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Before integrating new communication concepts such as SDM in communication training, research methods such as PAR can be used to improve understanding and identify the needs and priorities of both patients and health professionals.

This research aims to re-articulate the concept of participation in design research by adopting a relational, temporal and process-oriented perspective. In the paper we draw on recent theory where human interaction is understood as complex responsive processes of relating. Thus, participation is seen as people taking part in creating social objects that emerge in the complex social processes of everyday organisational life. This perspective challenges conceptions of participation as normative as well as the tendency to make methods of participation generalizable and replicable. Based on an organisational case in which multiple stakeholders are involved in collaborative design processes, we describe how social dynamics and issues of power, enable and constrain participation and argue that participation cannot, strictly, be accounted for on the foundation of designed temporary workshop spaces, methods and tools for engagement or the facilitation of the researcher or designer. On that basis, we will introduce a concept which argues that participation is how people engage the temporal emergence of daily interactions and on-going conversations that unfold in complex processes of relating, influencing action, interaction, identity and meaning. Keywords: Participation; complex responsive processes of relating; co-design; infrastructuring; participatory design; interdependency and researchers often take assumptions of the idea of participation for granted (Winschiers-Theophilus 2012; Saad-Sulonen et al. 2018) leaving much room for individual interpretation, as few contributions articulate what participation actually might mean. This calls for a more thorough reflection on current understanding of participation, the challenges and opportunities these engender, and possible directions for the future.Our paper sets out to reflect on and re-articulate the complexity of participation in design research practice. We will argue for an understanding of participation as the on-going interaction between those involved in emergent processes of relating. Although this perspective might seem straight-forward, it challenges normative and pre-defined understandings of participation. Our perspective originates from more recent organisational research in which human interaction is articulated as complex responsive processes of relating (Stacey et al. 2000). This theory focuses on the temporal emergence of social dynamics, including power relations. We draw parallels to the current discussions in some strands of design research, such as participatory design (PD) and infrastructuring, focusing on how we can understand the nature of participation, when taking into account the non-linear, fluctuating and spontaneous character of human interaction.

In this article, we explore processes of innovation – which are inherently uncertain – from a complexity perspective, in which they are understood as new patterns of experiences as they emerge in human conversational interaction. We reflect on local interactions between people involved in emerging processes of innovation, with a particular emphasis on the improvisational nature of interaction. Through an abductive approach, by iterating actual experiences and our understanding of them, we show that such processes are collective efforts that take place as informal, highly improvised conversations — happening ‘below the radar’ — which may unpredictably offer windows of opportunity to enable change. We show that innovation often emerges as ‘shadow themes’, experienced as subversive by those involved in the moments of interaction. While these themes are embedded in informal conversations and processes, they can be induced by invitations – conscious or unconscious moves that encourage those involved to make spontaneous moves together in a mutually improvised context. Our experience shows that the emergence of shadow themes can have a long‐term impact on the organization and the people involved, and that managers may be ‘in charge but not in control’ of such innovation processes.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present researcher's reflexive writing about emergent events in research collaborations as a way of responding to the process-figurational sociology of Norbert Elias in the practice of organizational ethnography.Design/methodology/approachDrawing parallels between Norbert Elias' figurative account of social life and auto-ethnographic methodology, this paper re-articulates the entanglement of social researchers in organizational ethnographic work. Auto-ethnographic narration is explored as means to inquire from within the emerging relational complexity constituted by organizational dynamics. Writing about emergent events in the research process becomes a way of inquiring into the social figurations between the involved stakeholders; thus nurturing sense-making and increasing the awareness and sensitivity of the researcher to her own entanglement with the relational complexity of the organization under study.FindingsIn the paper, we argue that the writing of auto-ethnographic narratives of emergent field encounters is a process of inquiry that continuously depicts the temporal development of the relational complexity in organizations. Viewing that from the perspective of Elias' concept of figuration, we find a common commitment to the processual nature of research processes, which insists on moving beyond objectifying empirical insights.Originality/valueThis paper encourages awareness of the interdependency between ourselves as social researchers and field actors as we engage with the field. It moves beyond simplifying the ethnographic research agenda to that of “studying” and “describing” organizations. It offers unique insights into the organizational context, and increased sensitivity toward the social entanglement of the experiences that we, ourselves, as researchers are part of.