Action Research in Organizations

Jørgen Bloch-Poulsen, Ph.d., senior lecturer at Copenhagen University, Denmark Marianne Kristiansen, Ph.d., professor emerita at Aalborg University/Copenhagen, Denmark

lt;b>Preface by Werner Fricke

Foreword

Introduction

Part I: Participation in organizational changes

Chapter 1 An example of tensions and dilemmas in organizational action research

'On the infinitely large in the infinitely small' in Team Product Support

What and why

1.Tensions between participation as involvement and/ or as co-determination

2.Tensions, positionings and the exercising of power

3.Experimental change of communication patterns in Team Product Support

4.Tensions between the smaller project context and larger organizational, societal and global agendas

5.Tensions in the management of organizational difference through dissensus

Reflections

Chapter 2 A historical view of employee participation: four understandings

What and why

1. Participation in working life: a mixed bag

2. Participation as industrial democracy

3. Two phases of participation as individualized involvement

4. Participation as autonomy

5. Some conclusions

Reflections

Part II: An empathetic-critical view of participation in organizational action research in the twentieth century- From self-managing groups to co-generation of practical and theoretical change?

Chapter 3 Change-oriented social science: Early organizational action research in the USA in the 1940s

What and why

1.Aims and perspectives

2.The Harwood studies: Action research at Harwood

3.The Harwood Experiments

4.Discussion of Lewin's view of participation

5.Discussion of Lewin's theory of change

6.Lewin's view of action research: A philosophy of science perspective

7.Some conclusions

Reflections

Chapter 4 The origin of socio-technical systems thinking- Studies at British coal mines in the 1950s

What and why

1.Introduction and aims

2.The Tavistock group's experiences before, during and after the Second World War

3.Initial studies at the Haighmoor mine

4.Follow-up studies in the Durham collieries

5.The new paradigm

6.Socially engaged accompanying research: between research 'on' and research 'with'

7.Conclusion

Reflections

Chapter 5 Industrial democracy: Experiments in Norway in the 1960s

What and why

1.Introduction

2.Background: the democratic endeavour

3.Analysis of two field studies

4.A democratic paradox?

5.Discussion of NIDP as applied research

6.ConclusionsReflections

Chapter 6 Democratic dialogues-Dialogue conferences in Norway and Sweden in the 1980s