The discussion on the action research process itself is central. OD researchers work to help
the organizational members to understand what is going on and to take action based on that
understanding (Coghlan 2009). Through their interventions, both those to help take action and
those to help generate knowledge, OD researchers employ the general empirical method in
engaging with organizational members, whether as clients or fellow organizational colleagues.
They do this to draw out their clients’ or colleagues’ experience, their insights, their judgments
and their actions in the settings where things change as a consequence of intervention, and
where perceptions and meanings shift as people interact and enact strategies and actions for
change. The focus is firmly on acts of knowing and doing in the present tense as the project
unfolds. Hence, the discussion needs to show the integrity between the purpose of the research
and action, how the context is assessed, the quality of the relationships whereby how the
participants have engaged in cycles of action and reflection on a real-life issue, and how the
outcomes are workable and that they generate actionable knowledge.
Discussion
Returning to Shani and Pasmore’s (1985) definition of action research at the outset of this
paper, quality action research may be judged in terms of the four factors from that definition.
These factors are: how the context is assessed and captured; the quality of collaborative
relationships between researchers and members of the system; the quality of the action
research process itself as cycles of action and reflection are enacted and simultaneously
capturing the issues that emerge while carrying out the research in the present tense, and;
that the dual outcomes reflect some level of sustainability (human, social, economic and
ecological) and the development of self-help and competencies out of the action and the
creation of practical knowing from the inquiry. While an action research intervention may
not be replicable as the exigencies of a particular situation may not always be repeated, the
learning needs to be transferable and the process may be transportable to other situations.
This framework is compatible with other frameworks such as that of Stebbins and Snow
(1982) and Eden and Huxham (2006). Pasmore and Friedlander’s (1982) landmark account
of building employee involvement in problem solving around personal injuries demonstrates
the process of framing the context, describing the processes of interaction, how data
was gathered and analysed and what the outcomes were. While this account predates Shani
and Pasmore’s (1985) consolidation of the processes of action research into the framework
introduced in this article, the framework can be gleamed as tacitly underpinning quality
action research work. In a parallel vein, the framework is explicitly used in by Cirella et al.
(2012) in collaborative management research context. It also provides a structure for dealing
with the challenges of writing about action research and of integrating the story into a
rigorous reflection (Hildrum and Strand 2007).
As Coghlan and Shani (2013) explore, this involves discussing how these four factors
are engaged rigorously, reflectively and relevantly. They discuss, for example that if rigor
is viewed as upholding the standards of scientific proof in assessing the impact of a specific
organizational issue on performance, then a discussion of how a dialogical process that is
embedded in scientifically generated data, data analysis and data interpretation may be
rigorous. Also, if reflection is viewed as the process of jointly and collectively creating new
insights and theories by referring to the related work of others, the discussion needs to
discuss how the contextual factors might impact on the quality of reflection as well as
about the design choices of the dialogical process that can facilitate creating the most
appropriate context for that reflection.