Working Paper
Action Research: An Overview
Action research is a process of participatory inquiry aimed at generating knowledge to guide practical action in pursuit of the participants' purposes and outcomes. It can be contrasted with traditional scientific research, which seeks to find the "truth" through highly researcher controlled investigation methodologies. Action research, in contrast, seeks to generate knowledge to find solutions to problems and to enable actors to achieve their goals. It is carried out collaboratively by the actors in a situation, including researchers, who engage in a mutual inquiry process that ideally takes into account the perspectives, knowledge and purposes of all involved. That inquiry process often involves collectively deciding an intervention to improve the ability of the organization or system to achieve its purposes, implementing that intervention, and studying impact. General knowledge to inform practice across different organizational systems is achieved through a series of action research projects that gradually yield reliable knowledge about the impact of various interventions/changes in different contexts. This paper addresses the history of action research, its features, and how it differs from more traditional science-based research.
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change management, Cohen Award, corporate governance, Department of Energy, HR metrics, human capital, human resource management, knowledge networks, leadership, leadership pulse, news, organization design, organization development, seminar, sustainability, talent, talent management, teams, useful research, webinar
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