Conducting action research: high risk and high reward in theory and practice

INTRODUCTION Action research is a method that solves immediate practical problems while expanding social scientific knowledge. Based on collaboration between researchers and research subjects, it is a cyclical process that builds learning about change into a given social system (Hult & Lennung, 1980). On the surface, the discipline of information systems (IS) would seem to be a very appropriate field for the use of action research methods. IS is a highly applied field, almost vocational in nature (Banville & Landry, 1989). Action research methods are highly clinical and place IS researchers in a “helping-role” within the organizations being studied (cf. Schein, 1987, p.11). It should not be surprising that action research has been characterized as the “touchstone of most good organizational development practice” and that it “remains the primary methodology for the practice of organizational development” (Van Eynde & Bledsoe, 1990, p. 27). Action research merges research and praxis, thus producing relevant research findings.