This paper presents an argument for an enrichment of action research methodology. To the current state of action research, we add a constructivist epistemological argument, as well as a crucial inspiration from some futures-oriented planning approaches. Within the domain of social/organizational research, the futures perspective implies that knowledge of the social/organizational world must be based upon images of desirable futures, so-called 'futures theories', not causal descriptions of a problematic present. Futures theories identify ends and means for individual and organizational development. They are generated jointly by the stakeholders of a system and the involved action researchers and are tested every time that the prescriptions for action contained in them are followed by a system's stakeholders.
We revisit the original meaning of turbulence in the socioecological tradition of organization studies and outline a perspective on strategy making grounded in that tradition. This entails a contrast of the socioecological perspective with the more well-known neoclassical perspective on strategy, based on their core decision premises and their different understandings of environmental turbulence. We argue that while some mainstream strategy approaches have taken important strides toward addressing advanced turbulence, many others remain tethered to the neoclassical origins of the strategy discipline and are insufficiently responsive to the new landscape of strategy that now characterizes many industries. This new landscape is construed as the 'hyper environment', in which positive feedback processes and emergent field effects produce high volatility. We use two case illustrations from the US healthcare sector to examine how neoclassical and socioecological perspectives contribute to strategizing in hyper environments. Implications for strategic management theory and practice flow from this analysis.
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