Action Research as a Meta-Methodology in the Management Field

Erro‐Garcés, Amaya; Alfaro, José A.

doi:10.1177/1609406920917489

Cited by 48 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(75 reference statements)

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“…Operations management is the field of management in which AR is mostly used (Erro-Garcés & Alfaro-Tanco, 2020). But as there are studies that highlight the relevance of AR in other fields of management, such as marketing (Kates & Robertson, 2004), human resources (Githens, 2015), information systems (Baskerville & Wood-Harper, 1996) or project management (Sankaran et al, 2021), some of the findings of this study can hopefully be valuable for other fields of management.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two recent papers highlights this feature of AR. On the one hand, Erro-Garcés and Alfaro-Tanco (2020, p. 8) concluded that “AR is a multidisciplinary approach that involves the use of various qualitative and quantitative methodologies/instruments and, consequently, enables the implementation of other quantitative and qualitative methodologies.” On the other hand, Sankaran et al (2021) used action research as a meta-methodology through the mix of case studies and surveys in order to investigate collaboration in project management research.…”

Section: How To Further Develop the Use Of Ar In Management: Rq3 Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Evaluation Framework for the Dual Contribution of Action Research: Opportunities and Challenges in the Field of Operations Management

Alfaro

Avella

Moscoso

et al. 2021

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

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The aim of this paper is to analyze the dual contribution of action research (AR) both for research as well as business practice, and how this methodology puts into practice a win-win collaboration between researchers and practitioners. In order to get this, we define three specific objectives: first, we develop an evaluation framework to assess the contribution of AR methodology for research and practitioners in the field of management. Second, we use this framework to evaluate the dual contribution of AR in the specific field of operations management (OM) through a systematic literature review, which allows to analyze a set of 62 papers. Third, we identify opportunities and challenges to enrich the dual contribution of AR studies in OM. Main findings show that the evaluation framework developed represents a tool that may be useful to assess the dual contribution of any study based on AR in the field of management. Besides, the analysis of AR in the field of OM highlights that most of the papers identified are focused on “theory building” (research) and “implementation” (practice) as there are studies that have used AR to develop contributions based on “theory testing” and “theory elaboration,” and also in terms of “diagnosis” and “proposals.” Finally, this study signals that, with the aim to assure research rigor and relevance of practitioners’ contribution of AR studies, it is relevant to give one step ahead and to develop actions such as the use of AR as a metamethodology, to highlight those relevant findings in the whole AR cycle and to develop tools and mechanisms that strengthen its dual contribution, in terms of both research and practice.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: How To Further Develop the Use Of Ar In Management: Rq3 Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation Framework for the Dual Contribution of Action Research: Opportunities and Challenges in the Field of Operations Management

Alfaro

Avella

Moscoso

et al. 2021

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

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“…Erro-Garcés and Alfaro-Tranco (2020, p. 8) found that “AR as a metamethodology is not closely linked to the specific problems but is related to the “context” where the AR is put into practice”. In our research AR was not the methodology we used in our research project, where we used case studies, but it was used to reflect on collaboration in project management research to “develop a holistic understanding” (p. 9) of how and why collaboration took place during our study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating collaboration in project management research: using action research as a meta-methodology

Sankaran

Müller

Drouin³

2020

IJMPB

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PurposeThe purpose of this article is to investigate collaboration in project management research. Although the literature shows an increase in collaboration between scientists and social scientists for various reasons, it is unclear how and why such collaboration takes place in project management research. The literature does show that co-authorship of articles published in project management journals is on the rise due to increased collaboration between researchers in developed countries and emerging economies as well as developing countries. However, no detailed study has been conducted to investigate how such collaboration occurs in practice in project management research. This article addresses this gap.Design/methodology/approachWe use a multi-method approach (action research as a meta-methodology and surveys) using qualitative data to reflect on a successful collaborative externally funded research project. At the end of the study, a survey was used to investigate how collaboration occurred among the 26 researchers involved, who were spread over nine countries to collect data on a sponsored research project led by the authors who were the principal investigators. We also compare our findings from the original project with findings from a second survey of a purposeful sample of ten project management researchers who have conducted or are conducting collaborative research in order to validate our findings.FindingsThrough this study, we were able to compare the reasons for increased collaboration in scientific research reported in the literature with what we learnt from our own experience in collaborating on a large-scale project across geographical boundaries and cultures around the world. We were also able to get some insights on enablers and barriers to collaboration from peers who have collaborated on project management research from the second survey. We found that, although some of the reasons explained in the literature were confirmed in our study (e.g. the reputation of lead researchers), some other reasons (e.g. the prestige of institutions) were not that important. The conclusions section of this article provides a more detailed comparison. We also found that using a project management approach would deliver better outcomes. The literature on scientific collaboration was divided on the value of a project management approach and preferred a combination of firmness and flexibility. We found that using action research as a meta-methodology to reflect on our research gave us further insights into why we did what we did at certain critical points in our research that moved us forward.Research limitations/implicationsOur study used two surveys with a limited number of researchers to compare what was found in the literature on reasons for collaboration in scientific research and how research outcomes were measured using citation rates. Conducting interviews or focused groups could have provided more nuanced findings. However, our findings did show that collaboration is beneficial to both experienced and early career researchers and helps them to publish in higher-ranked journals resulting in better visibility for the research. This is an interesting observation and merits further investigation. Theoretical implications: Findings from this research contribute to the broad literature on collaborative research in science and social science with a focus on practice-based fields such as project management where collaboration between academics and practitioners is becoming important.Practical implicationsThe study provides some insights into the reasons for processes used and benefits from collaboration in project management research. Our findings have also been validated with our peers. Thus, this study will be useful for setting up and managing collaborative research in project management.Social implicationsEffective collaboration in research can provide social value through mentoring of early career researchers.Originality/valueThis is the first detailed study of collaborative research in project management. It also proposes an action research model that can be used to retrospectively analyse long-term research projects to reflect upon and improve.

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“…Action research (Avella & Alfaro, 2014;Erro-Garcés & Alfaro-Tanco, 2020;Marin-Garcia et al, 2018;Mejia-Villa & Alfaro-Tanco, 2017) in a framework of recursive optimization-simulation for mathematical modeling based on discrete events (integer linear programming based on scenarios), with a focus on queuing theory and Markov chains (Belanger et al, 2020;Saez-Mas et al, 2018, 2020 will be proposed. We will develop the basis for the models with tools that are accessible to the heads of cooperating health centers or health systems.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Three preliminary phases are proposed in this work (definition of the problem, identification of the relevance of the topic and action planning) for an action research (Erro-Garcés & Alfaro-Tanco, 2020;Marin-Garcia et al, 2018) that will be carried out over the next few months. Within it, the development of a tool is proposed to support decisionmaking based on possible resource consumption scenarios in the health services, in light of an uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Operations Management at the service of health care management: Example of a proposal for action research to plan and schedule health resources in scenarios derived from the COVID-19 outbreak

Marín-García

García-Sabater

Ruiz³

et al. 2020

JIEM

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Purpose: With this work, we intend to promote research on the application of Operations Management tools in order to assist with decision-making in health crisis situations. During the first six weeks of the COVID-19 crisis in Spain, we have contacted a large number of hospital and health department managers in the Valencian Community and other regions of Spain. The result is that very few, at least when contact was made and at the time of writing this article, had consulted staff members in the Operations Management area for advice on this situation, and they are quite reluctant to do so. This is in spite of the fact that some medical sources also consider this crisis to be one of resources, not merely a medical crisis. Our opinion is that Operations Management can make a useful and valuable contribution to anticipate and improve the management of scarce resources, even in times of crisis. If those responsible for public health or heads of hospitals do not see this usefulness, then there is a huge gap between research and practice in Operations Management and what is transmitted to the healthcare sector. Our aim is to help reduce this gap.Design/methodology/approach: In the first part of the article, we will justify that this crisis, besides being a medical crisis, is also a crisis in terms of resources. We will briefly review some of the Operations Management tools that we believe are appropriate for managing this crisis. We will focus on those that we will illustrate in the second part of the article as a practical example of the action research protocol (only the action planning phase), in which we are currently involved.Findings: Due to the peculiarities of the COVID-19 epidemic, it is reasonable to think that the evolution and duration of each outbreak, and the way it is dealt with, will be different in each hospital and/or each health department. Anticipating the number of patients who will require care and forecasting the consumption of resources over time is complex, due to the long and variable incubation times and the uncontrolled evolution of the treatments needed by each patient. Furthermore, since the evolution of new patient admissions is not homogeneous, the forecasting of requirements is difficult. Providing real-time support and detecting with a certain degree of anticipation the potential levels of demand for health care will enable hospitals to define what stages of the contingency plan to apply and how to (re)assign the available resources in the most efficient way possible.Research limitations/implications: Hardly any current data are available, not only publicly, but also through public health ministries and managers; those that are available are not very reliable and come from studies with non-representative samples. For this reason, all forecasts must be taken with a note of caution, and in particular, designing review mechanisms every time a new set of updated reliable data becomes available (something that occurs on a weekly basis).Originality/value: In this work, we will show an example of a proposal for the practical application of Operations Management tools. Our proposal may be useful to hospital managers and public administrators in the healthcare sector (regional ministries or their equivalents). Each health department, hospital or hospital group will generate the aggregate data that facilitate the calculation of needs as input parameters for the model (available and occupied beds, daily admissions, mean lengths of stay in each healing phase and the percent of patients who evolve from one stage to another in the progression of the disease/healing process) and will be able to analyze how the system responds and evaluate different strategies or mitigating actions. These tools have been shown to be useful and reliable in manufacturing and service contexts that show a strong seasonal demand (both occasional and recurring) requiring a great deal of resources. We believe these situations are analogous to those faced by hospitals and the healthcare system in an epidemic like COVID-19. With them, we could facilitate the aggregate planning of resources for hospital administrators in order to provide them operational support during the COVID-19 contingency plan. However, the array of useful tools for this crisis is not limited to those that we will illustrate. Our intent is to encourage the Operations Management academic community to demonstrate how they contribute to the service of society in this COVID-19 epidemic, providing knowledge that can be extrapolated to other similar situations in the future that we may be unfortunate enough to experience.

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Action Research as a Meta-Methodology in the Management Field

Cited by 48 publications

References 58 publications

An Evaluation Framework for the Dual Contribution of Action Research: Opportunities and Challenges in the Field of Operations Management

An Evaluation Framework for the Dual Contribution of Action Research: Opportunities and Challenges in the Field of Operations Management

Investigating collaboration in project management research: using action research as a meta-methodology

Operations Management at the service of health care management: Example of a proposal for action research to plan and schedule health resources in scenarios derived from the COVID-19 outbreak

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