Insider Action Research Projects

Abstract

Managers are increasingly undertaking action research projects in their own organizations. Action research involves opportunistic planned interventions in real time situations and a study of those interventions as they occur, which in turn informs further interventions. Insider action research has its own dynamics, which distinguish it from an external action researcher approach. The manager-researchers are already immersed in the organization and have a preunderstanding from being an actor in the processes being studied. Challenges facing such manager-researchers are that they need to combine their action research role with their regular organizational roles and this role duality can create the potential for role ambiguity and conflict. They need to manage the political dynamics, which involves balancing the organization's formal justification of what it wants in the project with their own tactical personal justification for the project. Manager-researchers' preunderstanding, organizational role and ability to manage organizational politics play an important role in the political process of framing and selecting their action research project. In order that the action research project contribute to the organization's learning, the manager-action researcher engages in interlevel processes engaging individuals, teams, the inter-departmental group and the organization in processes of learning and change. Consideration of these challenges enables manager-action researchers to grasp the opportunities such research projects afford for personal learning, organizational learning and contribution to knowledge.