Arne Carlsen is an Associate Professor at BI Norwegian School of Business, Department for Leadership and Organizational Behaviour. He has broad experience from action research projects in more than 50 organizations and was the leader of the Idea Work-project. Carlsen's research deals with issues of individual and collective growth in organizations. He has published in journals, handbooks and books about knowledge management, professional service work, identity construction, organizational becoming, hope, and positive organizational change.

Reviewed in Administrative Science Quarterly. "Research Alive is not only for qualitative researchers but is for anyone interested in discovering what an edited volume can achieve when it is produced with a thoughtful design and inspired direction. Although I was initially wary of an edited volume from 40(!) disparate contributors explaining generative moments in doing qualitative research, my fears were soon put to rest by the editors’ obvious efforts to structure not only the volume but the writing of all contributors. A focused question, strict word counts, and an appreciation of the loose connective tissue that authors’ research moments generate provide focus without forcing unearned coherence. The narratives shared in this book are not the type found in any methods section of a journal. Stories like Steve Barley’s drive to recover missing surgical instruments or Farzad Rafi Khan’s night ride on a motorcycle from a handstitched soccer ball manufacturing site in Pakistan with a backpack full of data do little to satisfy reviewers’ concerns. But hearing how Khan feared for his life and yet emerged unscathed and further committed to telling the story of the children who worked there invites you into his research process in an entirely new way. Stories like these both provoke and inspire. These are not the tales journals ask for in a standard methods section, but perhaps they should be. For, as Carlsen and Dutton argue, exploration of these dramatic tensions is what makes research come alive for all involved."

Contributors to this volume include the majority of the top international scholars in qualitative research. See the link to view Contents Pages and Preface.