Phenomenology Redux: Doing Phenomenology, Becoming Phenomenological

Abstract

This article revisits the phenomenological method with particular focus on how it is meaningful for me. The effort is to present this method as a personal journey that has evolved over 13 years and to illustrate how it might become a more accessible approach for meaning-making and serving others. This is partly accomplished by dethroning it from its lofty philosophical perch such that it is available for daily use by practitioners, educators, and researchers. Further accessibility is provided through the presentation of various examples in health care, higher education, and personal reflections on the experience of understanding and employing phenomenology. The article concludes with reflective notes on how it has become embodied in me and the experience of not just doing phenomenology but becoming phenomenological.

Keywords:

• phenomenology
• reflexivity
• ontology
• philosophy
• research methods

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas A. Conklin

Thomas A. Conklin is an associate professor in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. His research interests are in calling/careers, phenomenology, appreciative inquiry, leadership, and pedagogy. He has published articles in Journal of Management Education, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Management Development, Advanced Management Journal, Advances in Developing Human Resources, Organization Management Journal, and Journal of Experiential Education. He holds a PhD in organizational behavior from Case Western Reserve University. He can be reached at [email protected].