Judi Marshall - First Person Action Research

To Mum and Dad, Eileen and Geoff

Judi Marshallis Professor Emerita of Learning and Leadership at Lancaster University Management School, UK. Prior to joining Lancaster in 2008, she was at the School of Management, University of Bath, and a core member of the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice (CARPP).
In her academic career Judi has followed her developing interests as new questions arose. The topics she has studied include management job stress, women in management, organizational cultures, systemic change, education for sustainability, the gendering of corporate responsibility and sustainability, and careers. Judis publications map across these and other interests. She has, for example, an international reputation for her work on women in management, publications including Women Managers: Travellers in a Male World (1984) and Women Managers Moving On: Exploring Career and Life Choices (1995).
Initially a qualitative researcher, Judi also became an action researcher, especially exploring and articulating the principles and practices of first person inquiry, whatever other topics she is engaged with. This has led to a sequence of publications on first person action research approaches. These incorporate the notion of living life as inquiry (Marshall 1999), aspiring to treat life as an ongoing experiment, which can be adopted as an approach to learning and to leadership.
How to write academic work which is alive and takes forms congruent with the challenging issues studied has been another enduring interest, leading Judi often to experiment with writing approaches, and to write about doing so.
Teaching and pedagogy have been significant interests in Judis career. Whilst at the University of Bath, for example, with colleagues, she developed the MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice for mature, part-time course participants wanting to put environmental sustainability and social justice at the heart of their practice. The course was innovative educationally as well as in its content, adopting a question-posing, critical and values-aware approach based in principles and practices of action research. This enabled participants to engage with the challenging and contentious issues addressed, and to develop their practice alongside their intellects. Judi was a tutor on the programme and Director of Studies from 1997 to 2007. In 2011, she co-authored Leadership for Sustainability: An action research approach which includes stories of seeking to contribute to systemic change from people who had undertaken the MSc. At Lancaster, Judi and colleagues developed the MA in Leadership for Sustainability along similar lines. Coaching course participants who are seeking to contribute to change in their organizations, professions and own lives, and helping them to develop themselves as action researchers has thus been a major strand in Judis academic career.
Judi has also worked extensively with research students undertaking Diplomas, Masters and doctorates. Often this has involved group-based, tutor and peer supervision providing especially rich environments for the development of action research skills as well as understandings. She has enjoyed helping people do work that matters to them, which addresses challenging issues of our times, is radical and creatively meets academic standards.