Guest Editors: A Potpourri of Innovative Applications of LEGO® In Learning, Teaching And Development

Abstract

This special issue of the International Journal for Management and Applied Research is dedicated to LEGO® and a method of using it which has been established for almost 20 years and which is well known in business and management circles. While associated with, and widely used for, the development of executive and strategic thinking to facilitate change, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is increasingly being used in higher education to explore complex issues and questions and engage learners and academic staff in more hands-on approaches to learning and development. As this collection of papers reveals, its techniques are being widely used and adapted in diverse contexts; its effects and outcomes are also being considered through a range of lenses, including the critically reflective and the research-based. The photographs included bring some of the contributions alive and provide valuable visual insights. This issue reinforces for newcomers to LEGO SERIOUS PLAY key aspects of its purpose and application. As you read through the different contributions you will notice the dense theoretical underpinnings present in most, if not all, papers. Some sources are repeatedly cited, while the inclusion of others indicates the extent of literature on the method now available. Theoretical considerations are also enriched across the papers by an intermingling of the subject-related and pedagogic, as well as those associated with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY and LEGO more widely. Our contributors are located in different countries, disciplines and professional areas, and as a result you will find competing views, perspectives and experiences alongside commonalities of belief and position. You will also find tensions between the serious and the playful, constraint and freedom, recurring in the many motifs. There is both unity and diversity of different theoretical and practical domains, including considerations of: