1. Action Research for Managers
David Coghlan
©David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation SAGE 2014

2. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
Research in action, rather than research about action
Participative
Concurrent with action
A sequence of events and an approach to managing change and problem solving
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

3. Why managers do action research
Issues of organizational concern - systems improvement, organizational learning, management of change… are suitable topics
as they are real events which must be managed in real time
they provide opportunities for both effective action and learning and
they can contribute to the development of knowledge of organizations
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

4. Action research is opportunistic
Turning familiar situations, timely events
or special expertise into objects of
research, rather than neglecting “at
hand” knowledge or expertise
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

5. Doing action research in your own organization
Researcher as “complete member”
Being as an actor-director in film making
Engaging in learning-in-action
Opportunistic research - turning timely
events into objects of study
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

6. KEY ISSUES IN DOING ACTION RESEARCH IN YOUR OWN ORGANIZATION
Preunderstanding
Role Duality
Organizational roles
Researcher role
Managing Organizational Politics
Framing and Selecting a Project
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

7. PREUNDERSTANDING “Preunderstanding refers to such things
as people’s knowledge, insights and experience
before they engage in a research programme.”
[Gummesson, 2000, p. 57]
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

8. Advantages of Preunderstanding of One’s Own Organisation
Knowledge of organisation’s everyday life
Knowing the jargon & critical events
Knowing legitimate and taboo subjects
Knowing how the informal organisation works
Knowing to to turn to for gossip & news
Knowing the critical events
Being able to participate without people being aware of your presence
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

9. Limits of Preunderstanding of One’s Own Organisation
Problem of having a worm’s view
Difficulty of getting hold of relevant data
Difficulty of avoiding preconceived ideas when interpreting
When interviewing succumbing to one’s own understanding
Political difficulty of writing the “truth”
Accusations of spying from colleagues
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

10. Preunderstanding in 1st, 2nd and 3rd Person Practice
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

11. The challenge is to build on closeness and foster distance
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

12. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
ROLE DUALITY
Augmenting normal organizational roles with researcher role
Potential for role conflict through loyalty tugs, behavioural claims and identification dilemmas
Political implications
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

13. Role Duality in 1st, 2nd and 3rd Person Practice
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

14. The Political Entrepreneur
POLITICS
The Political Entrepreneur
Performance
Achieving goals etc.
Showing competence
“Backstaging”
Networking
Making deals
Working on comfort zones
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

15. Politics and Ethics in 1st, 2nd and 3rd Person Practice
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

16. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
ACTION RESEARCHERS
Action researchers are instruments in the generation of data
Key skill of learning in action
self awareness
reflecting on experience
journal keeping as a useful tool
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

17. 3 Strategies of Action Research
First - Second- Third- person
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

18. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
First person action research/practice skills addresses our ability to fostering an inquiring approach to our own lives and work, to develop awareness skills, to act out of that awareness and be able to learn in action. This is exciting for me.
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

19. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
Second person action research/practice skills addresses our ability to engage Others in action research, to inquire Together into issues of mutual concern and to learn in action together. This works for us.
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

20. Third person action research/practice
Skills aims at creating a wider community of
inquiry through the dissemination
of knowledge to an impersonal audience.
This is interesting for them
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

21. IMPLEMENTING ACTION RESEARCH
3 TYPES OF STEPS
Pre step - understand context & purpose
4 main steps
Constructing, planning action, taking action, evaluating action,
Meta step - to monitor
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

22. Meta-cycle of Action Research
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

23. Operations of human cognition and doing
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

24. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
The Learning Window
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

25. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
Authenticity
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

26. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
FRAMING
“FRAMING” an issue means naming it & focusing on how it might be set up for analysis and evaluation “REFRAMING” means changing your frame
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

27. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
HOW ARE ISSUES FRAMED?
PROBLEMS - convergent thinking
Who gets involved
Who is to blame
Confidence to resolve
Restrict thinking
OPPORTUNITIES - divergent thinking
Risk-taking
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

28. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
IDENTIFYING ISSUES
What is obvious?
Why is it obvious?
Issues in systems
Whose interpretation?
Org politics
Keeping framing options open
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

29. Strategic Research Issues
First Order Change
Solve an issue without changing the fundamental structure (of the situation or thinking)
Second Order Change
Questioning & altering core assumptions which underlie and construct the situation
Third Order Change
Learning to question assumptions
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014

30. David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014
SELECTING
PERSONAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
The degree to which it offers an opportunity for :
organisational and personal growth
advancing career profile
damage limitation on career
fitting time constraints
David Coghlan, Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation 2014