Action Research A Methodology for Change and Development

DOING ACTION RESEARCH DIFFERENTLY 53
number of his most important articles. He argues for the importance of
going beyond what he calls ‘single-loop learning’ which seeks solutions to
problems to ‘double-loop learning’ which seeks at the same time to understand
the underlying reasons for problems. In particular (Argyris 1999: 19)
he argues for the importance of changing ‘the values of an organization’s
theory-in-use for the process of organizational inquiry’. The concept of the
organization’s theory-in-use provides an explanation for the workplace
practices that individuals develop over and above the officially sanctioned
practices, and through which they tacitly agree to avoid ‘embarrassment’
and ‘threat’; in effect this is a process of developing ‘organizational
defences’ which function as powerful ‘self-reinforcing, anti-learning
processes (Argyris 1999: xv). Senge (1993: 182) describes the powerful
process of ‘reflection in action’ he experienced when attending one of
Argyris’s workshops at MIT. In order to understand the tacit motivations that
shaped one’s own behaviours, the activity consisted of remembering a recent
disagreement with someone in the family, a colleague or a client and recalling
‘not only what was said, but what we were thinking and did not say’.
Such workshops were a regular feature of Argyris’ work with organizations.
Argyris argued strongly that research into management processes and
organizational change needed to go beyond the purely descriptive and analytical
‘to produce knowledge about virtual worlds that provide liberatory
alternatives’ (Argyris 1999: xv). He advocated an approach to inquiry that
involved ‘the intertwining of thought and action’ (Argyris 1999: 9). He
developed a methodology that he called ‘action science’, which he saw as
different from participatory action research because of its focus on investigating
theories-in-use (Argyris and Schon 1991). Although this approach
differs from PAR in business settings, it is very much in line with the participatory
action research tradition developed in ‘southern’ countries by
Fals-Borda (2001) and approaches to action research developed by Elliott in
Britain and Altrichter and Posch in Austria. As a student of Elliott, these
concepts of Argyris were very much part of my own early action research
work. Like Lewin, Argyris believed it was possible to generate knowledge
from researching social practices, and saw good theory as pre-eminently
‘practical’. In a chapter on making knowledge more relevant to practice he
emphasized that his work differed from that of natural science research
only in that the criteria of ‘objectivity, precision and completeness’ should
‘take into account the features of the way the human mind works when
human beings try to use the knowledge that social scientists produce’. In
other words, he aspired to developing generalizable knowledge that met
these criteria but rejected the assumption that this would require a remote
relationship between the researcher and the participants, since ‘one is more
likely to reduce distortion and enhance the production of valid information
if the individuals see that participating in research will lead to important
learning for them’ (Argyris 1999: 428–9).