Songs of Wonder

K&S colleague Joeri Kabalt became a Doctor in Organisational Change in March 2020. You can now read her entire thesis online! Her thesis is titled: Songs of Wonder – An Inquiry on wonder and magic in everyday and organisational life. She did her research at Ashridge Executive Education in the UK. 

Her doctoral research explores which practices might support ‘wonder’ in everyday and organisational life. How do I live my life with a sense of wonder? How do I create spaces of wonder with and for others? How do I create a wonder-full research practice? As an action researcher (Reason & Bradbury, 2008) with a background in Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987), Joeri has endeavoured to ‘live’ these questions herself through developing an approach for wholeheartedly loving and living questions. Specific methods she created to do so are daily morning walks, writing ‘moment-stories’ from within the experience of wonder and creating ‘temporary constellations of inquiry’ with others.

Joeri’s thesis was examined by Dr. Margaret Gearty and Dr. Peter Reason who commended her for what "is a finely woven and affecting piece of first-person inquiry that is configured around the notion of 'wonder'" and conducted with dedication. "It represents a sustained personal exploration of the experience of wonder in everyday life, in rituals and other special experiences, and in organizational life. ... [You are] bold and brave in [your] inquiries, and [your] research addresses issues of deep relevance to the contemporary world". A beautiful endorsement of this important work.

You can now read Joeri’s entire thesis here: