Developing Managers as Healing Agents in Organizations: A Co-Operative Inquiry Approach

This action research examines how a health service manager, with a clinical background, sought to develop his clinical skills in a management context. When asked to undertake an evaluation of an addiction counseling service, he found that there was evidence of systemic ill-health expressed through feelings of powerlessness, hurt, and alienation among the staff of the service. The article describes how the manager used action research, and in particular co-operative inquiry, to become an agent of healing in his own place of work. It illustrates how the co-operative inquiry process can be used to help individuals or groups to overcome feelings of alienation and powerlessness in organizations. By dealing with these feelings through a process of co-operative inquiry the conditions necessary to improve systemic health can be created to help develop a service and meet service objectives It explores the neglected subject of how managers can be agents of healing in organizations.     

Action Research on Land Management in the Western Amazon, Peru – A Research Process, Its Outcomes and the Researcher’s Role

The article explores the action research process throughout a land management research project, with the ambition to reflect upon action research as a working approach. It is shown how this process is experienced from a researcher’s point of view and it critically analyses its methodology and process, outcome and the role of the action researcher.The learning environment known to farmers and framed by local institutions and practical experimentation, embedded in the local worldview, constituted a necessary starting point for achieving motivation and practical outcomes. Tight feedback loops between practice and reflection enabled joint learning and innovation and rapid implementation of measures suggested by the farmers. The approach could be particularly useful for local NGOs and local universities.     

A Systemic Inquiry into the AIDS Epidemic in the Western Cape of South Africa through Interactive Management

South Africa has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS. Approximately 6.2 million South Africans are living with HIV/AIDS. The AIDS epidemic has impacted on its economy and plagued its vibrancy. The government of South Africa has invested significant resources to fight AIDS. However, the number of AIDS-related deaths in South Africa is the second highest in the world. Different from the common approaches used to study the AIDS problem, this paper demonstrates how Interactive Management (IM), a methodology echoing systemic thinking, can be employed to identify the drivers leading to the AIDS epidemic in the Western Cape of South Africa. The preliminary exploration is not aimed at discovering a theory, but enhancing learning and consensus among stakeholders. Through a full-day IM session, the study identified two major drivers leading to the AIDS epidemic: poverty and lack of knowledge of HIV/AIDS. The identified drivers can serve as a starting point to revisit the current governmental strategies in fighting AIDS.     

Quality in Action Research: Reflections for Second-Order Inquiry

One of the current debates in action research concerns the quality of these practices. Up to now, many contributions have focused on defining specific criteria based on action research epistemology. This article sustains (1) that prior to dealing with these questions, it is necessary to define for what purpose and for whom we are making the evaluation; (2) that this leads us to make a distinction between different evaluation models; and (3) that the quality strategies and criteria will be different for each model. In particular, the article confronts an academic evaluation model as a form of external control over the quality of action research and an internal, participatory evaluation model as a quality strategy aimed at establishing feedback for the process. Final considerations are given about the implications of both models for academia.     

Improvements in Introductory Programming Course: Action Research Insights and Outcomes

Programming is a rewarding and yet demanding field in the ICT labormarket, but it is considered a challenging and difficult area of learning for significant numbers of novice programmers. As a result, high attrition rates from introductory programming (IP) courses are reported despite extensive research which attempts to address the issue. In this research, an action research methodology was used with three cycles to investigate and improve the teaching and learning process of the IP course. There were nine activities performed during the span of these three cycles. All three entities of the didactic triangle (student, instructor, and content) together with learning context were incorporated into the research design to understand the problem better and execute the proposed solution. The result shows that three cycles of the action research methodology helps in understanding and improving the students learning outcomes in the IP course. Moreover, the attrition rate was also reduced in the IP course.     

差异演化算法在热连轧工作辊温度仿真中的应用

针对热连轧工作辊温度仿真计算,给出了忽略热载荷在时域内初始相位差的轴对称模型。通过对模型特点的分析,指出忽略热载荷在时域内初始相位差的轴对称模型实际是一种三维仿真模型,并根据此仿真模型建立了变步长计算温度场的有限差分方程。由氧化铁皮厚度的线性函数来近似表示工作辊与轧件等效换热系数,由喷射区水冷换热系数和喷射区之间的水冷系数计算得到工作辊与冷却液等效换热系数。针对差异演化算法后期收敛速度下降,甚至有时会陷入局部最优点的缺陷,提出根据种群聚集度来动态调整缩放因子,同时引入求解域内的均匀变异操作。并用改进后的差异演化算法对两种等效换热系数进行了优化。仿真结果与实测结果规律一致,证明忽略热载荷在时域内初始相位差的轴对称模型经差异演化算法优化参数后能准确预报工作辊的温度场。     

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.     

HTCPN在装备保障业务流程建模与优化中的应用

研究了Petri网在装备保障业务方面的应用,针对装备保障业务特点,讨论了基于HTCPN的装备保障业务流程建模与优化方法,这种方法克服了普通Petri网建模的不足之处,既可以给出简单直观的模型顶层结构,又可以根据需要对模型进行不同程度的细化,并有利于对模型进行分析和仿真实现。研究了基于HTCPN的装备保障业务流程模型性能评价指标,以某型装备维修过程为例,建立了其HTCPN模型,通过仿真与定量分析提出了优化方案,并对优化前后的业务流程进行了性能对比。     

Intersections of Critical Systems Thinking and Community Based Participatory Research: A Learning Organization Example with the Autistic Community

Critical systems thinking (CST) and community based participatory research (CBPR) are distinct approaches to inquiry which share a primary commitment to holism and human emancipation, as well as common grounding in critical theory and emancipatory and pragmatic philosophy. This paper explores their intersections and complements on a historical, philosophical, and theoretical level, and then proposes a hybrid approach achieved by applying CBPR’s principles and considerations for operationalizing emancipatory practice to traditional systems thinking frameworks and practices. This hybrid approach is illustrated in practice with examples drawn from of the implementation of the learning organization model in an action research setting with the Autistic community. Our experience of being able to actively attend to, and continuously equalize, power relations within an organizational framework that otherwise has great potential for reinforcing power inequity suggests CBPR’s principles and considerations for operationalizing emancipatory practice could be useful in CST settings, and CST’s vocabulary, methods, and clarity around systems thinking concepts could be valuable to CBPR practitioners.     

Defining Focus and Integrity in Building a Community Research Coalition

Pervasive and systemic barriers to collaborative university-community research make such studies highly challenging. Yet the necessity of participative research means that feasible ways to conduct high quality collaborative investigations must be sought. In a longitudinal action research study investigating adult literacy, issues facing community and academic researchers centred upon focus and integrity. Differing researchers defined focus and integrity in sharply varying ways, so that terminology employed within the programme formed contested sites of meaning and interpretation. This meant that ideas of research integrity held very different connotations for different actors. Yet the viability of the programme depended on both academics and community people attempting to expand their horizons by understanding and taking into account others’ perceptions.

Enabling Political Legitimacy and Conceptual Integration for Climate Change Adaptation Research within an Agricultural Bureaucracy: a Systemic Inquiry

The value of using systems approaches, for situations framed as ‘super wicked’, is examined from the perspective of research managers and stakeholders in a state-based climate change adaptation (CCA) program (CliChAP). Polycentric drivers influencing the development of CCA research pre-2010 in Victoria, Australia are reflected on, using Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) to generate a boundary critique of CCA research as a human activity system. We experienced the complexity of purpose with research practices pulling in different directions, reflected on the appropriateness of agricultural bureaucracies’ historical new public management (NPM) practices, and focused on realigning management theory with emerging demands for adaptation research skills and capability. Our analysis conceptualised CliChAP as a subsystem, generating novelty in a wider system, concerned with socio-ecological co-evolution. Constraining/enabling conditions at the time dealing with political legitimacy and conceptual integration were observed as potential catalysts for innovation in research management towards better handling of uncertainty as a social process using systemic thinking in practice (StiP).

     

Coproduction in Practice: Participatory Action Research to Develop a Model of Community Aged Care

Coproduction has become synonymous with innovative approaches to public service delivery in European Union countries as well as in Australia. Coproduction has the potential to bring together individuals, communities, and organisations in a process to collaboratively develop new models and services which improve public services. Yet, Australian policy makers and practitioners who would like to deploy coproduction within the context of older adult social care can only draw on a handful of papers and reports that could guide implementation. This paper fills this gap by reporting on the implementation of a multi-stakeholder coproduction approach to the development of a consumer directed care model for older people with complex health issues. The paper describes and critically highlights methodological challenges encountered during the 12 month-long participatory action research phase of a larger project involving older people with complex care needs, their carers, and government and non-government stakeholders. The paper outlines key considerations regarding (1) the involvement of older people with complex needs, (2) collaboration with industry partners, (3) engagement of government representatives, and (4) reflects on implementing participatory research projects within a context of outsourcing and interlinked supply chains. While not all challenges encountered could be resolved, the coproduction approach was successful in bringing together a wide range of stakeholders with competing agendas in an iterative process geared to resolve a plethora of concerns raised by older people, carers and services providers. This paper provides an example for others seeking to use coproduction and participatory methods to provide person-centred care services for older people.     

Professional Development through Action Research: Case Examples in South African Higher Education

This paper identifies the quality characteristics of a professional development (PD) program on action research (AR) and presents the results of a second-order evaluation of such a program. Three case examples in South African higher education demonstrate how AR methodology has been applied to design, conduct and evaluate the PD program and to identify new ways of learning and improving professional practice in higher education. From data analysis, we distinguish six factors significant in contributing to the quality of the PD program in all three universities: facilitator expertise, adaptive planning, responsive evaluation, critical events, application, and self-efficacy. On the basis of the evaluation results, we present five models: (1) the AR workshop cycles; (2) characteristics of a quality PD program; (3) a PD program on and through AR; (4) three levels of reflection on AR; and (5) meta-action research.

Guest Editorial: From Cartagena to Ballarat: A Report on the Joint Fifth World Congress on Action Learning,Action Research,and Process Management and Ninth World Congress on Participatory Action Research

Systemic Practice and Action Research -     

Using Action Research to Improve Communication and Facilitate Group Work in a Multicultural Classroom: A South African Case Study

This study started with problems that my colleagues (and I) were experiencing with interaction and intercultural communication among students in our diverse classrooms. Educators were also experiencing difficulties in motivating students to work effectively in groups. The purpose of this paper was to seek solutions to these problems by exploring variations of the group oral assessment structure in a multilingual and multicultural context. Four phases of assessments were conducted at two tertiary institutions in South Africa using a combination of action research and a participatory approach. Not only did this study succeed in addressing the problems but it also revealed the added benefits of using an action research methodology.     

IDEA: A Collaborative Organizational Design Process Integrating Innovation, Design, Engagement, and Action

This paper describes an innovative and successful 1-year organization change process. It captures a design-based inquiry that simultaneously applies creative, purposeful, and systemic thinking to a complex set of issues. Three significant findings result from this research. First, this paper discusses how the change process created the necessary and sufficient conditions allowing for the creation of an innovative organizational design that embeds both optimization and innovation. Second, Design Thinking was used to develop a 2-day participative design process we have called IDEA, an acronym for integrating innovation, design, engagement, and action. We believe that the IDEA organizational design process is replicable. Third, it describes an emergent and co-created change process. This paper concludes by raising questions for future transformative organizational design efforts.     

Analysis of the Impacts of Work,Non-Work and Stress Issues on the Work Family Conflict in Ivorian Industrial Sector

This paper analyzes the perceptions that workers in the Ivorian industrial sector have as the interface between their professional and personal life, and the factors that facilitate or make it difficult. Data collected from 4 Ivorian industrial companies which represent a sample of 187 respondents according to the selection criteria. These collected data make it possible to identify the factors which act on the labor conflict towards the family as well as the factors which act on the family conflict towards the work within the industrial sector in Cte d'Ivoire. The results of the correlation coefficients show that the relationships between the proposed variables are significant and in the direction suggested for the most part, thus providing support for nine of the ten hypotheses affecting these relationships.According to some results obtained, it was discovered that certain factors could be at the same time,factors of conflict and satisfaction, such as the commitment to work or the nature of the work. These variables can simultaneously increase stress, and increase the self-esteem of the worker. The results of the analysis of the proposed model recommend the possibility that the data fit the model well,explaining the impacts of work, non-work and stressors on work-family conflict. This indicates that the proposed model is adapted to the Ivorian context.     

业务流程仿真、执行、监控一体化系统构建

传统上,业务流程仿真、执行和监控处于割裂的状态,采用以流程为中心的面向服务体系结构,这些活动可以在统一的软件环境中实现一体化。分析了以流程为中心的面向服务体系结构的组成,并通过一个案例说明了在该体系结构下,如何实现业务流程仿真、执行和监控一体化。     

复杂工业过程计算机建模、仿真与控制的综述

复杂工业过程控制是控制科学界的前沿。由于其背景的复杂性、控制对象的可变性 ,至今在实际工程甚至理论上尚未取得实质性进展。因此 ,在复杂环境和任务下的工业过程应当走逐步智能化的道路。在这一智能化进程中 ,试图从复杂工业过程计算机建模、仿真与控制三个方面来探讨其内在实质 ,找出其深层原因 ,同时指出其固有的局限性 ,以助于从事具体科学研究者自觉遵守认识的客观规律。     

层次分析法中数字标度的选择与评价方法研究

针对目前在AHP 中常用的各种数字标度,指出了专家语言描述与数字标度之间的不一致性,并提出数字标度的选择与评价应该从其与自然语言描述的符合程度出发,以能够准确表达专家的语言表述作为衡量标准.其次,给出了一类数字标度模型,其基本上可以涵盖目前常用的数字标度.最后,基于合理的语言逻辑假设,给出了一种一般性的评价方法,以便于决策者在实际应用中选择适当的数字标度进行决策,降低了由于数字标度选择不当而带来的决策偏差.