Coghlan, D. (Annals, 2011) - Action Research Exploring Perspectives On A Philosophy of Practical Knowing

The Academy of Management Annals
Vol. 5, No. 1, June 2011, 53–87
Action Research:
Exploring Perspectives on a Philosophy of
Practical Knowing
DAVID COGHLAN*
Trinity College Dublin, School of Business
Abstract
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10.1080/19416520.2011.571520
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1941-6520
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david.coghlan@tcd.ie
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of Management Annals
In the context of management and organization studies, the potential of action

research for generating robust actionable knowledge has not been yet realized.
While there are historical reasons for this with roots in different philosophies
of social science, there are areas of common ground that may be explored
fruitfully. This paper works from the insight that there are two key perspec-
tives on action research: one from inside the action research community and
one from outside. It explores how action research is a form of science in the
realm of practical knowing and that this perspective provides an insight into
how the views of action research from inside and from outside may be
engaged. It proposes a general empirical method and the notion of interiority,
based on the operations of human knowing, with a focus on how we know,
rather than on what we know, as a synthesis, whereby the two perspectives on
action research may be engaged.
*Email: d.coghlan@tcd.ie
ISSN 1941-6520 print/ISSN 1941-6067 online

© 2011 Academy of Management
DOI: 10.1080/19416520.2011.571520
http://www.informaworld.com
53
54 • The Academy of Management Annals
Introduction
In the context of management and organization studies, action research has
been traditionally defined as an approach to research that is based on a collab-
orative problem-solving relationship between researchers and clients, which
aims at both solving a problem and generating new knowledge (Rapaport,
1970). A definition provided by Shani and Pasmore (1985, p. 439) captures the
main themes of action research:
Action research may be defined as an emergent inquiry process in
which applied behavioral science knowledge is integrated with existing
organizational knowledge and applied to solve real organizational prob-
lems. It is simultaneously concerned with bringing about change in
organizations, in developing self-help competencies in organizational
members and in adding to scientific knowledge. Finally it is an evolving
process that is undertaken in a spirit of collaboration and co-inquiry.
This definition captures the critical themes that constitute action research: that,
as an emergent inquiry process, it engages in an unfolding story, where data
shift as a consequence of intervention and where it is not possible to predict or
to control what takes place. It focuses on real organizational problems or issues,
rather than issues created particularly for the purposes of research. It operates
in the people-in-systems domain, and applied behavioral science knowledge is
both engaged in and drawn upon. Action research’s distinctive characteristic is
that it addresses the twin tasks of bringing about change in organizations and
in generating robust, actionable knowledge, in an evolving process that is
undertaken in a spirit of collaboration and co-inquiry, whereby research is
constructed with people, rather than on or for them.
Over the past 30 years, a richer and deeper understanding of action
research has developed. This understanding captures action research as a
philosophy of life that finds expression in collaborative modes of relating and
inquiring into issues judged to be worthwhile (Reason & Bradbury, 2008). As
Greenwood (2007, p. 131) expresses it:
Action research is neither a method or a technique; it is an approach to
living in the world that include the creation of areas for collaborative
learning and the design, enactment and evaluation of liberating actions
… it combines action and research, reflection and action in an ongoing
cycle of cogenerative knowledge.
This richness of understanding and practice finds expression in multiple modal-
ities, that is, action science, appreciative inquiry, cooperative inquiry, and
others. These will be introduced and explored later in the paper. These modal-
ities capture the focus on dialogic processes through which individuals and
groups in organizations and communities engage with their experience, explore
together what these experience might mean, and engage in shared action.
Exploring Perspectives on a Philosophy of Practical Knowing • 55
Action research has an intimate relationship with collaborative manage-

ment research, a focus that has emerged in recent years to capture the distinc-
tive collaborative processes between scholars and practitioners, organizational
insiders and outsiders aimed to create actionable knowledge that is useful to
practitioners and which is robust for scholars (Adler, Shani, & Styhre, 2004;
Shani, Mohrman, Pasmore, Stymne, & Adler, 2008). For these and other
scholars, collaborative management research is a more appropriate expression
of modes of inquiry that enables action research to overcome its historical
baggage and to consolidate it as rigorous scholarly inquiry in the world of
managerial and organizational practice.
There is a largely undeveloped appreciation of action research in the com-
munity of management and organization studies scholars. There is a gap
between how action research is perceived from inside its own community and
from outside. This paper addresses both communities. It speaks to those
inside the action research community and provides a view of the field, as I
understand it, and offers a fruitful area for exploration. It speaks to those out-
side the action research community, that is, those who are vaguely aware of
action research and those who are reticent or skeptical about it for a host of
different reasons, and seeks to convey something of the potential of action
research for delivering knowledge that is robust for scholars and practical for
practitioners.
In this paper, I present action research in terms of its historical foundations
and development, its tradition in organization development (OD), its philo-
sophical underpinnings, and its contemporary positioning in relation to tradi-
tional management and organizational science, and identify quality and ethics
as pertinent issues. I explore how action research is a form of science in the
realm of practical knowing and that this perspective provides an insight into
how the views of action research from inside and outside may be engaged. As
a synthesis, whereby the two perspectives on action research may be engaged,
I propose a general empirical method with a focus on how we know, rather than
on what we know. The notion of interiority enables the realms of theory and
of practical knowing to be held together and valued for each of their distinctive
contributions and, thereby, bridges the gap between theory and practice.
Foundations of Action Research

Action research has many origins and roots (Greenwood & Levin, 2007;
Reason & Bradbury, 2008): in the work of Kurt Lewin and John Collier, in
critical and pragmatic philosophy, and in various schools of liberation
thought, notably Marxist and feminist and in Aristotelian philosophy. While
the work of Lewin and the OD tradition—which grew out of the T group and
NTL Institute, the socio-technical work of the Tavistock Institute in the UK,
and the workplace democracy work in Scandinavia—are the major roots in
the northern hemisphere (Bradbury, Mirvis, Neilsen, & Pasmore, 2008;
Pasmore, 2001), there are important roots and strands of action research
existing outside of organization and management research (McArdle &
Reason, 2008). The consciousness-raising work of Freire and the Marxist-
based liberation movements in the southern hemisphere (frequently referred
to as emancipatory or participatory action research), feminist approaches to
research, the return to epistemological notions of praxis, and the hermeneutic
school of philosophy associated with the work of Habermas are important
strands and expressions of action research that did not grow out of the post-
Lewin tradition in organizations (Reason & Bradbury, 2008). In the context of
this paper, I focus mostly on the action research within the management and
organization studies disciplines that have been shaped by the post-Lewinian
tradition.
Kurt Lewin’s Contribution

Lewin articulated a science of action that involves a collaborative cyclical process
of constructing a change situation or a problem, planning, gathering data, taking
action, and then fact-finding about the results of that action in order to plan
and take further action (Bargal, 2006, in press; Burnes, 2004; Dickens & Watkins,
1999; Lewin, 1997; Neilsen, 2006). Lewin’s core insight was that action research
uses a scientific approach to study the resolution of important social or organi-
zational issues together with those who experience these issues directly.
Lewin (1997, p. 145) provides a clear statement of how he saw basic issues
of social research:
It is important to understand clearly that social research concerns itself
with two rather different types of questions, namely the study of general
laws of group life and the diagnosis of a specific situation. Problems of
general laws deal with the relation between possible conditions and
possible results. They are expressed in “if so” propositions … To act
correctly … he has to know too the specific character of the situation at
hand … For any field of action both types of scientific research are
needed.
Lewin’s statement presents the dilemma confronting social science research. If
the “general laws of group life” mark the realm of theory development as prac-
ticed by traditional positivist research, which in Lewin’s terms “produces
nothing but books,” and if the “dynamics of a specific situation” mark the
realm of practical knowing as practiced by practitioners in order to improve
situations, then their coming together in action research provides a way
forward for an integration of research and action. Lewin’s untimely death
meant that he never developed his notion of action research beyond its basic
expressions (Bargal, in press).
In a summary of Lewin’s concept of action research, Argyris, Putnam, and
Smith (1985) note that action research involves change experiments on real
problems in social systems by focusing on a particular problem and seeking to

provide assistance to a client system. Like social management more generally,
it involves iterative cycles of identifying a problem, planning, acting, and eval-
uating. The intended change in an action research project typically involves
re-education, that is, that the change intended by change agents is typically at
the level of norms and values expressed in action (Coghlan & Jacobs, 2005).
Action research challenges the status quo from a participative perspective,
which is congruent with the requirements of effective re-education. It aims to
contribute simultaneously to basic knowledge in social science and to social
action in everyday life. Accordingly, high standards for developing theory and
empirically testing propositions organized by theory are not to be sacrificed
nor is the relation to practice to be lost.
Argyris (1993) summarizes four core themes of Lewin’s work. First, Lewin
integrated theory with practice by framing social science as the study of prob-
lems of real life, and he connected all problems to theory. Second, he designed
research by framing the whole, and then differentiating the parts. Third, he
produced constructs that could be used to generalize and understand the
individual case, particularly through the researcher as intervener and his
notion that one could only understand something when one tried to change it.
Fourth, he was concerned with placing social science at the service of democ-
racy, thereby changing the role of those being studied from subjects to clients
so that, if effective, quality of life could be improved, leading to more valid
knowledge.
As noted above, Lewin’s untimely death left his articulation of action
research quite undeveloped. As Friedlander (2001) reflected, Lewin’s notion
of action research introduced purposeful efforts aimed at achieving clear goals
but did not conceive of participants deciding what issues they might want to
study or being active in designing the study. Participation as an essential ele-
ment was not emphasized. The term “participatory action research” was intro-
duced whereby members of an organization or community actively participate
with professional researchers throughout the research process, from initial
conception and design to the presentation of and implementation of results
(Whyte, Greenwood, & Lazes, 1989). Participation is both epistemological and
political (Reason & Bradbury, 2008). It is epistemological through partici-
pants’ involvement in the design, unfolding, and sense-making processes, and
political in who decides the research agenda and how voices are heard and or
silenced, however covertly.
After Lewin’s death in 1947, action research became integral to the growth
of the theory and practice of OD (French & Bell, 1999) and significant for orga-
nizational research (Docherty, Ljung, & Stjernberg, 2005; Eden & Huxham,
1996; Gummesson, 2000), such as operations management (Coughlan &
Coghlan, 2009), education (Pine, 2009), community work (Stringer, 2007), and
health and social care (Hughes, 2008), and nursing (Koch & Kralik, 2006).
Lewin was a direct influence on the development of the Tavistock Institute

and socio-technical systems (Bradbury et al., 2008). As Pasmore (2001) out-
lines, Dewey’s (1933) work on reflective thinking provided a pragmatic phi-
losophy that emphasized practical thinking. It predated and set the ground for
Lewin and Collier in framing a practical approach to research. Socio-technical
systems theory exemplified the move to create methods and to build theory
that could address practical problems. In the instance of socio-technical sys-
tems, the understanding of the interdependence of technical and social
systems is deeply significant.
In the field of OD and change, Lewin’s work is seminal (Burnes, 2004).
Classical action research as it developed in OD in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s
had a consistent structure and pattern (Clark, 1972; Cunningham, 1993;
Foster, 1972; French & Bell, 1999; Frohman, Sashkin, & Kavanagh, 1976). As
Coghlan (in press) explores, classical action research in the OD tradition was
based on collaboration between the behavioral-scientist-researcher and a
client, where they collaborated on exploring problems and generating valid
data on the problem (the research activity) and in examining the data to
understand the problem. Together they then developed action plans to
address the problems and to implement them. They evaluated the outcomes of
the actions, both intended and unintended. This evaluation then led to further
cycles of diagnosis, action planning, and action. Cyclical-sequential phases
captured the movements of collaboration from initial scouting to evaluation.
These activities also served to generate new behavioral science knowledge,
which fed into the depository of information for other behavioral scientists as
general laws, types of problems, or the process of consultant–client collabora-
tion, thus addressing issues beyond the specific case. Significant research out-
put resulted (e.g., Burnes, 2007; Coch & French, 1948; Pasmore & Friedlander,
1982; Shepard & Katzell, 1960).
In his reflection on Lewin’s seminal work on action research as the “tap
root” of OD, Schein (1989) argued that Lewin was able to combine the meth-
odology of experimentation with solid theory and a concern for action around
important social concerns. In Schein’s view, it was not enough for Lewin to try
to explain things; one also had to try to change them. It was clear to Lewin and
others that working at changing human systems often engaged variables that
could not be controlled by traditional research methods. These insights led to
the development of action research and the powerful notion that human sys-
tems could only be understood and changed if one involved the members of
the system in the inquiry process itself. So the tradition of involving the mem-
bers of an organization in the change process, which is the hallmark of action
research, originated in a scientific premise that this is the way (a) to obtain
better data and (b) to effect change. Accordingly, action research is not only a
methodology and a set of tools, but it is also a theory of social science (Peters
& Robinson, 1984).
Coghlan (in press) concludes that what was distinctive about OD and
action research at this time was that both followed a cyclical process of
consciously and deliberately (a) diagnosing the situation, (b) planning action,
(c) taking action, and (d) evaluating the action, leading to further diagnosing,
planning, and so on. The second dimension is that both approaches were col-
laborative, in that, with the help of a consultant/facilitator, the members of the
system participated actively in the cyclical process. This action research
approach to OD was powerful. It engaged people as participants in seeking
ideas, planning, taking actions, reviewing outcomes, and learning what
worked and didn’t work and why.
The Philosophy of Action Research

There is a great deal written about ontology, epistemology, and methodology
underpinning action research (Baburoglu & Ravn, 1992; Eden & Huxham,
1996; Greenwood & Levin, 2007; Reason & Rowan, 1981; Reason & Torbert,
2001; Susman & Evered, 1978). Debates about objectivist and subjectivist
ontologies and epistemologies, critical realism, and the role of construction
create a sense of acute eclecticism and bewilderment. For those inside and
outside the action research community, these are fundamental issues.
In his book, The Philosophy of Social Science, Hollis (2002) distinguishes
between approaches that pursue explanation and those that pursue under-
standing. The former emulated the natural sciences, worked with grounding
research in comparable standards of evidence prediction and inference, and
led to the empiricist tradition of research. The latter, critical of the former’s
ability to deal with human meaning, sought to emphasize the interpretation of
human meaning in the science of human organization and action and led to
the hermeneutic tradition of research. Hollis notes: “There are still two stories
to tell about the social world and how it works. One starts as the insider’s or
agent’s story about what social life means and the other as an outsider’s or
spectator’s story about the causes of social behavior and action” (p. 202).
Commenting on Hollis’s work, Riordan (1995) notes that when either the
insider or the outsider makes comments that purport to be detached analysis,
then roles become blurred as the comments become an intervention. In his
view, action science and related disciplines offer suggestions as to how
difficulties in the philosophy of social science might be addressed.
Cassell and Johnson (2006) explore five alternative perspectives based on
different conceptions of “science” underpinning action research praxis:
experimental action research practice, inductive action research practices, par-
ticipatory action research, participatory action research practices, and decon-
structive action research practices. They conclude that while the problem is
that “science” is defined typically in terms of a particular form of knowledge
articulated by positivist norms, a review of the philosophy of science shows that
any expression of ontological and epistemological stance is contentious.
Accordingly, in their view, “there is no incontestable scheme of ontological and

epistemological standards which may be deployed to govern action research”
(p. 806).
It is a philosophical foundation of this paper that action research contrib-
utes a science of action that extends beyond debates about whether research
should/not or how it might be “useful” (Brief & Dukerich, 1991; Lawler,
Mohrman, Mohrman, Cummings, & Ledford, 1985; Sellitz & Cook, 1948) or
“engaged” (Van de Ven, 2007). In 1981, Reason and Rowan introduced a rev-
olutionary exploration of “new paradigm” research, and identified a range of
approaches to human inquiry that provided alternatives to orthodox ways of
doing research in human sciences. That landmark publication opened the way
to viewing action research in broader terms than the mechanistic forms of
action research that grew out of the Lewinian OD tradition. This new para-
digm research was grounded in the value of doing research with people rather
than on or for them (Reason, 1988), and established the collaborative and par-
ticipative dynamic that, as Friedlander (2001) noted, had not been developed
by Lewin. In this paper, I take that philosophical grounding further, and now
present the case for a philosophy of practical knowing.
Practical Knowing
Since Plato, philosophers have explored different forms of knowing. Tekippe
(1996) uses the term “primordial knowing” to encapsulate such diverse forms
of knowing, as aesthetic, mystical, religious, interpersonal, moral, and common-
sense knowing. In the context of this paper, while action research belongs to the
world of practical knowing, which seeks to shape the quality of moment-to-
moment action, it also draws on other forms of knowing (Reason & Torbert,
2001).
The realm of practical knowing directs us to the concerns of human living
and the successful performance of daily tasks and discovering immediate solu-
tions that work (Lonergan, 1992). It differs from scientific knowing in that it
is particular, contextual, and practical and it draws on resources of language,
body language, eloquence, pauses, questions, omissions, and so on. A particu-
lar characteristic of practical knowing is that it varies from place to place and
from situation to situation. What is familiar in one place may be unfamiliar in
another. What works in one setting may not work in another. Therefore, what
we know needs be differentiated for each specific situation. In order to under-
stand actions in the everyday, we need to inquire into the constructions of
meaning that individuals and groups make about themselves, their situation,
and the world, especially for the task at hand. We know that actions may be
driven by assumptions and compulsions, as well as by values (Schein, 2010).
Accordingly, practical knowing is always incomplete and can only be com-
pleted by attending to figuring out what is needed in situations in which one
is at a given time. As no two situations are identical, we reason, reflect, and
judge in a practical pattern of knowing in order to move from one setting to

another, grasping what modifications are needed and deciding how to act.
A contrast of scientific and practical knowing points to differences in how
practical knowing has a concern for the practical and the particular, while
science has theoretical aspirations and seeks to make universal abstract state-
ments (De Vos, 1987). Practical knowing is content with only what it needs
for the task at hand, while scientific knowing tries to be exhaustive and seeks
to know everything and state accurately and completely all it knows. Practical
knowing is typically spontaneous, while science is methodical. Practical know-
ing uses language with a range of meanings, while science develops technical
jargon. These contrasts may be posited of positivist science and action
research in management and organizational research. The knowledge created
in positivist science is general, while that created through action research is
particular, situational, and out of praxis. In action research, the data are con-
textually embedded and interpreted. In positivist science, findings are vali-
dated by logic, measurement, and the consistency achieved by the consistency
of prediction and control. In action research, the basis for validation is the
conscious and deliberate enactment of the action research cycle. The positivist
scientist’s relationship to the setting is one of neutrality and detachment, while
the action researcher is immersed in the setting. The contrast of roles is
between that of detached observer in positivist science and that of an actor
and agent of change in action research. In summary, practical knowing
remains in the world of things-related-to-us, while scientific knowing relates
things to each other (Lonergan, 1992).
Cycles of Action and Reflection

In working within the realm of practical knowing, where knowing is always
incomplete and where reflexive attentiveness to unfolding contextual dynamics
is central to both understanding and action, action research’s emphasis on
cycles of action and reflection is paramount. In its original Lewinian and
simplest form, the action research cycle comprises a pre-step and three core
activities: planning action, taking action, and fact-finding. The pre-step
involves naming the general objective; planning comprises having an overall
plan and a decision regarding what the first step to take is; action involves taking
that first step; and fact-finding involves evaluating the first step, seeing what
was learned, and creating the basis for correcting the next step. So there is a
continuing “spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning,
action and fact-finding about the result of the action” (Lewin, 1997, p. 146).
While these cycles may be presented differently (e.g., Coghlan & Brannick,
2010; Stringer, 2007), any presentation captures the essential elements of the
original Lewinian framework. Though the cycles of action and reflection are
central to the practice of action research, they need not be enacted in a rigid
manner but may find expression in an imaginative and expressive approach
(Heron, 1996). Drawing on Mezirow’s work on transformative learning,

Coghlan and Brannick (2010) present the outcomes of the cycles of action and
reflection as generating content, process, and premise learning, with the third
area being the fruit of critical thinking. Engagement in cycles of action and
reflection places action at the heart of the research process and thereby marks
action research as fundamentally distinct from research approaches that are
typically referred to as “applied.”
An added dimension to the engagement in practical knowing as a philoso-
phy of research is that it involves researching in the present tense (Chandler &
Torbert, 2003). Much of what we refer to as qualitative research is focused on
the past. Action research builds on the past and takes place in the present with
a view to shaping the future. Accordingly, engagement in the cycles of action
and reflection performs both a practical and philosophical function in its
attentiveness and reflexivity as to what is going on at any given moment and
how that attentiveness yields purposeful action.
Scientific and Practical Knowing in the Academy

Practical knowing has been neglected by scholars. After the seventeenth-
century philosophers turned to problems of the objectivity of knowing—a
shift from knowing in a descriptive mode to knowing in explanatory mode
where things were no longer presented in relation to the knowing subject but
were related to one another in recurring patterns (Toulmin, 1990). A tendency
to relate any method of thinking to the subject was criticized as being subjec-
tive and invalid and limited to surface appearances, as contrasted to scientific
patterns of knowing. In a parallel vein, the gap between theory and action
widened as theory was developed apart from the action that underpins it and
action developed without grounding in theory.
There has been a growing criticism that traditional management and orga-
nization research, based on positivist philosophy of science, is not being useful
to the world of practice. In 1966, Grene argued that, in philosophical terms, we
have come to the end of the era ruled by the clarity and mathematical exactitude
of Newtonian method. In a significant article that is the most cited article on
action research, Susman and Evered (1978) argued that the conditions from
which people try to learn in everyday life are better explored through a range
of philosophical viewpoints: Aristotelian praxis, hermeneutics, existentialism,
pragmatism, process philosophies, and phenomenology. They proposed that
action research provides a corrective to the deficiencies of positivist science by
being future-oriented, collaborative, agnostic, and situational, implying system
development and so generating theory grounded in action.
In a parallel mode, Gibbons et al. (1994) have argued it is time for a mode
of research (which they call Mode 2 research) that is transdisciplinary, hetero-
geneous, socially accountable, reflexive, and which is produced in the context
of a particular application. This is in contrast to what they call Mode 1
research, which is characterized by explanatory knowledge generated in a dis-

ciplinary context, which in Gibbons et al.’s words for many is “identical with
what is meant by science” (p. 3). Gibbons et al. describe Mode 2 research as
“the new production of knowledge” as a network activity, which in
Gustavsen’s (2003a) view needs to follow and move away from a model
whereby it is embedded currently in the expertise of isolated individuals oper-
ating from a top-down expert model. While MacLean et al. (2002) make the
point that action-oriented research, such as action research, has the potential
to meet the criteria of Mode 2 research, Levin and Greenwood (2008) note
that action research has been engaging in Mode 2 research since the first
action research experiments in the 1940s and 1950s. Table 1 illustrates how
Mode 1, Mode 2, and action research may be juxtaposed. Mode 1 represents
traditional organizational research, while Mode 2 and action research share
features of transdisciplinary collaboration, reflexivity, and an orientation to
cogenerating actionable knowledge. The argument toward which this paper is
moving is that practical knowing is a social science (van Hoolthoon & Olsen,
1987) and affirming that action research is “scientific.”
Action Research and “Scientific” Inquiry

Action research typically has found itself excluded from the forum of organi-
zational scholarly research, especially in the Anglo-Saxon academy, led by the
United States (Greenwood, 2002; Levin, 2003). This is due to the dominance
of the positivist approach to research in the academy and the denigration of
forms of research that incorporate action as smacking of subjectivism. Despite
Table 1 Mode 1, Mode 2, and Action Research

Mode 1 Mode 2/Action Research
Aim of Research Universal knowledge Cogenerated actionable
Theory building and testing knowledge produced in the
within a discipline context of application
Type of Knowledge Universal covering law Particular, situational
Acquired Primarily cognitive
Nature of Data Context free Contextually embedded
Validation Logic, measurement Experiential collaborative
Consistency of prediction transdisciplinary
and control
Researcher’s Role Observer Actor, Agent of change
Socially accountable
Researcher’s Detached neutral Immersed
Relationship to Reflexive
Setting
action research’s solid grounding in Aristotelian praxis (Eikeland, 2008),

pragmatic philosophy (Bradbury, 2008; Greenwood & Levin, 2007; Pasmore,
2001), Habermasian communicative action (Shani, David, & Willson, 2004),
phenomenology (Ladkin, 2005), critical theory (Kemmis, 2001), constructiv-
ism (Lincoln, 2001), social constructionism (Gergen & Gergen, 2008), and in
the philosophy of Wittgenstein (Shotter, 2003), action research continues to
be perceived as not being “scientific.” This perspective perpetuates even
though, as it is well argued, its methods are far more scientific in the sense of
generating knowledge that is tested in action and in mobilizing relevant
knowledge from people in a position to know their conditions better than
conventional research can (Greenwood, 2002).
Authors like Blum (1955), Eikeland (2007), Reason and Bradbury (2008),
Reason and Torbert (2001), Schon (1995), Shotter (2007), and Susman and
Evered (1978) have emphasized the difference between positivist science and
action research. Susman and Evered present a clear contrast between the two
approaches and argue that action research provides a corrective to the
deficiencies of positivist science. In contrast, Aguinis (1993) and Stephens,
Barton, and Haslett (2009) have emphasized the compatibility between the
two approaches.
Susman and Evered (1978, p. 601) conclude that action research “consti-
tutes a kind of science with a different epistemology that produces a different
kind of knowledge, a knowledge that is contingent on the particular situation
and which develops the capacity of members of organizations to solve their
own problems.” In using the term “scientific,” it is argued, there is a need to
move away from adopting frameworks from natural sciences in order to
engage with the world of practice. When Torbert (1991, p. 220) refers to “a
kind of scientific inquiry conducted in everyday life” and Argyris et al. (1985,
p. 4) to “a science of practice,” they are extending the normal connotations
associated with the term “science.” In this paper, I am accepting the ambiguity
of the use of the term, as Cassell and Johnson (2006) point out, and that “sci-
ence” (and indeed “research”) are appropriate terms to use in the realm of
practical knowing.
At the core of the debate appears to be modernism’s adherence to the split
between the knower and the known, where the position on knowing is a mat-
ter of a subject “in here” looking at or reflecting on an object “out there”
(Coghlan, 2010a; McCarthy, 1990). For the empirical philosophers, inner per-
ception was conceived by the analogy of taking a look at something outside of
ourselves, and so consciousness was held to be a faculty of inner perception.
For Kant, for anything to be an object of knowledge, it first had to be the
object of sense perception. Modernist social science embedded itself in this
perceptualist standpoint on human cognition that found expression in behav-
iorism and positivism. Modern philosophy, under the influence of positivism,
avoided the issue of the subject in his/her acts of consciousness and so the
subject became neglected and excluded from management and organizational

research.
Where perceptualism has failed is in its lack of attention to the world
mediated by meaning and to the active role of human consciousness in
constructing that world. The postmodern and phenomenological perspective
critiqued this focus on immediacy and objectivity and brought the focus to
bear on meaning and value and how this world is constructed through
human consciousness and language (Shotter, 2007).
Action research goes beyond the “linguistic turn” and now argues that it is
time for the “action turn,” whereby “inquiry contributes directly to the flour-
ishing of human person, their communities and the ecosystems of which they
are part” (Reason & Torbert, 2001, p. 6). It is my view that action research
has the potential to confront the fairly persistent claims that business schools
fail the business community through its engagement in the real life issues of
managers and organizations and seeking to generate actionable knowledge. It
engages in the “messiness” that marks the production of management
knowledge (Lowstedt & Stjernberg, 2005).
An avenue that has opened up more recently, which provides something of
a possible co-habitation between traditional scientific and practical knowing,
is the notion of actionable knowledge. Argyris (2003) defines actionable
knowledge as that which allows organizational actors to implement their
intentions. David and Hatchuel (2008) view Argyris’s definition as restrictive,
and present it as when a company invents a new management model. Accord-
ingly, in their view, actionable knowledge is always contextualized, and uni-
versal propositions cannot be used to predict what is actionable or not. In
action research terms, actionable knowledge is that which is both useful to
practitioners and theoretically robust for scholars (Adler & Shani, 2005). As
noted earlier, for Shani et al. (2008), the notion of collaborative management
research, with its focus on the dynamics of collaboration between practitio-
ners and academic researchers and between insiders and outsiders as central
to the formation of communities of inquiry, facilitates the generation of
actionable knowledge that meets the requirements of both practitioner and
academic communities.
Action research challenges normal science in several action-oriented ways.
Sharing the power of knowledge production with the researched subverts the
normal practice of knowledge and policy development as being the primary
domain of researchers and policymakers. Action researchers work on the epis-
temological assumption that the purpose of academic research and discourse
is not just to describe, understand, and explain the world, but also to change it
(Reason & Torbert, 2001). The issue is more than the form of the knowledge
produced or the methodology employed to gather data/evidence, but also who
decides the research agenda in the first place and who benefits directly from it.
Action researchers need to attend to these issues and be politically astute in
maneuvering between political posturing of groups within an organization or

community in a manner that is congruent with action research values without
being naïve.
Contemporary Action Research

As a reflexive approach to research, it is not surprising that action research
continues to develop. In this section, I introduce contemporary action
research under the following headings: development of discourse, action
research as a family of practices, three voices/practices in action research, and
quality and then ethics in action research.
Development of Action Research Discourse

Action research has made significant strides in its own self-understanding in
recent years. The founding of several journals devoted to the exploration of its
theory and practice—Action Research (in its ninth volume in 2011), Interna-
tional Journal of Action Research (currently in its seventh volume and follow-
ing from its previous title, Concepts and Transformation, which had nine
volumes), Systemic Practice and Action Research (previously Systems Practice),
and the newer Action Learning: Research and Practice—have provided and are
providing rich fora both for the presentation of research and for advanced
discourse on action research philosophy and practice. Handbooks such as The
Handbook of Action Research (Reason & Bradbury, 2001, 2008) and The
Handbook of Collaborative Management Research (Shani et al., 2008), as well
as an Encyclopedia of Action Research (in progress), provide extensive discus-
sion of the nature, challenges, and practices of action research. The publica-
tion of the four-volume compendium The Fundamentals of Action Research
(Cooke & Wolfram-Cox, 2005) has afforded access to the classical and forma-
tive writing on action research since the 1940s. There have been special issues
of journals devoted to action research (e.g., Human Relations, 1993; Journal of
Managerial Psychology, 1995) and reviews of the action research literature
(Cassell & Johnson, 2006; Dick, 2004, 2006, 2009, forthcoming). It is increas-
ingly common now that textbooks on management research methods include
more extensive and sophisticated discussions of action research than hereto-
fore. In summary, it can be seen that action research has developed in its own
self-understanding and that there is a rich discourse on its underlying philoso-
phy, methodologies, practices, and outputs.
Action Research as a Family of Practices

What is noticeable in contemporary action research is that there is a wide
diversity, not only in practice but also in the discourse, on action research
practice. Action research has become to be understood as “a family of prac-
tices of living inquiry … it is not so much a methodology as an orientation to
inquiry” (Reason & Bradbury, 2008, p. 1).
Raelin (2009) has described the family in terms of multiple “action modal-
ities.” The more common ones may be identified as action learning, action sci-
ence, appreciative inquiry, clinical inquiry/research, cooperative inquiry,
developmental action inquiry, intervention research, and learning history to
name but a selection.
• Action Learning: Action learning has traditionally been directed toward

enabling professionals to learn and develop through engaging in reflecting
on their experience as they seek to solve real-life problems in their own
organizational settings (Revans, 1998). In recent years, there have been
explorations of action learning’s philosophical grounds (Pedler &
Burgoyne, 2008) and, from a research perspective, on research accessible
through empirical engagement in practice and in collaboration with those
who seek to resolve problems in their own settings (Coghlan & Coughlan,
2010). An example of action learning research is found in Coughlan and
Coghlan’s (2011) work on network learning where firms in a supply-chain
relationship engaged in network action learning in order to become a
learning and transformational network.
• Action Science: Action science is a term used by Argyris (Argyris et al.,
1985), who considered that action research had lost its scientific edge and
so he wanted to bring the word “science” back into the study of practice
and intervention. The key to action science is to be able to analyze and
document patterns of behaviors and the reasoning behind them systemi-
cally in order to identify causal links to produce actionable knowledge, that
is, theories for producing desired outcomes. Friedman, Razer, and Skyes
(2004) provide an example of an action science inquiry process carried out
by a staff of a school to build inclusive relationships to tackle and develop a
theory of social exclusion.
• Appreciative Inquiry: Cooperrider and Srivastva (1987) criticized how
action research has developed to be viewed as a form of problem solving.
As an alternative, they propose appreciative inquiry as a form of action
research, which focuses on building on what is already successful, rather
than what is deficient, thus leveraging the generative capacity for transfor-
mational action. Bushe and Kassam (2005) review appreciative inquiry
publications to assess how it has achieved transformation in keeping with
the claims of its literature and find that it does.
• Clinical Inquiry/Research: Clinical inquiry/research is articulated by
Schein (1995, 2008) who argues that when researchers gain access to
organizations at the organization’s invitation in order to be helpful and
intervene to enable change to occur, that is the most fruitful way of
understanding and changing organizations. Schein’s (2004) work with the
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) provides a longitudinal case study
of clinical inquiry.
• Cooperative Inquiry: Heron and Reason (2008, p. 366) define cooperative

inquiry “in which the participants work together in an inquiry group as co-
researchers and co-subjects.” The participants research a topic through
their own experience of it in order to “understand their world to make
sense of their life and develop new and creative ways of looking at things
and learn how to act to change things they might want to change and find
out how to do things better.” Mead’s (2002) inquiry into leadership in the
police service took the form of senior police officers inquiring into their
own unique leadership practice.
• Developmental Action Inquiry: Developmental action inquiry is an expres-
sion of action science where Torbert adds insights from developmental
psychology, that as leaders progress through adulthood they may inten-
tionally develop new “action-logics” through progress through stages of
development (Torbert & Associates, 2004). It offers an understanding of
leaders’ transformation through a series of stages so that they gain insight
into their own action-logics as they work to transform their organizations
(Fisher, Rooke, & Torbert, 2000).
• Intervention Research: Intervention research has emerged out of France,
and is built on a detailed analysis of an organization’s performance and the
consequent development of management tools and actions to address
deeply embedded problems (Buono & Savall, 2007; Hatchuel & David,
2008; Savall, Zardet, Bonnet, & Moore, 2001). Zardet (2007) provides a
case example of such an analytic and intervention approach in a small-to-
medium-sized firm.
• Learning History: Rather than presenting the univocal voice of a single
author or group of researchers, the learning history presents concurrent,
multiple, and often divergent voices in an organizational story (Bradbury
& Mainmelis, 2001). Presenting the jointly told tale is enabled by the
format, whereby columns of narrative text are juxtaposed with interpreta-
tive voice of participants (often disagreeing) and the voice of the learning
historian. Kleiner and Roth’s (2000) and Roth and Kleiner’s (2000)
volumes demonstrate this methodology effectively.
This selection of seven “action modalities” provides a flavor of contemporary

action research. They reflect less of the modernist structure of OD where action
researchers are expecting to perform a “diagnosis” with a client and more of
postmodern orientation where subjective experience is exposed to dialogue
and critique (Bushe & Marshak, 2009). The emphasis is on exploring subjective
experience and how the participants construct the meaning of the situations in
which they find themselves, which they seek to change, and how they frame
and implement action strategies. Selecting a modality as appropriate to a given
situation requires an insight into both a given modality and to what might be
required to inquire rigorously in a given situation (Coghlan, 2010a).
At the same time, some of these modalities reflect the orientation of the
particular scholars who have become associated with them, and it remains to
be seen whether these modalities survive the lifetime of the particular found-
ing scholar and persist as a useful frame for adopting approaches within the
uniqueness of any specific action research project.
While not fitting into the category of an action modality, insider action
research has emerged as a significant development within the action research
family of approaches. As the term suggests, insider action research is cen-
tered on the process whereby the action research is conducted by a “full
member” of an organizational system, rather than by one who enters the
system as a researcher and remains only for the duration of the research.
Insider action research challenges the notion that being “native” is incompat-
ible with good research (Brannick & Coghlan, 2007). Coghlan and Brannick
(2010) explore how attention to the three core elements of insider inquiry—
managing the tensions between closeness and distance (preunderstanding),
organizational and researcher roles (role duality), and managing organiza-
tional politics—are critical to the development effective action and the gener-
ation of actionable knowledge. The insider action research approach provides
a methodological grounding for the growing prevalence of practitioner doc-
torates (Coghlan, 2007). Roth, Shani, and Leary (2007) provide an important
example of insider action research that both developed a new organizational
capability in a biopharma firm and contributed a model of new organiza-
tional capabilities development.
A further lens would be to view the practice of action research in terms of
levels of analysis. These range from an individual focus on professional prac-
tice (Marshall, 1999; Whitehead & McNiff, 2006), to small group exploration
(Heron, 1996; Heron & Reason, 2008), to organizational change (Coch &
French, 1948; Pasmore & Friedlander, 1982), to inter-organizational supply-
chain networks (Coghlan & Coughlan, 2008), and to large socioeconomic
political systems for regional development and workplace innovation (Fricke
& Totterdill, 2004; Gustavsen, 2003b, 2004). While not the primary focus of
the management and organization studies context of this paper, it is useful to
note that the emancipatory modalities of action research that are grounded in
liberationist and feminist thought (Fals-Borda, 2001; Maguire, 2001) provide
a rich tradition of participatory action research, in, for example, Latin Amer-
ica (Streck & Brandao, 2005), Bangladesh (Guharthakurta, 2008), India
(Brown & Tanden, 2008), Africa (Swantz, Ndedya, & Maisaiganah, 2001), and
inner-city social change (Ospina, Dodge, Foldy, & Hofmann-Pinella, 2008) to
select but a few examples.
Three Voices/Practices in Action Research as an Integrative Framework

Reason and Bradbury (2008) and Reason and Torbert (2001) describe three
voices and practices: first, second, and third person. Traditionally, research has
focused on third-person researchers doing research on third persons and writ-

ing a report for other third persons. In their view, in a more complete vision of
research, as presented by action research and many other transformational
inquiry approaches, authentic third-person research integrates first- and
second-person voices.
First-person research is typically characterized as a form of inquiry and
practice that one does on one’s own, and so addresses the ability of the indi-
vidual to foster an inquiring approach to his or her own life and to act out of
awareness and purposefully, what Marshall (1999) refers to as “living life as
inquiry.” Philosophically, first-person practice means that action researchers,
rather than observing themselves as objects from the outside, experience them-
selves as subjects with direct awareness of how they think and act. Attentive-
ness to experience incorporates attention to data of consciousness and data of
sense or what Marshall (1999) refers to as inner arcs and outer arcs of attention.
Torbert and Associates (2004) discuss learning about one’s “action logics,”
while Argyris and Schon (1974) use the term “theory-in-use.” First-person
practice means that attention to personal values, assumptions, beliefs, and ways
of thinking and acting are afforded a central place of inquiry in action research
practice. Given the dynamic nature of practical knowing in which actors need
to be attentive constantly to inner and outer events in action research where
events unfold as a consequence of intervention, attention to both data of
consciousness and data of sense holds a central place. In the action research
literature, examples of constructs for exploring first-person practices may be
found in Argyris and Schon (1974), Coghlan (2008), Marshall (1999), and
Torbert and Associates (2004).
Second-person inquiry/practice addresses action researchers’ ability to
inquire into and work with others on issues of mutual concern, through face-
to-face dialogue, conversation, and joint action. This comprises fields of
practice such as working in groups such as in action learning (Revans, 1998),
cooperative inquiry (Heron, 1996), microcosm groups such as parallel learn-
ing structures (Bushe & Shani, 1991), search conferences (Emery & Purser,
1996), and working with individuals (Coghlan, 2009; Fisher et al., 2000;
Schein, 1999, 2009). Second-person practice poses an important challenge as
to who is involved in the research and who is excluded and how. As action
research is integrally collaborative and democratic, the quality of second-
person inquiry and action is paramount.
Third-person inquiry/practice aims at creating communities of inquiry,
involving people beyond the direct second-person action. Third person is
impersonal and is actualized through dissemination by reporting, publishing,
and extrapolating from the concrete to the general. It is through first and
second-person practice that third-person actionable knowledge is articulated.
An example of third-person dissemination that arises from second-person pro-
cesses is the development of learning mechanisms, whereby the second-person
work in parallel learning systems produces significant learning for an organi-

zation through establishing structural, procedural, and cognitive learning
mechanisms and actionable knowledge about such mechanisms (Shani &
Docherty, 2003; Shani & Eberhardt, 1987).
In a seminal article, Chandler and Torbert (2003) explore the dimensions
of voice and practice in terms of time. Through juxtaposing first-, second-,
and third-person inquiry and action with past, present, and future tenses, they
present a conceptual typology of 27 “flavors” of action research that frames
the challenges and opportunities within action research for exploring the
complementarity of quantitative, qualitative, and action research approaches.
Quality in Action Research

As with all approaches to rigorous inquiry, action research paradigm requires
its own quality criteria, taking quality to mean a grade of excellence. The argu-
ment is that action research should not be judged by the criteria of positivist
science but rather within the criteria of its own terms. Pasmore, Woodman, and
Simmons (2008) argue that organizational research needs to be rigorous, reflec-
tive, and relevant. Eden and Huxham (1996) provide an extensive list of the 15
characteristics of good action research. The foundational characteristics reflect
the intentionality of the researcher to change an organization, that the project
has some implications beyond those involved directly in it, and that the project
has an explicit aim to elaborate or develop theory, as well as be useful to the
organization. Theory must inform the design and development of the actions.
Eden and Huxham place great emphasis on the enactment of the action
research cycles, in which systematic method and orderliness is required in
reflecting on the outcomes of each cycle and the design of the subsequent cycles.
Accordingly, rigor in action research typically refers to how data are generated,
gathered, explored, and evaluated—how events are questioned and interpreted
through multiple action research cycles (Coghlan & Brannick, 2010).
Returning to Shani and Pasmore’s (1985) definition of action research at
the outset of this paper, good action research may be judged in terms of the
four factors from that definition: how the context is assessed; the quality of
collaborative relationships between researchers and members of the system;
the quality of the action research process itself as cycles of action and reflec-
tion are enacted and that the dual outcomes reflect some level of sustainability
(human, social, economic, and ecological); and the development of self-help
and competencies out of the action and the creation of new knowledge from
the inquiry. While an action research intervention may not be replicable as the
exigencies of a particular situation may not be repeated, the learning needs to
be transferable and the process may be transportable to other situations.
Addressing issues of quality explicitly is not something in which action
research has demonstrated much proficiency. Published accounts of consult-
ing projects have claimed to be action research merely because they were
collaborative and followed cycles of action and reflection. As Shani and Bushe
(1987) point out, these accounts have undoubtedly been useful for practitio-
ners, but they have often failed to address the intricacies of generating valid
knowledge. Schein (1989) comments that, regretfully, action research has often
been diminished by being a glib term for involving clients in research and has
lost its role as a powerful conceptual tool for uncovering truth on which action
can be taken. What has been lacking has been a rigorous reflection on the
choices that are made in relation to, for example, contextual analysis, design,
purposes, degrees of collaboration, planning, implementation, review, and so
on (Coghlan & Shani, 2005).
Reason (2006) addresses these issues and argues that action research is char-
acteristically full of choices. As action research is conducted in the present tense,
attentiveness to these choices and their consequences and being transparent
about them are significant for considering the quality of action research. Reason
argues that action researchers need to be aware of the choices they face and
make them clear and transparent to themselves and to those with whom they
are engaging in inquiry and to those to whom they present their research in
writing or presentations. The explicit attention to these questions and to the
issues of rigor, relevance, reflexivity, and quality of collaborative take action
research beyond the mere narration of events, described as “anecdotalism,” to
rigorous and critical questioning of experience leading to actionable knowledge
for both scholarly and practitioner communities.
Ethics in Action Research

A further insight into the development of action research is found in the new
discourses of ethics in action research (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood, &
Eikeland, 2006). Here, there is a call for a fundamental reconsideration of the
basic terms in which research ethics, particularly action research, are under-
stood and evaluated. Hilsen (2006) argues that ethics in action research may be
based on three pivots: human interdependency, cogeneration of knowledge,
and fairer power relations. Such criteria are typically alien to members of ethics
committees and institutional review boards who come out of the conventional
positivist research tradition and expect that hypotheses, methods, and
expected outcomes are well articulated in advance and that research proposals
follow this format. When they are confronted with action research proposals,
they are frequently at a loss as to how to understand this form of research and
how to evaluate a proposal (DeTardo-Bora, 2004). Given that action research
is an unfolding, emergent process that evolves through cycles of action and
reflection, it is not feasible to map out a detailed anticipation of ethical issues
in advance that will cover all eventualities (Morton, 1999). Brydon-Miller and
Greenwood (2006) are optimistic about the difficulties in going before such
committees, and suggest that action research actually holds out more guaran-
tees for the ethical treatment of human subjects than conventional research
does. This is because action research is built on a voluntary partnership with

stakeholders who form a collaborative team that learns, applies, and imple-
ments the methods together and analyses the outcomes together. As Brydon-
Miller (2008) suggests, adopting a covenantal ethics approach that is based on
the values of collaborative relationships and a shared commitment to social
justice underpins participatory action research. Questions of involvement and
exclusion, of consent or refusal to participate, and the implications of intended
and unintended outcomes are critical ethically and require both ethical and
political sensitivities.
Toward a Synthesis: A General Empirical Method and Interiority

I began this paper by reviewing the field of action research in terms of its
traditional foundations, philosophy, and core process of researching-in-
action. Then I discussed contemporary action research in the light of the
developments in its self-understanding, explored it as a family of action
modalities, and discussed issues such as quality and ethics. The underlying
thread through this exploration was the notion that action research operates
in the realm of practical knowing, which has an uneasy relationship with the
realm of scholarly theory. In this section, I introduce my reflection on the
issues and seek to offer a synthesis through a focus on a general empirical
method and interiority as an application of the operations of human knowing.
In simplistic terms, there are two perspectives on action research: one from
inside and one from outside the action research community. I have worked with
both perspectives in this paper. As explored in these pages, from outside, there
are issues as to how action research is research and how it meets the rigor of
scientific inquiry. From inside, there is development of a rich and robust self-
understanding and practice of the theory and practice of action research. I am
arguing that the distinction between practical knowing and theory is not merely
a distinction between practical and intellectual patterns of experience.
Although they have different concerns and scope, they are not isolated from
one another. Practical knowing may mistakenly claim general theoretical appli-
cability. Practical knowing does develop general principles, but these general-
izations are concerned with the concrete, practical affairs of a specific context,
not with universal principles that scientific theory advances. In a similar vein,
practical knowing may claim that theoretical investigation is pointless and that
theory is irrelevant. This paper seeks to build coherent linkages between the
inside and the outside perspectives. I do so by focusing on the operations of
human knowing and exploring how these operations yield a general empirical
method that can hold the inside and the outside perspectives.
In order to create common ground across the philosophies of social science
that populate the field of management and organization studies, I focus on the
operations of human knowing as yielding a general empirical method that
enables those inside and outside the action research community to realize the
full potential of action research. As a bridge between the different applications

of the general empirical method, I propose the notion of interiority as a way in
which scientific and practical knowing may be held together.
The Operations of Human Knowing

Human knowing comprises an invariant series of distinct operations: experi-
encing, understanding, and judging (Dewey, 1933; Lonergan, 1992; Meynell,
1999). Experience occurs at the empirical level of consciousness and is an
interaction of inner and outer events, or, to express it alternatively, data of
sense and data of consciousness. We not only experience external data
through our five senses, but we also experience internal data as we imagine,
remember, feel, and think. We also experience ourselves as seeing, hearing,
thinking, feeling, remembering, and imagining. Sensory data are what we
experience but do not yet understand. So we ask questions about our experi-
ence, and the answers come in the form of insights, which are creative acts of
understanding, of grasping and formulating patterns, unities, relationships,
and explanations in response to questions posed to our experience. While we
might not know yet if a particular current search is intelligent, we anticipate
intelligent answers. Understanding occurs at the intellectual level of
consciousness as we move beyond experience to explanation. While insights
are common, they do not always provide satisfactory answers to our ques-
tions. The question, then, is does the insight fit the evidence? This opens up a
question for reflection. Is it so? Yes or no? Maybe. I don’t know. I need further
evidence. So we move to a new level of the cognitional process where we
marshal and weigh evidence and assess its sufficiency. This is the rational level
of consciousness. Further, we do not merely know; we also make decisions
and act (the responsible level of consciousness). At this level, we ask what
courses of action are open to us and we review options, weigh choices, and
decide what action to take. The responsible level of consciousness is added to
the empirical, intellectual, and rational levels.
These operations are invariant in that they pertain to all human knowing.
Natural scientists attend to the data, seek insight into what the data might
mean, and then work to verify their insights. They employ rigorous testing
methods in their verification in order that they can be confident in their judg-
ments. Artists express their insights in shapes and colors, musical composers
in rhythms and harmonies. In settings of day-to-day practical knowing,
people attend to their experience, apply their intelligence to understanding
that experience, verify it and choose to take action. If you do not apply your
intelligence to driving your car, you are likely to cause an accident.
General Empirical Method

From the cognitional operations of experience, understanding, and judg-
ment, a general empirical method that is simply the enactment of operations
of human knowing may be derived (Coghlan, 2010a). This method is

grounded in:
• Attention to data of sense and of consciousness (experience);
• Exploring intelligently to envisage possible explanations of that data
(understanding);
• Judging soundly, preferring as probable or certain the explanations that
provide the best account for the data (judgment).
Engaging this method requires the dispositions to perform the operations of
attentiveness, intelligence, and reasonableness, to which is added responsibility
when we seek to take action.
In enacting the general empirical method, we need to attend to our attend-
ing and what gives us curiosity, delight, anxiety, and so on. Second, we need to
advert to our intelligence what is it we do not understand yet, the dissatisfac-
tion with current explanations, the puzzled search for new understanding, the
release when we receive insights, and our efforts to express what it is that we
have understood. Third, we need to attend to our reasonableness, whether our
understanding fits the evidence, whether it is coherent or true, whether
something will work or not. Finally, we need to attend to the responsibilities
of our action. We move from one operation to another in a conscious and
dynamic manner. Enactment of these process imperatives may be construed
to constitute authenticity on the part of the researcher (Coghlan, 2008). It is
grounded not in any thesis or grand theory but in the recognizable operations
of human inquiry and action.
The general empirical method may be viewed as tacitly operating in
Pasmore and Friedlander (1982). This research explored the problems a man-
ufacturing plant was having with employee injuries and how, through action
research, the issues were addressed through employee participation. The
account of the research describes how experience of the plant was a spell of
work-related injuries, which had worsened over a five-year period despite a
lot of research into its causes. From inquiry into this experience, four insights
emerged: that the employees themselves held vital data; that management’s
efforts had been ineffective in alleviating the issues; that the injuries were pos-
sibly stress related; and that the injuries were symptomatic of wider manage-
ment–labor relationship issues. Each insight was tested through interviews
and a survey and then explored. A Studies and Communication Group, rep-
resentative of the workforce, worked with the researchers in designing and
analyzing the data and in providing feedback to the rest of the plant. The
group, in effect, reflected on cogenerated data, consolidated its judgments,
and acted by making recommendations to management. The outcomes were
a reduced level of injuries and increased employee participation in the plant
and actionable knowledge about how employee resources may assist in cop-
ing with current problems facing organizations. Pasmore and Friedlander
demonstrate their engagement in the cycles of inquiry from experience to

insight to judgment to action as they discuss both the data that emerged from
the formal interviews and surveys and the unanticipated outcomes from
unplanned events. They provide evidence of how they explored their insights
in collaboration with the Studies and Communication Group and considered
alternative possibilities and explanations.
Interiority
There are philosophical implications that provide a means of relating the
general empirical method to the challenges of understanding action research
from inside and from outside the action research community. Understanding
consciousness as a quality in the operations of human knowing, rather than a
form of perception, is at the heart of the general empirical method. As
Coghlan (2010a) explores, the general empirical method encourages us to
attend to how we understand and how new experiences and insights change
our understanding. The general empirical method confronts the notion that
knowing is a matter of abstracting unchanging concepts from experience and
placing them in current logical positions. Through grasping that insights are
not simply more sophisticated sense perceptions, the general empirical
method challenges assumptions that inquiry is a matter of getting outside of a
self “in here” to integrating an existing world of things “out there.”
As a frame to build linkages between the inside and the outside of action
research, Coghlan (2010b) proposes the notion of interiority by drawing the
invariant operations of human knowing as providing a general empirical
method that enables researchers to move between the realms of theory and
practical knowing, valuing both while recognizing their different contribu-
tions. The challenge is to turn from the outer world of practical knowing and
of theory to the appropriation of oneself as a knower, that is, one’s own inte-
riority. Interiority involves shifting from what we know to how we know; a
process of intellectual self-awareness. Interiority analysis involves using one’s
knowledge of how the mind works to critique an intellectual search for truth
in any area. It is a first-person activity (Varela & Shear, 1999). The turn to
interiority is not just cognition but an appropriation of self and one’s mind.
Interiority is the means by which we can turn from the outer world of practi-
cal knowing and of theory with the ability to recognize their competence and
to meet the demands of both without confusing them. Interiority is the means
by which we can wax poetically about the sunset in the realm of practical and
aesthetic knowing, while at the same time being aware that, in the realm of
scientific theory, the sun does not set.
Interiority goes beyond practical knowing and theory, not by negating
them or leaving them behind, but by appreciating them and recognizing their
limitations. Questions of science can be settled by appealing to observable
data. However, in the world of interiority, data are not sensible or observable
but belong to the private world of intentional consciousness. In Coghlan’s

(2010b) view, interiority integrates the two positions articulated by Lewin,
cited earlier.
Interiority calls for a self-knowledge of how we see, think, judge, imagine,
remember, criticize, evaluate, conclude, and so on. Understanding the activity
of human understanding is the main characteristic of interiority. Awareness of
how understanding unfolds reveals how there are operative and immanent
norms in the unfolding of understanding, in how the mind works. By using the
general empirical method, we can attend to data, ask the relevant questions,
and think a matter through. We can know when we have reached reasonable
conclusions and can take responsibility for them. We can reflect and discover
our mistakes. We can inquire into the sources of our misunderstandings,
biases, inferences, prejudices, fears, anxieties, and false judgments, how we sub-
vert the inquiry process by ignoring awkward questions or not attending to all
the data or jumping to conclusions (Argyris et al., 1985; Coghlan, 2008).
Argyris (2004) commented that scholarship typically focuses on espoused
theory and cannot address theory in-use. Research cannot address how we
create the theory that we describe. The general empirical method provides a
frame and a method for doing this and for providing the basis of a science of
action. Interiority enables us to attend to the different realms of meaning
that coexist in a given situation and thereby give us insight into how we are
thinking and how we hold theory and practice together.
Hynes (2010), in her exploration of how different voices in the health-care
environment such as management, medicine, nursing, social work, and those
seeking care may be engaged, provides an interesting example of how interior-
ity might be utilized. In her study, the scientific realm of knowing found
expression in the medical perspective that emphasised a disease or
biomedical-driven interaction with patients on symptoms and treatment.
Alongside the scientific-medical realm of knowing was the practical knowing,
which emphasised illness and focused on the person’s experience of fear, anx-
iety, loss of autonomy, rebellion against the illness and its effects, and the
adjustment of personal and social life. These two narratives—the disease and
illness—are both real and known. It is through interiority that both may be
held and valued, and that someone may move consciously and deliberately
from one to the other on a moment-to-moment basis recognising the value of
both in a given context. Interiority is captured by the example of when a
doctor takes the time to sit with a patient and listen to the illness narrative,
while also knowing the scientific disease narrative and choosing not to work
from it at that particular moment.
Action Research from Inside and from Outside: Toward a Synthesis

Table 2 expresses the way in which the perspective of action research from
inside and from outside may be held together. The table attempts to ground
Table 2 The General Empirical Method and Action Research from Inside and from Outside
General Empirical Action Research from
Method Action Research from Inside Outside
Be attentive • To how data are being • To building collaborative
generated through intentionality, joint plans,
collaborative intentionality, shared action, and reflected
shared actions and reflected outcomes
outcomes as they occur in
the present tense
• To choice points during
progress
Be intelligent • About how events have • About what emerges from
yielded understanding of reflection in-action
what is happening—why • About how it is helping to
and how—and to what improve the situation/solve
effect the problem
• About how it is generating
shared learning
Be reasonable • About how the insights • About how the evidence fits
satisfy criteria of rigor in • About what actionable
collaborative reflection in- knowledge is being
action and generate cogenerated
actionable knowledge
Be responsible • Does anything follow? • What follows?
the engagement with action research in the invariant operations of human

knowing through the general empirical method. What underpins the table is
the core insight that action research is genuine research, that it can meet
requirements standards of rigorous inquiry within the realm of practical
knowing and has the potential for enriching both scientific and practical
knowing.
• Being attentive to experience for those outside action research involves

attending to how data are being generated through collaborative intention-
ality, shared actions, and reflected outcomes. For those inside action
research, attentiveness to collaborative intentionality, shared actions, and
reflected outcomes and to the choice points along the way are paramount.
• Being intelligent about insights for those outside action research involves
understanding how events have yield insights about what happened/is
happening and to what effect. Similarly, for those inside action research,
understanding how events yield insights about what happened/is happening
and to what effect, and the quality of collaboration are central.
• Being reasonable about verification of how understanding fits the evidence

for those outside action research requires affirmation of insights as being
grounded in satisfaction that the rigors of inquiry in collaborative action
and reflection have been met satisfactorily and that the actionable knowl-
edge has been cogenerated. Similarly, for those inside action research, the
task is to verify that the rigors of collaborative inquiry in-action and reflec-
tion have been met satisfactorily and that the actionable knowledge has
been cogenerated.
• For those outside action research, being responsible regarding further
action may not be an issue, while it is for those inside action research.
The application of the general empirical method is not a one-off summary or

retrospective activity but is continuous throughout. It expresses the realm of
interiority, where both theory and practical knowing are held together with
insight into how they are different and complementary and how each is
limited. It is through interiority that both can be critiqued and that the
perspectives of action research from without and from within can be held
together.
Conclusions
In this paper, I have presented action research as a worldview that finds
expression in collaborative inquiry and learning-in-action in order to cogen-
erate actionable knowledge. In the context of management and organization
studies, the potential of action research has not been fully realized as organiza-
tional scholarly research that both produce robust and actionable knowledge.
In exploring how action research is perceived from inside its own community
and from outside, I have presented the operations of human cognition and
emphasized how attention to how we know, rather than on what we know, by
means of a general empirical method, as a synthesis, whereby the two perspec-
tives on action research may be engaged.
The ontological and epistemological debates with their respective applica-
tions to methodology and methods continue and appropriately so. Pluralism
in philosophies and research orientations enhance our work and indeed keep
us in business. Hopefully this paper has contributed to the understanding
(from both inside and from outside) of how action research is genuinely sci-
entific in its emphasis on collaborative inquiry in-action and cogenerated
actionable knowledge. Indeed, in the view of the author, action research is at
the frontier of management and organizational research.
Acknowledgments
I acknowledge Marc Bonnet’s encouragement to write this paper; the invalu-
able feedback in its development from Mary Casey, Paul Coughlan, Bob Dick,
Rosalie Holian, Geralyn Hynes, Rami Shani, and the members of the action
research/cooperative inquiry doctoral seminar; and for the support and

editorial critique from Jim Walsh and Art Brief.
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The Academy of Management Annals

Vol. 5, No. 1, June 2011, 53–87

In the context of management and organization studies, the potential of action

ISSN 1941-6520 print/ISSN 1941-6067 online

Action research has an intimate relationship with collaborative manage-

Foundations of Action Research

Kurt Lewin’s Contribution

problems in social systems by focusing on a particular problem and seeking to

Lewin was a direct influence on the development of the Tavistock Institute

The Philosophy of Action Research

Accordingly, in their view, “there is no incontestable scheme of ontological and

judge in a practical pattern of knowing in order to move from one setting to

Cycles of Action and Reflection

(Heron, 1996). Drawing on Mezirow’s work on transformative learning,

Scientific and Practical Knowing in the Academy

research, which is characterized by explanatory knowledge generated in a dis-

Action Research and “Scientific” Inquiry

Table 1 Mode 1, Mode 2, and Action Research

action research’s solid grounding in Aristotelian praxis (Eikeland, 2008),

subject became neglected and excluded from management and organizational

maneuvering between political posturing of groups within an organization or

Contemporary Action Research

Development of Action Research Discourse

Action Research as a Family of Practices

• Action Learning: Action learning has traditionally been directed toward

• Cooperative Inquiry: Heron and Reason (2008, p. 366) define cooperative

This selection of seven “action modalities” provides a flavor of contemporary

Three Voices/Practices in Action Research as an Integrative Framework

focused on third-person researchers doing research on third persons and writ-

work in parallel learning systems produces significant learning for an organi-

Quality in Action Research

Ethics in Action Research

does. This is because action research is built on a voluntary partnership with

Toward a Synthesis: A General Empirical Method and Interiority

full potential of action research. As a bridge between the different applications

The Operations of Human Knowing

General Empirical Method

of human knowing may be derived (Coghlan, 2010a). This method is

demonstrate their engagement in the cycles of inquiry from experience to

but belong to the private world of intentional consciousness. In Coghlan’s

Action Research from Inside and from Outside: Toward a Synthesis

the engagement with action research in the invariant operations of human

• Being attentive to experience for those outside action research involves

• Being reasonable about verification of how understanding fits the evidence

The application of the general empirical method is not a one-off summary or

research/cooperative inquiry doctoral seminar; and for the support and

Brydon-Miller, M. (2008). Covenantal ethics and action research: Exploring a common

Eikeland, O. (2008). The ways of Aristotle, Aristotelian phronesis, Aristotelian philoso-

Heron, J. (1996). Co-operative inquiry. London: Sage.

Revans, R. (1998). ABC of action learning. London: Lemos & Crane.

B. Cooke & J. Woolfram-Cox (Eds.). Fundamentals of action research (Vol. II,

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