Page 116 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling
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inquiry. Lewin argued that to understand and to change actual social practices it is recommended to involve practitioners from the real world in the process development.
The AR is a framework for research with reference to the competition in “scientific concepts”, which drive the variety in directions and expressions in the day- to-day action research, implemented in praxis. Authors, supporting the implementation of AR in organisational and corporate settings, argue that it has reached the status of “scientifically” recognized research tradition. Opposing authors propose that there is an “incompatibility” of AR with the scientific foundation established and advocated by positivist epistemology (e.g. Argyris, 1982; Susman & Evered, 1978; Stone, 1982) Authors, supportive to AR (e.g. Elden and Chisholm, 1993; Aguinis, 1993) argue that discrepancies and differentiations of AR with the “positivist” traditions are overdone and artificially magnified by the varieties evolving from the AR practice. Since sociology, and in particular, the management and organisational studies are still relatively young and in development, the recognition and acceptance as “sciences” is not completed yet. In the scholarly community, there are still remnants of the “classical” position that exclusively “hard evidence” e.g. quantitative data can support scientific outcomes and is to be presented and advocated as “real science” (Avison, Baskerville & Myers, 2001).
Nowadays AR includes a range of widespread forms, not included in overall standards, qualifications and separations from the “good” to the “bad”, from the “scientific” to the “pseudo-scientific” in a questionable judgment. The absence of a generally supported definition of AR and the various variances developed and presented by authors from different directions and “schools”, give limited evidence, persistence and a strong voice to support the unconditional acceptance of AR to be a “full-fledge” scientific methodology.
For a working definition of AR, the approach of Altrichter, Feldman, Posch, and Somekh (2008, p. 6.) is taken into consideration, according to which:
“Action Research is about people reflecting upon and improving their own practice by tightly inter-linking their reflection and action and making their experiences public to other people concerned by and interested in the respective practice”.
The definition, proposed by Kemmis et al. (2013 p. 5) is more detailed and explorative:
“Action research is a form of collective, self-reflective inquiry that participants in social situations undertake to improve: (i) the rationality and justice of their own
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