Intervention and the management process: An action-based research study

This paper develops the argument that all attempts at tackling ill-structured problems may be conceptualized as a process of Intervention into the contextual management processes of a situation. An appreciative theory of managing is developed and an operational framework, the conversations model, is presented as an aid to the management of Intervention. An action-based research methodology is used to investigate the practice of intervention, and a case study described in which the approach was used in relation to problems arising in a computer-based accounting information system.