Action research: a new paradigm for research in production and operations management

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. Introduction -the debate on POM researchIt is a sign of the vitality of an academic discipline if it frequently debates its role, its boundaries, and its methods. However, such debates can, on occasion, amount almost to a subject having a "crisis of identity". This appears to have happened each time that production and operations management (POM) has revisited its research agenda and methods. There has been a clear dichotomy, implied by the use of such terms as "traditional" and "non-traditional" methods, or by the opposition of research using "techniques" and research which is "more managerial", or by comparison of what has been researched with what those reviewing the situation feel should have been researched.This debate on POM research is now very familiar, so we need here only to enumerate four main issues, which are:(1) POM research has been traditionally based on modelling techniques. Although business and government can point to many useful costsaving applications of such models, the wider relevance to most operations managers of the published results has been questioned. (2) The influential developments in practice over the last decade or so (JIT, TQM, benchmarking) have not come from POM academics but from practitioners and consultants. (3) Prescriptive solutions to well-defined problems have been pursued at the expense of broader contributions to theory. Partly for this reason, POM remains relatively poor in theoretical developments. (4) There was a need for POM research to address problem "messes", interrelated issues across organizations which were not well structured. In particular the need to do research which will be of practical value to managers, and which will be integrative rather than focused on a sub-system technique, has raised questions of research methods. One group of authors

Application of Project-Based Learning in the first year of an Industrial Engineering Program: lessons learned and challenges

“…It also has a participative character since it involves the research object in the action (Coughlan & Coghlan, 2002;Westbrook, 1995). Action research is also characterized by its constant cycles of intervention and reflection (Checkland, 1991;Lewin, 1946).…”

Managing and organising collaborative improvement: a system integrator perspective

“…Accordingly, managers, but also researchers, are encouraged to use and apply approaches, methods and techniques that address the needs and concerns of, on the one hand, applied action towards improvement and, on the other, creating knowledge and in-depth understanding of the process. An approach that addresses the two issues of taking action and creating knowledge is Action Research (AR) (Westbrook, 1995;Coughlan and Coghlan, 2002). Action research is a cyclical process of diagnosing, action planning, action taking, evaluating and specifying learning (Lau, 1999).…”

“…This research engaged in significant work as it explored the experience of learning-in-action and so an opportunity for AR (Coghlan et al, 2004). As stated by Westbrook (1995) a main contribution of action research to learning, which is not available to other methods, is that when participants involve themselves in change experiments, they engage in non-trivial learning, and they think and reflect seriously on what they are doing.…”

Cultivating collaborative improvement: an action learning approach

“…This approach enabled the researchers to interact with the EME while the companies engaged in the process of learning in action. As stated by Westbrook (1995) a main contribution of action research to learning, which is not available to other methods, is that when participants involve themselves in change experiments, they engage in non-trivial learning, and they think and reflect seriously on what they are doing.…”