Action research : the participative researcher or experiential approach

Abstract

There is an increasing interest in action research in business and management studies. This is due to a number of drivers, an important one being that increasing numbers of degree candidates find it very convenient and advantageous to conduct their research in their experiential employer's organisation. This provides relative ease of access to interesting situations from which business and management lessons may be learned. In these circumstances, the action researcher is actually playing the role of a consultant to his/her experiential organisation. There are a variety of different approaches to experiential training and it is important for the action researcher to understand which of these are appropriate to action research. After closely examining the stages and components of action research, this paper focuses on some of the details of how the actual research work or experiential training could be performed by considering the methods outlined in a work entitled 21 st Century Process (200 I), Adams and McNicholas (2007), Van Aken (2004) and Baskerville & Pries-Heje (1999). The paper suggests how such research can be pursued in a rigorous manner and how the researcher can ensure that s/he realises the learning experience and thus the objectives of the research.