A History of the Action Learning,Action Research,and Process Management Association (ALARPM): From Brisbane (Australia) to the World Through Inclusion and Networks

Action Learning, Action Research, and Process Management Association (ALARPM) is an organization of volunteers dedicated to the international expansion of action learning, action research, and process management, through world congresses. It has existed for over a dozen years now, despite significant stresses and strains, and has successfully conducted five world congresses with a sixth one in 2003. This history of ALARPM shows that a small group can set out to be international and inclusive from the beginning, so long as it also develops processes to sustain itself internally.     

Interlevel Dynamics in Systemic Action Research

Levels of analysis are commonly used as frameworks for researching, understanding, and intervening in organizational systems. Levels of analysis typically refer to the identification of issues at units of complexity, such as the individual, the group, the intergroup, and the organization. The construct of levels of analysis is traditionally an important dimension of action research. This article reviews the traditional use of levels of analysis as the focus of action research and extends the notion to levels of aggregation or interlevel dynamics. It illustrates how interlevel dynamics are important both as the focus of action research and to the action research process itself.     

Action Research as Experimentation

This paper suggests that the metaphors of experimentation and the laboratory are applicable when positioning action research vis-à-vis more conventional business school research. Following on from three different action research projects in a large multinational pharmaceutical company, the paper argues that an action researcher can never construct a sheltered environment wherein certain qualities of nature can be isolated, purified, and enhanced, but must always undertake research activities in vivo, in real life organizational setting. Still, the metaphor of the laboratory is applicable because it enables for an understanding of how what Ian Hacking calls interventions in the hard sciences share certain characteristics with the action research activities. When action researchers intervene within organizations, the activities are always experimental in nature, i.e., they can never be fully predicted or anticipated, but are initial steps in an emergent process of organizational change.     

Rhetorics and Realities in Public Service Organizations: Systemic Practice and Organizational Learning as Critically Reflexive Action Research (CRAR)

This article sets out to develop an argument and theory-in-practice related to organizational learning and systemic practice as critically reflexive action research (CRAR). It explores principles and concepts associated with CRAR, in the context of different emphases in understandings of and approaches to managing or working with change. The notion of epistemologies of practice is developed, as the basis for introducing on-site and off-site CRAR as interweaving cycles of managerial and organizational learning. A multilayered illustration of an improvisational CRAR environment, using principles of dialectical enquiry and critical learning theater, is offered. A diagrammatic analysis provides the framework for describing and reflecting critically on key CRAR processes. This is expanded with a consideration of possibilities for documentation that can assist with the validation of quality in CRAR processes and outcomes. This has relevance in the context of postpositivist action research at postgraduate levels or within project-based CRAR partnerships. This leads to a further discussion of principles and concepts, in the context of other literature and pressures on public services.     

Approaching Action Research from a Socioecological Perspective

The paper seeks to explicate an action research methodological framework that can provide practical guidance to those approaching action research from a socioecological perspective. It does so by revisiting the developmental foundations of the Emery and Trist socioecological paradigm, by drawing on insights left scattered throughout Emery's writings, and by drawing on the author's own experience in action research. The framework explicated seeks to provide practical guidance for (i) intervention in field settings, to coproduce open social systems–environment active adaptation, i.e., action-research guided interventions to produce sought management outcomes, and (ii) generation and formalization of theory extensions to socioecological theory concerned with intervention strategy and intervention methodologies, i.e., action-research guided generation of socioecological theory suitable for social scientific publication.     

Action Research in Management—Ethical Dilemmas

This paper discusses the application of the guiding ethical principles for the conduct of research involving human subjects in an action research project in a membership-based community psychiatric disability organization. Action research is a collaborative process of critical inquiry between the researcher and the people in the situation, in this case the management executive. The relationship between the researcher and manager participants in a long-term action research project gives rise to ethical dilemmas related to participant selection and voluntary participation, informed consent, decision making, anonymity and confidentiality, conflicting and different needs. The process and strategies implemented to address them are discussed.     

Distance Education: A Reflective Action Research Project and Its Systemic Implications for Higher Education

This reflective action research study examines faculty experience with distance education. Distance education has become increasingly of interest in higher education and is seen by many as the opportunity for systemic change in higher education. This study is a reflective action research project which examined the author's experiences teaching a distance version of a basic instructional design course at the same time as teaching a residential version of that same course. The examination finds significant faculty issues that emerged during the experience and specifically found concerns with the distance education learner. In the end, the study finds that as a tool for systemic change of higher education, distance delivery will have to engage faculty with their concerns in more substantive ways than they have to date. In essence, this study asserts that the current demands on distance educators are not motivating for traditional faculty members because of increased time demands, lack of traditional rhythm, lack of personal contact with students, and less evident interest among distant students in the areas that faculty value.     

Working Within Organizational Cycles—A More Suitable Way to Manage Action Research Projects in Large Organizations?

This article proposes that action research projects in a large business context may need to fit within organizational funding and political cycles. It outlines some of the problems that may occur in attempting to implement an action research project in a large organization. It gives a case study of such a project that aimed to introduce a systemic human resource strategy to bring about organizational cultural change. Part way through the completion of the project the cycle changed, funds were cut, and the project was abolished, although significant portions of it had been implemented and other parts were later reestablished. The article establishes a link to punctuated equilibrium theory in exploring the political and funding cycles that influenced the decision to cut funding. It considers whether this could have been foreseen, and gives some recommendations for future action research projects.     

Researching-Acting-Reflecting on Public Health Services in Venezuela. II. Community Action and Critique

This paper, the second in a duology reporting on an action research project about public health services in Venezuela, presents a narrative of an intervention process launched on the basis of the conceptual framework presented in the first paper of the duology. Thereafter, a deeper reflection on such process, its meaning and its historical possibilities is presented. In this way a cycle of research-action-research is completed.     

The Action Research Paradigm: An Alternative Approach in Negotiation

The action research model has been widely used by practitioners in many social science fields as a practical problem-solving method. Unique to the action research paradigm is that it allows research and practice to coexist and cowork simultaneously in problem solving. Due to increasingly complex relationships between governments, organizations, groups, and individuals, scholars and practitioners of negotiation are mandated to address and resolve different types of disputes by using various negotiation models and techniques to thoroughly understand and study the underlying foundations of these conflicts. This paper attempts to investigate the potential applications of the action research model as an appropriate tool for the negotiation as a process of dispute settlement.     

From Cybernetics and VSD to Management and Action

This paper uses Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Diagnosis (VSD) to suggest that the development of a model for actionable theory in organizations would take the form of a three-step process. The first step involves the definition and explanation of an appropriate theory base, the second theory interpretation into a coherent set of action principles and the third contextual action in organizations. We contend that even for a well-informed and widely read manager gleaning the theoretical basis for this process from the recognized Beer trilogy “Brain of the Firm,” “The Heart of the Enterprise” and “Diagnosing the System” is difficult to justify in terms of time, understanding, and action. We maintain that a sound set of action principles emanating from Beer's primary work must be considered before tackling the noted trilogy. We use Beer's initial text “Cybernetics and Management” to trace some fundamental operational research and the interdisciplinary tripartite science of cybernetics. We commence our action model process with some introductory thoughts into operational research, cybernetics, VSD, and contextual action. Our first step toward action involves some primary definitions and principles of cybernetic theory and the prospect of controlling overwhelming variety. Our second step provides our set of coherent potential action principles fundamental to cybernetic theory. The paper is written in a journalistic rather than academic style reflecting the need to couch the interpretation of the theory in a language that the well-informed manager may readily translate into third step contextual practice.     

Action Research: Its Nature and Validity

The process of knowledge acquisition which has the strongest truth claim is the research process of natural science, based on testing hypotheses to destruction. But the application of this process to phenomena beyond those for which it was developed, namely, the natural regularities of the physical universe, is problematical. For research into social phenomena there is increasing interest in action research in various forms. In this process the researcher enters a real-world situation and aims both to improve it and to acquire knowledge. This paper reviews the nature and validity of action research, arguing that its claim to validity requires a recoverable research process based upon a prior declaration of the epistemology in terms of which findings which count as knowledge will be expressed.     

System-Organisational Aspect of a Learning Organisation in Companies

The objective of this article is to discuss the learning organisation (LO) concept in correlation with network organisation (NO), which is an indispensable element for the transition into the new era of management, i.e. knowledge networking. Business organisations (BO) rarely achieve innovativeness, and thus competitive advantage, without establishing NO/LO and knowledge management. Therefore, a suitable knowledge strategy must be developed that is related to BO's business strategy. The last two statements surface our main hypothesis, which is described in our general model on linking the elements of an LO and then tested by empirical research carried out in Slovenian BOs. Our original model of LO has proved helpful in understanding BOs as LOs in transitional economies, e.g. in Slovenia. In them an innovation-based business has not yet become the norm with BOs of all sizes, with success mainly enjoyed in larger BOs. However, NO can help the LO concept spread and support innovativeness rather quickly in all BOs.

Business Process Re-engineering in Practice—An Example of A Medium-Sized Slovenian Company in Difficulties

Among the contemporary and globally adopted management methods, Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) is the most influential one. Although it was developed in American social and economic environment, it has been widely practiced also in Europe. Experience has demonstrated though that uncritical application of the original American BPR substance to European entrepreneurial practice is as a rule inefficient, often even incompatible with the basic social values. The globally adopted BPR method of company re-engineering is aimed at an increase in competitiveness and must be specified expertly and in view of its substance or adapted to numerous social and economic factors, i.e., requisitely holistically. This article deals with the application of the BPR method in the case of a medium-sized Slovenian company in difficulties. It illustrates the criteria for the selection of a management method of an innovative business change management that is the most efficacious in the Slovenian economy. The BPR project realization is defined from the viewpoint of the given implementation projects and criteria, enabling continual evaluation of the attained results of company reorganization. It presents a good case of informal systemic, i.e., requisitely holistic thinking and action.     

Strategic Assessment Model and Its Application: a Case Study

1 IntroductionAn organization'S strategy determines the degree of fitness between the externalenvironment and its internal structure and processes. Such a match is best achieved byusing a formal decision--making processL'j. Strategic management is the process of a1igningthe internal capabi1ities of an organization with demands from its environment to achievean effective allocation of corporate resources. Effective strategic management requireseffective strategy formulation, evaluation of stra…     

Self-Reflection and Vulnerability in Action Research: Bringing Forth New Worlds in Our Learning

This paper looks at experiences in using action research in a self-reflective fashion. It addresses some of the problems which the action researcher has in coping with ourselves in our research. Mendes (1996) quotes Maturana: Everything is fundamental in our being alive and therefore, if we want to explain human experience we need to understand how being alive together generates our existence.² Although I would add that the social view of existence can be complemented by the view that our personal existence comes forth from a deeper domain, this statement is my starting point. Working from a anecdote which demonstrates the critical importance of individual perception in labeling any issue as a mess, I discuss the importance of self-reflection in the research process and the importance to us as researchers in recognizing our own vulnerability in the research context. Finally, I describe some positive outcomes or prizes of recognizing our vulnerability in research processes and using this vulnerability as a spur to improving our research.     

Roles,Politics, and Ethics in Action Research Design

For novice action researchers, issues of roles, politics and ethics are critical, particularly in design. The field of organization development (OD) provides many useful considerations of roles, politics and ethics. This article proposes a systemic design-based framework of the action research process that includes context, inquiry mechanisms, inquiry cycle and outcomes. Such perspective brings to the forefront the issues of context, roles, politics dynamics and ethics that are embedded in the action research process and influence its emergent process, quality and outcomes. A set of propositions for further explorations is advanced and briefly discussed.     

Reflection on the Purposes of Research,Action, and Scholarship: A Case of Cross-Cultural Participatory Action Research

Beginning with some basic principles of participatory action research, the author draws upon personal experience to identify the ways in which the experience of the practice of participatory action research creates forms of publication somewhat different in intent and nature from conventional forms of research. The experience selected involves cross-cultural research, and the particular problems of representation of the other in such settings are engaged. The overall experience is then drawn upon to identify some of the key qualities of action research which differ both from other forms of research and from some of the advocacies for action research.     

Participatory Action Research as Critical Pedagogy

In this paper participatory action research (PAR) is offered as a foundation for the development of critical pedagogy. The need for public education reform in the United States is identified, PAR principles are described, PAR is discussed in terms of pedagogy and curriculum development, and potential barriers to implementation are indicated. PAR's roots in critical theory are explored and PAR is offered as a way to alleviate the stratifying effects of oppositional culture, learned helplessness, and tracking. Finally, implications of PAR are outlined for critical stakeholding groups. Conclusions include recognition of the applicability of PAR to pedagogy and curriculum development.