Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization

Front Cover
SAGE Publications, Nov 25, 2009 - Reference - 170 pages
Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization is the essential resource for anyone embarking on a research project in their own organization or as part of a work placement programme whether in business, healthcare, government, education, social work or third sector organizations.

The authors provide an easy-to-follow, hands-on guide to every aspect of conducting an action research project and have added in the Third Edition:

- more on politics and ethics to help researchers negotiate gaining access and permission, and building and maintaining support from peers and relevant subsystems within an organization

- more on writing an action research dissertation, and treatment of sensitive issues such as: giving feedback to one's superiors and peers, disseminating the research to the wider community, and handling interpretations or outcomes which may be perceived negatively by the organization involved.

- more case examples and reflective exercises taken from a wide variety of organizational settings to aid students and researchers whatever their background discipline.

 

Contents

1 Introducing Action Research
3
2 Learning in Action
18
3 Understanding Action Research
35
Part II Implementation
51
4 Framing and Selecting Your Insider Project
53
5 Designing and Implementing Your Action Research Project
64
6 Interlevel Dynamics in Insider Action Research
80
7 Using Frameworks to Study Organizations in Action
92
9 Preunderstanding Role Duality and Access
114
10 Managing Organizational Politics and Ethics
126
11 Writing Your Insider Action Research Dissertation
141
12 In Conclusion
152
References
156
Author Index
167
Subject Index
169
Copyright

8 Researching Your Own Organization
101

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About the author (2009)

David Coghlan is Professor of Organization Development at the School of Business, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and is a Fellow of the College. He specializes organization development and action research and participates actively in the both communities internationally. He has published over 80 articles and book chapters. Recent co-authored books include: Collaborative Strategic Improvement through Network Action Learning (Edward Elgar, 2011), Organization Change and Strategy (Routledge, 2006), and co-editor of Managers Learning in Action, (Routledge, 2004). He is co-editor (with Mary Brydon-Miller) of the Encyclopedia of Action Research and of the 4 volume set, Fundamentals of Organization Development (Sage, 2010). He is a member of the editorial advisory board of several journals, including Action Research, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Action Learning: Research and Practice, Systemic Practice and Action Research and OD Practitioner. He is currently co-editing (with Rami Shani) a 4 volume set, Action Research in Business andManagement (Sage, 2015). Teresa Brannick (1950-2012) was a lecturer in the business research programme at the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business at University College, Dublin, Ireland. Her undergraduate degree was in mathematics, her masters in sociology and her Ph.D. in marketing research. She had been a practising researcher for over thirty years and had published over thirty research papers in such diverse fields as epidemiology, public policy, industrial relations and marketing. She was the editor-in-chief of Irish Journal of Management and a Fellow of the Irish Academy of Management. She was co-editor of Business Research Methods: Theories, Techniques and Sources (Oak Tree Press: Dublin, 1997).

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