RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

54 RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
selves helped generate and make sense of the findings” (Piercy, Franz, Donaldson & Richard,
2011, p. 821).
Simplifying things for a better understanding of the overall research dynamics, it can be
said that PAR involves three recurring stages: inquiry, action, and reflection (Kemmis, &
McTaggart, 2005; Mackenzie, Tan, Hoverman & Baldwin, 2012) that fuel the meaning making
process. Nevertheless, there is no linear sequence of these stages, as they actually tend
to overlap and merge (Crane, & O’Regan, 2010). The mere iterative nature of this process is
the key-trigger in generating knowledge that may lead to social action and change for the
better. But the process does not end here, as it brings us back to reflection on those actions,
opening up new areas of inquiry (Greenwood & Levin, 2003; Kindon, Pain & Kesby, 2007).
These action–reflection cycles, that cover: observing, analyzing, planning, acting, and sharing
knowledge, are at the heart of the experiential learning process that emerges within the
research group. Both the researcher and the scientific community, as well as the participants
and the local community they are part of are expected to benefit from it.
Moreover, this dynamic inquiry process has a significant learning component that we want
to lay emphasis on. PAR is a “democratic knowledge construction process” (Lykes, Hershberg,
& Brabeck, 2011, p. 32) that is as much about creating a deliberative space where
researchers and people closest to the research topic are equally and actively engaged, as it is
about emergent experiential learning (Genat, 2009; Pahl-Wostl et al., 2007). Providing a context
that builds on interaction and knowledge sharing among the participants and the researcher,
PAR promotes “social learning” (Keen et al., 2005; Measham, 2009) and, thus, the engagement
of both parties in an effective and authentic dialogue.
Nevertheless, the key-element that contributed to PAR becoming one of the leading community-oriented
research is its end-goal focus. The PAR research design is meant to lead to
social change that follows an organic bottom-up approach. The performative dimension of PAR,
which implies learning, decision-making and acting (Marti´, 2015; Reason & Bradbury, 2001),
reveals its transformatory aims. Generally speaking, PAR involves researchers and participants
interacting and working together to examine and understand a situation or public issue in order
to change it for the better (Wadsworth, 1998; Kindon, Pain & Kesby, 2007).
On these collaborative basis, “meaningful relationships develop in PAR projects, wherein
academic and community participants express authentic commitment toward shared goals”
(Lykes, Hershberg & Brabeck, 2011, p. 32), which address real-life problems and are meant
to bring positive social change (Reason & Bradbury, 2001). PAR is, hence, about action for
change. This purposive aspect makes research more relevant and integrated within the social
dynamics of the communities, admitting and making the most of the input brought by those
closest to the community problems in the mere research process.
The general logic of bringing research not only closer, but rather within the social arena
where the actual action takes place, answers to the quest for a more contextualized research
process. The “researcher is expected to recognize the power of the context, and the context
of power, within which research is being conducted” (Khan, Bawani, & Aziz, 2013, p. 168),
as the whole process of meaning-making and emergent social learning is situated within a
specific social setting. On the one hand, the contextualized research process involves bringing
the researcher and the research process within the real social setting it address, and, on
the other hand, it involves active participation of the people within that particular social context
as co-creators of knowledge in the research process. Been situated within the context
where change occurs (Smith, Bratini, Chambers, Jensen & Romero, 2010), PAR is perceived