyses to support service business development. In the second case study (B), IVR supported new product development and program coordination. The data was collected in researcher-facilitated workshops that were initiated by the researchers. The paper shows how the workshops could focus program-level coordination by engaging managers in interaction by encouraging them to express and discuss their viewpoints about financial and nonfinancial impacts. Furthermore, best practices for governing service business development were reported for the society, and importantly, the theory contribution in the two case studies was scrutinized in an engaged manner to ensure its relevance to the management accounting, service, and project management literature.