1. Action research Science or bullshit?

2. May 2002© Per Flensburg2 Who am I? Per Flensburg, Professor Växjö University Started as mathematician, ended as humanist Thesis about End User Computing Doing research in cooperation with users and trade unions Following “The scandinavian School” – at least one of them

3. May 2002© Per Flensburg3 Action research - what is it? 1. Helping weak part to help themselves 2. Doing free consultancy for weak parts 3. Research in cooperation with users 4. Empirical, qualitative research

4. May 2002© Per Flensburg4 Key concepts Facilitator Catalyst Intervention Change Process Help to help yourself

5. May 2002© Per Flensburg5 Change process Change in power, increased power to a weak group Increased quality of working life Self-steering groups Either with trade unions or Socio Technique with the employer

6. May 2002© Per Flensburg6 Facilitator & Catalyst Shall not do anything herself, but encourage other to do things Shall absolutely not make any decisions Shall keep the change process going Something between a teacher and headshrinker

7. May 2002© Per Flensburg7 Intervention Will always cause a lot of turbulence both in the participating organisation and the researchers Outcome is not possible to predict Middle management often work against the change

8. May 2002© Per Flensburg8 Help to help yourself Means working at a meta level The facilitator should not do anything within the domain Encourage without doing

9. May 2002© Per Flensburg9 Problems in AR Choosing participants Those who not participate Middle management Different opinions of the catalysts Uncertainty of the outcome

10. May 2002© Per Flensburg10 Result of action research Result describes in terms of a typical case. In such a case every company should recognize itself in certain respects, but probably will no company recognize itself in all respects.

11. May 2002© Per Flensburg11 An example A foundry in middle Sweden The users constructed a production planning system based upon spread- sheets The following is a collection of some presentations I made in the middle of the 90’s

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53. May 2002© Per Flensburg53 What happened The production planning system was developed, but was never taken in use, since the users (=the project leader) did not trusted it. The report system was developed with help of an external user hired consult. It was taken in use and worked very well. The users continued making there own support applications The IT-manager was fired

54. May 2002© Per Flensburg54 Traditional planning system Production ordre Production report

55. May 2002© Per Flensburg55 Planning at the foundry Core factory Moulding Melting Snagging Cutting edges Core odre Iron odre Casting odreCustomer odre