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This chapter describes the change efforts and action research projects at a Dutch multinational which, over a period of 25 years, produced in one of its businesses a zigzag path toward collaborative leadership dynamics at the horizontal and vertical interfaces. The chapter also identifies the learning mechanisms that helped achieve this transformation. Changing the patterns at the vertical interfaces proved to be a most tricky, complex, and confusing operation. The data show that organizations need hierarchical interfaces between levels, but are hindered by the hierarchical leadership dynamics at these interfaces. The data furthermore show that competitive performance requires more than redesigning horizontal interfaces. A business can only respond with speed and flexibility to threats and opportunities in the external environment when the leadership dynamics at agility-critical vertical interfaces are also changed.

To discuss political entrepreneurship as a capability to enable durable insider action research projects.

The two authors utilize auto‐ethnographic methods in order to evaluate and draw inferences from their own actions as insider action researchers. The paper draws on action research theory and theories on political entrepreneurship.

Political entrepreneurship is an important factor behind success or failure in action research projects, but has, despite this, been scarcely discussed in the action research literature. Findings indicate that a political entrepreneurship repertoire consisting of capabilities to find red‐hot issues for one's research, to use the inside of the organization in the research efforts, to use and diffuse the research results, and, finally, to work on the positioning of one's relational platform.

The study is based upon case studies in two organizations. Its implications may be further developed through studies in a wider array of settings.

The study provides valuable knowledge for organizations intending to participate in (insider) action research as well as for (insider) action researchers.

Political entrepreneurship in action research is scarcely discussed in action research theory – and hence the paper addresses an important research gap. Moreover, the presented implications have a certain practical value for organizations and researchers.

Since 1973, the pharmacy operations division of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program (KPMCP) has used long-term action research programs as the principal method for orchestrating change. This chapter covers the evolution of action research theory within large, complex organizations, with particular attention to health care organizations. Four case examples from KPMCP are discussed in depth and mapped to the recently advanced Roth model of insider action research. This model considers external and internal business context, the perceived need to create new organizational capabilities, as well as insider action research theory and learning mechanisms used in change programs. Issues posed by the Roth model are explored, and new theory is advanced regarding the need for a long-term perspective, the advantages and difficulties posed when managers act as insider action researchers, and the quality of data gathering that takes place during insider action research change programs.

Within the developing exploration of the role of the scholar-practitioner, the situation in which scholar-practitioners engage in the scholarship of practice in their own organizational systems has not received much attention. This chapter adopts the position that scholar-practitioners are not merely practitioners who do research but rather that they integrate scholarship in their practice and generate actionable knowledge, that is, knowledge that is robust for scholars and actionable for practitioners. This chapter explores the phenomenon of scholar-practitioners engaging in the scholarship of practice in their own organizational systems as inside change agents. It discusses how scholar-practitioners engage in inquiry-in-action in first-, second-, and third-person modes of inquiry and practice in the present tense and provides a methodology and methods for such engagement that it be rigorous, reflective, and relevant.

Within the context of the changing nature of research and of universities, insider action research provides a particular expression of action research that poses considerable challenges to those engaging in it. The purpose of this article is to address the challenges of insider action research.

The paper draws on such research undertaken in Sweden.

Insider action researchers need to confront the issues pertaining to preunderstanding, role duality and organizational politics. Attention to experience, understanding and judgement which leads to action, provides a methodology through which they can affirm what and how they know. They need to do so in a critical realist approach which challenges them to transcend their own subjectivity through the quality of how they are attentive to the data, intelligent in their understanding, reasonable in their judgements and responsible in their actions. Such transcendence provides the criteria for a rigorous epistemology and quality action research.

This paper brings the work of Bernard Lonergan to the field of action research and insider action research in particular and addresses in concrete terms how his critical realist approach may be actualized in practice by those engaging in insider action research.

The purpose of the paper is to explore why it was considered useful and how it was possible to conduct a participatory action research (PAR) in a health‐care service experiencing conflictual dynamics (which affected service quality) and on the challenges this entailed. Specific attention is given to the action researchers’ role.

A methodological reflection is developed starting from theoretical considerations and a case study. In response to the committee group's request concerning the need to better understand and manage the criticalities and conflict episodes faced by a service for sufferers of Alzheimer's disease, the authors proposed and realized a PAR. The PAR is described considering: the process, some outcomes, the functions and actions performed by the action researchers, and the dilemmas and challenges they faced.

The case study revealed it was fundamental for the action researchers to perform a constant mediating function when conducting a PAR in an organization experiencing conflictual dynamics. How this function was carried out is described. Furthermore, the dilemmas, challenges and risks faced by the action researchers in proposing this PAR are addressed.

In this PAR the main limitations and open issues concern both the possibility of assessing outcomes and processes in a medium to long time frame and the cyclical turnover of patients and caregivers, raising the question of legacy.

In analyzing a specific case, the authors focus upon both the indicators that allowed them to assess usefulness, feasibility and sustainability of the PAR in a conflictual context and the functions assumed, actions realized, and challenges faced by the action researchers.

In the context of tourism and hospitality studies, the potential of action research for generating robust actionable knowledge has not been yet realized. This chapter provides an account of the theory and practice of action research, demonstrates how it may be designed and implemented, and how it may generate actionable knowledge. It provides illustrative examples and shows how this research approach aligns effectively with some of the themes that currently engage the attention of researchers in the fields of tourism and hospitality such as process improvement, sustainability, and community-based tourism development. Thus, it makes a case for more widespread use of action research in the field.

Action research has been described as the basic model — underlying most organisation development activities. It is, however, a process which is not too well understood but which apparently offers some promise of effectively applying behavioural science findings to organisational problems whilst at the same time adding to social science knowledge. In this article the history and development of action research is considered; action research is then defined by contrasting and comparing it with pure and applied research and consultancy; finally through an examination of some cases its advantages and limitations in practice are explored.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the competence in use when working with interactive research, which is a continuation and elaboration of action research.

A qualitative research approach was adopted for the study. The main body of empirical material in this paper is based on two sources of data – a survey comprising open-ended questions, followed by a series of focus group interviews. The respondents were researchers with varying degrees of experience in using interactive research.

The findings provide illustrations of what characterises interactive research as work and identify an additional set of activities that go beyond traditional research activities. Some activities are relatively easy to describe, while others exist in the gaps between other activities – e.g. boundary spanning – and are harder to explicitly define in terms of implications for the involved researchers’ competence. The work activities reaching beyond the traditional research boundaries are implicit and are not a common shared practice. From a competence point of view, this implies that the competence in use for these implicit tasks of interactive research becomes individually carried. Based on these findings, a number of individual aspects of what constitutes competence in use are suggested.

In future studies, it would be valuable to use a mixed-method approach that also includes longitudinal observations of the actual work of conducting interactive research.

The findings and suggestions for how to understand the competence of interactive researchers can be used as guidance for training in research education.

This study contributes to previous research by describing important requirements and critical elements of competence in use when conducting interactive research.

This paper draws on the metaphor of “magic” to explore the role of dialogue conferences and subsequent activities as a tool for organizational development and change. The metaphor is introduced and elaborated as a means of allowing critical reflection on action research projects.

In the empirical setting of a change project in a regional health authority in Sweden, researchers designed and facilitated a development coalition for introducing integrated care. This required an action research intervention that supported the establishment of new relationships and developmental practices across both organizational and professional boundaries.

The unfolding of developmental processes set in train by dialogue conferences are shown as being a dynamic process of magic underpinned by the principles of democratic dialogue.

By drawing attention to the three keywords of development, participation and dialogue three sites have been identified for critical reflection and reflexivity in action research. Magic is argued as an activity wherein the seemingly impossible is made to happen in these areas; equally it can be an activity of simple illusion whereby appearance is at odds with reality.