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Article Excerpt
Abstract
In dialogical action research, the scientific researcher does not "speak science" or otherwise attempt to teach scientific theory to the real-world practitioner, but instead attempts to speak the language of the practitioner and accepts him as the expert on his organization and its problems. Recognizing the difficulty that a practitioner and a scientific researcher can have in communicating across the world of science and the world of practice, dialogical action research offers, as its centerpiece, reflective one-on-one dialogues between the practitioner and the scientific researcher, taking place periodically in a setting removed from the practitioner's organization. The dialogue itself serves as the interface between the world of science, marked by theoria and the scientific attitude, and the world of the practitioner, marked by praxis and the natural attitude of everyday life. The dialogue attempts to address knowledge heterogeneity, which refers to the different forms that knowledge takes in the world of science and the world of practice, and knowledge contextuality, which refers to the dependence of the meaning of knowledge, such as a scientific theory or professional expertise, on its context. In successive dialogues, the scientific researcher and the practitioner build a mutual understanding, including an understanding of the organization and its problems. The scientific researcher, based on one or more of the scientific theories in her discipline, formulates and suggests one or more actions for the practitioner to take in order to solve or remedy a problem in his organization. Dialogical action research recognizes that the practitioner's experience, expertise, and tacit knowledge, or praxis, largely shapes how he understands the suggested actions and appropriates them as his own. Upon returning to his organization, he takes one or more of the suggested actions, depending on his reading of the situation at hand. The reactions or responses of the problem to the actions or stimuli of the practitioner would embody, in the practitioner's eyes, success or failure in solving or remedying the problem and, in the scientific researcher's eyes, evidence confirming or disconfirming the theory on which the action was based. The scientific researcher may then suggest, based on her theories, additional actions, hence initiating another cycle of action and learning. To illustrate dialogical action research, this paper reconstructs some dialogues between an information systems researcher and a managing director at a European company called Omega Corporation.
Keywords: Action research, qualitative research, research methods, case studies, phenomenology
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Introduction
Our purpose in this paper is to propose, describe, and illustrate an approach to action research that we call dialogical action research or dialogical AR. (2) Dialogical AR, like all forms of action research, promises to advance scientific theory and, at the same time, to solve or remedy a "real world" problem. Unlike other forms of action research, dialogical AR takes notice of and addresses heterogeneity in the forms of knowledge held by the scientific researcher and the real-world practitioner, where the heterogeneity is related to what phenomenology would call "the scientific attitude" taken by the researcher and "the natural attitude of everyday life" taken by the practitioner. Dialogical AR compares the scientific researcher and the real-world practitioner to members of different ethnic groups, each with its own language and culture, where the knowledge held by one group is not necessarily better or worse than, but simply different from, the knowledge held by the other group.
Dialogical AR regards communication across the respective languages and cultures of the scientific researcher and the real-world practitioner as a problem requiring its own intervention. In dialogical AR, the intervention takes the form of one-on-one dialogues, taking place periodically in a setting removed from the practitioner's organization. In these one-on-one dialogues, the scientific researcher attempts to see the practitioner's world through the practitioner's eyes, accepts the practitioner as an equal and does not attempt to "educate" him in scientific theory, and speaks the practitioner's language when proposing additional actions (consistent with the scientific theories in her discipline) for the practitioner to take.
The subsequent reaction or response of the real-world problem to the action or stimulus of the practitioner would embody, in the practitioner's eyes, success or failure in solving or remedying the problem and, in the scientific researcher's eyes, evidence confirming or disconfirming the theory on which the action was based. Dialogical AR that is successful would entail improvements in the real-world problem, in the researcher's knowledge (scientific theory or theoria), and in the practitioner's knowledge (professional expertise or praxis). To illustrate dialogical AR, this paper reconstructs some dialogues between an information systems researcher and a managing director at a European company called Omega Corporation.
We also posit that dialogical AR can help to resolve the rigor versus relevance dilemma that has bedeviled not only IS research in recent years, but also other domains of business-school research and, indeed, the social sciences in general. Our proposal of dialogical AR will include three criteria by which the validity or goodness of the resulting action and resulting research may be evaluated.
Our proposed dialogical AR approach is an outgrowth of an earlier research effort conducted by Par Martensson, the first author of this paper. Upon Martensson's retrospective description of his research to Allen Lee, the second author of this paper, Lee realized that Martensson's calculated and research-based interventions into the daily affairs of the people at his field site constituted a form of action research. We have resisted the temptation to write this paper as if the approach of dialogical AR had already been established and as if Martensson's actions at Omega can now be presented as perfect examples of it. Instead, we will use Martensson's experience at Omega to suggest promising ways for us to formulate the new form of action research that we call dialogical AR.
The next section of this paper will examine action research in general. After that, we will describe dialogical AR, including the philosophy behind it. The subsequent sections of the paper will provide illustrations of dialogical AR at Omega Corporation.
Action Research
It is in the context of the rigor versus relevance dilemma that action research holds articular appeal. On one horn of the dilemma, university-based IS researchers have taken extremely rigorous approaches, both positivist and interpretive, so as to satisfy their own conceptions of the rigorous requirements of science; however, as is often true of basic research in any scientific discipline, the results (whether positivist or interpretive) have typically lacked relevance to professional practice. On the other horn of the dilemma, research that practitioners would deem relevant, such as the studies that consultants perform, can lack desirable qualities that scientific research typically delivers, such as validity and replicability.
IS researchers have been particularly mindful of this dilemma. For quite some time there has been a call for research with a better balance between rigor and relevance (e.g., Keen 1991; Robey and Markus 1998). Relevance, described in such terms as interesting, applicable, current and accessible (Benbasat and Zmud 1999), is said to be valued by IS researchers, whether they conduct relevant research themselves or not (Davenport and Markus 1999). A belief among IS researchers, both positivist and interpretive, is that it is possible and desirable to fulfill the dual directives of rigor and relevance simultaneously and thereby produce consumable academic research (i.e., rigorous academic research that practitioners find relevant and immediately useful for their managerial activities) (Robey and Markus 1998).
Emphasizing the empirical dimension of science that comes into play in both the development and the testing of a theory, action research strives to marry rigor to relevance by conducting scientific research in the setting of a real-world problem. In action research, what science would regard to be an experimental stimulus or experimental treatment simultaneously plays the role of an intervention or action aimed at remedying the real-world problem. In turn, how the real-world problem responds to the experimental stimulus can, in the best case, play the dual roles of (1) evidence confirming the scientific theory and (2) remedy mitigating the real-world problem. In simultaneously targeting a specific real-world problem and expanding scientific knowledge, action research can resolve the rigor-relevance dilemma (e.g., Avison et al. 1999). Kurt Lewin coined the term action research in the 1940s when he described a particular kind of research that combined the experimental approach of social science with programs of social action addressing social problems (Lewin 1946; Schwandt 1997).
The IS research literature contains excellent summaries and critical reviews of action research (Baskerville 1999; Baskerville and Wood-Harper 1998; Lau 1997). There is also literature more focused on advice to action researchers (e.g., Mumford 2001), as well as several recently published action research studies (e.g., Chiasson and Dexter 2001; Davison 2001). A key feature of IS action research is its reflective and iterative cycle, as illustrated by Baskerville (see Figure 1).
In Baskerville's action research cycle, the scientific researcher(s) and the practitioner(s) or client(s) work as members of a team, where they jointly (1) assess and diagnose the empirical situation in which they seek to intervene with an action (which would simultaneously be a remedy or problem-solving measure in the eyes of the practitioner and an experimental stimulus in the eyes of the researcher), (2) plan the intervening action, (3) take the action, (4) evaluate the action's results, (5) improve their understandings by identifying lessons learned from the experience of what the action elicited, and (6) in a fresh cycle of action research, once again assess and diagnose the empirical situation, and so forth. Because of the learning that the researcher and the practitioner each experiences, we may also describe the action research cycle as the learning cycle. Indeed, we can interpret Schon's (1983) conception of action research as emphasizing the learning dimension of action research.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Lee (1991, pp. 28-29) offers the following description of Schon's model of professional inquiry:
Schon asserts that the inquiry of practicing professionals consists of a pattern of five features (1987, pp. 27-28). The pattern may be summarized in the following way: First, there is a situation requiring attention and intervention from the professional. The understanding that the professional uses in this situation (Schon calls it "tacit understanding" and "knowing-in-action") is a particular type of expertise from which the professional's skilled actions or "moves" follow without any conscious deliberation. Second, in the course of applying actions to or "making moves" in the situation, the professional will occasionally, but inevitably, encounter a surprising response from the situation ("back talk")--a response that the professional's understanding did not, and could not, prepare her for. Third, the surprise leads to reflection, which is "at least in some measure conscious, although it need not occur in the medium of words." During the course of the "reflection-in-action," the professional turns her attention to the unexpected event ("What is this?") and the understanding that failed to anticipate it ("How have I been thinking about it?"). Fourth, with the situation still awaiting effective action, the professional continues her reflection by critically examining her understanding and restructuring it in an effort to account for the unexpected event. Last, the reflection "gives rise to on-the-spot experiment," in which the new understanding leads to new moves. "On-the-spot experiment may work, again in the sense of yielding intended results, or it may produce surprises that call for further reflection and experiment."
Schon's pattern of five features fits unproblematically in Baskerville's action research cycle. With regard to the practitioner's reflection and learning, Schon's fourth feature ("the professional continues her reflection by critically examining her understanding and restructuring it in an effort to account for the unexpected event") has its analogue in the evaluating step and specifying learning step of Baskerville's action research cycle. Dialogical AR implements both Schon's fourth feature and Baskerville's evaluating/ specifying learning steps in a particular way: The practitioner does not reflect or learn by himself; instead, it is through a one-on-one dialogue that the researcher purposely encourages and guides the practitioner to reflect and learn (apart from and in addition to her own reflection and learning as a researcher).
Several challenges face researchers attempting to do action research. One is to find a balance that makes improvements possible both in practice and in scientific knowledge. Another challenge is to deal with the time dimension in process-oriented research--specifically, observations of phenomena whose significant events unfold over a long period of time. A third challenge is to find a suitable form of action research, as there are many different types (see Avison et al. 1999) and still no tight definition on which there is a consensus (Checkland, 1991). In this paper, we focus on the third challenge. In the next section of this paper, we provide a detailed description of the form of action research that we are proposing: dialogical action research (or dialogical AR).
Dialogical Action Research
We describe dialogical AR by contrasting it to traditional consulting, calling attention to the features that distinguish it from other forms of action research, and exposing its philosophical underpinnings. Traditional consulting and dialogical AR take the form of their ideal types in the description that follows.
Dialogical Action Research Versus Traditional Consulting
Traditional consulting consists of a process in which (1) the consultant plays the role of the problem solver, (2) the consultant applies her already existing expertise to a real world problem in the setting of the corporation that has hired the consultant, and (3) the solution follows from the consultant's application of her expertise to the problem. The consultant can apply an expertise resulting from her experience and tacit knowledge garnered over her own lengthy career as a manager in the same or a similar corporation. The consultant need not possess an academic, university-based, or scientific expertise. The process can be linear and sequential: in the event that the feedback from the problem's responses to the consultant's attempts to remedy the corporate problem is unfavorable, the process does not require the consultant to learn (i.e., to go back to her expertise, reflect on it, and revise it) and, indeed, the process allows the consultant to reapply the same expertise repeatedly in the same and other corporations. Furthermore, in this picture of traditional consulting, the manager (and other members of the corporation) can be largely absent. To the extent that it must exist at all, the role of the manager can be passive, where the problem solving need not make use of the expertise of the manager (or any other member of the corporation) but only, at best, give him a role in the implementation of the consultant's expertise. Within this picture of the process of traditional consulting, there is room to include consultants who additionally possess a scientifically based expertise and managers who actively participate with the consultants in joint efforts to solve a problem in the managers' corporation; however,...
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