essential-guide-to-qualitative-in-organizational-research

350 –––––––––– QUALITATIVE METHODS IN ORGANIZATION STUDIES ––––––––––––––––––contingencies and, of course, the change process itself will produce new knowledge about thephenomenon under scrutiny. Hence, the function of AR can be said to include an evaluationand extension of existing knowledge, an appreciation of the past and an assessment of potentialfutures (Chandler and Torbert, 2003).However, as I will demonstrate later in the section on history, Kurt Lewin and others usedthe term AR to describe projects where the acquisition of new knowledge was a primaryconcern because little evidence or experience in this area of social science was readily available.This preoccupation with knowledge and experience did not diminish but integrate the useof action as part of the learning process (Sanford, 1976). Currently, there are large areas insocial science that need to be explored and for which no knowledge and no theory is available(Drenth and Heller, 2004). Furthermore, in recent decades the complexity and speed of sociopolitical-economicchange has increased and with it the need to put forward new hypothesesand develop new knowledge. Given that, in the current literature, the term AR is usedprimarily with projects that emphasize change, the term Research Action (RA) is put forwardto describe projects for which change is a consequence of achieving new knowledge anddeveloping new models of thinking. 1The two case examples at the end of this chapter reflects one way of distinguishing betweenAR and RA.THE CORE ATTRIBUTES ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––While keeping the distinction between AR and RA clearly in mind, there are seven characteristicsthat illustrate an important degree of homogeneity in the family of action oriented methods:• The core element of AR/RA is the close relationship between knowledge acquisitionand action. Knowledge and action derives from research and diagnostic. Action, as anintegral part of field methodology, differentiates AR/RA from traditional research.• Knowledge acquisition and implementation is for the benefit of the client and participantsas much, or more than, for the researcher and her/his community.• Validation is through the learning-action process itself and, whenever possible, throughco-interpretation of outcomes with the participants.• The knowledge-action, or the action-knowledge process may be contingent on specificcircumstances, but must not exclude a degree of generalizability within similar contingencies.• The results of the AR/RA process must be available and widely shared between clientsand researchers. This differentiates it from many forms of consultancy.• There is always an ethical dimension to the AR/RA process with a degree of sharedvalues and reflexivity between client and researcher.• AR/RA tends to call on more than one scientific discipline and more than oneknowledge acquisition method.There will always be room for debate over demarcation and overlap at the boundaries of thesecategories. In particular, it is not possible to assign precise weights between the extent of learningcompared with action, but AR/RA taken together exclude change agency on its own andconsulting projects that are not substantially concerned with the acquisition of new knowledgeor with testing the validity of existing knowledge.For various reasons, based on the variability of client needs and environmental conditions,