Clinical Inquiry

Assumptions Underpinning Clinical Inquiry

There are three basic assumptions underlying the notion of Clinical Inquiry. These assumptions flow from the notion of a clinician as a professional who can work with a client to diagnose and address a problem in terms of a deviation from ‘health’.

• 1.
  Clinical researchers are hired to help. The research agenda comes not from the interests of the researchers but from the needs of the client system. In this regard, Clinical Inquiry may be distinguished from forms of action research that begin from the researcher's initiative and where the organization accommodates the researcher's [Page 108]needs. In Clinical Inquiry, that the researcher is hired to and is being paid to help means that the researcher may be afforded access to perceptions and information that might not be shared readily with outsiders.
• 2.
  Clinical researchers work from models of health and therefore are trained to recognize pathological deviations from health. Clinical researchers, therefore, need to be trained in organizational dynamics and have models of organizational health so that that they know what to notice.
• 3.
  Clinical researchers are not only concerned with diagnosis but are also primarily focused on treatment. Accordingly, they need to be skilled in providing help in the manner of process consultation.

These three assumptions provide an important contrast between Clinical Inquiry and ethnography. Ethnography is built on unobtrusive non-interfering observation, while Clinical Inquiry is built on deliberate interference, where clinical researchers are hired to help change the system.

Through being present in a helping role, the clinical researcher notices how data is continuously being generated as the change process proceeds. While it may not be clear what this data might mean, the researcher's mode of inquiry enables the client to explore, diagnose and act upon the events as they emerge. In this way, the clinical researcher's data is in ‘real time’, generated in the act of managing change, and not data created especially for the research project.

Principles of Clinical Inquiry

There are several working principles underpinning the practice of Clinical Inquiry. The issues that clinical researchers work on are important. This is because they have been hired to help. They accept the assumption that unless they attempt to change the system they cannot really understand it. The primary sources of organizational data are not what is ‘out there’ but are in the effects of and responses to intervention. The organization development process, whereby the clinical researcher is contacted, enters the system and begins to learn to be helpful, is central. The clinical approach, therefore, focuses on diagnosing and treating organizational dysfunctions and pathologies.

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