Action Research

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Politics
Time, n
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Irony i h
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A Radical View?
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Simple to Advanced
Capitalism:
C-M-C to M-C-M
Committed to
Instrumental Research:
R-M-R to M-R-M

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C
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S Hallelujah, Hallelujah
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I did my best, it wasn't much
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I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch
O I've told the truth, I didn't come all this way just to fool you
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R And even though, it all went wrong
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Y I'll stand right here before the Lord of Song
With nothing nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

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Research Rebels
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‘‘As thought is
conduct, the results
of thought inevitably
reflect the quality of
the kind of human
situation in which
they were obtained’
Clifford Geertz
‘ANTHROPOLOGICAL IRONY’....THE TENSION BETWEEN ATTITUDE AND PLATITUDE

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Sex in the (Steel) City
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“We expect you to be propagandists “On the one hand, you could describe
for a bunch of wanky consultants to my relationship with Richard as a
help them make more money ‘marriage’. ....or as ‘prostitution’. On
out of Steelmaking Oz’’ the other hand, I could just do it
. myself!”
Steelmaking Oz, OD Consultant, ‘Kick Off’
meeting for ARC Linkage Project Plant Manager, Steelmaking Oz, Presentation to
(now Program Director, Senior Executive Academic-Industry Collaboration Workshop,
Program, a leading Australian Business School) University of Melbourne

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“Look at the deep structures of
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power...they can swat you like a fly.”
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Project 1 Project 2
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“Permission is for collection .. “What is the payback on Richard? Every now and
and analysis by themes only. then, I see him walking past my office down to the
There is to be no validation or plant. An hour or so later, people walk up looking red
cross checking ... There is to be faced and angry. And I know he is doing his job!”
no engagement by the University
I saw the University as helping us to reflect on what we are
of the (Steelmaking Oz) political
doing—they are the expert reflectors. ... This is a difficult
system with respect to the
role for the University. I can see some of the University
continuation of the Leadership
people just squirming— you can see it in their face that they
Programme.”
want to intervene. They know something about what we are
doing but are not imparting the knowledge. This can piss
people off. They are with- holding what they know and not
“we expect you to be
helping. But it can also piss people off if they come in too
propagandists for a bunch of
early and tell us what is going on and what to do and not let
wanky consultants to help them
us wallow around for a while, and learn. This is what I see as
make more money
a major problem for the University. As you observe us, at
out of Steelmaking Oz’’
what point do you reflect the learning and feedback, and yet
not prostitute the learning or dirty the data. …We are the rats,
the factory is your laboratory. But when we are looking at the
role of the University, you are the rats. “

7. a project that provides benefit to both audiences – without ‘‘spinning out’’ to become an
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industrial ‘‘consultant’’ or a ‘‘traditional’’ extractive academic researcher.
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Action Research Spiral
Secondly, the issues that the action researcher has to address in playing this
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bricoleuring role will vary depending on the stage of the project and the academic
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and industry client ‘‘systems’’. If we employ a ‘‘social worlds’’ framework for exploring
these issues, as we have done elsewhere (Garrety and Badham, 2000), academics and
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industrial managers can be understood as inhabiting different social worlds, that
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possess and lobby for alternative views of existing and desirable project trajectories.
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While the actual trajectories are often complex amalgams of plans, actions and
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outcomes, with fuzzy time-lines, a rough periodisation helps us focus on the issues that
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emerge at various times. In the early stages, the main issue is ‘‘getting in’’ (Buchanan
Problems
c l a s h o f t i m e , p ro b l e m
solving, and outputs;
difficulties increase with
pressure on academics to get
industry funds, business wary
of fads and fashions wanting
delierables, and not clear
about ‘practice’ focus
Benefits
provides money & access,
b e t t e r t h a n s1. a k e o i l
Figure n
salesmen, nothing as
Action research spiral
theoretical as a good practice
- process and content

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The Reflective Bricoleur
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Public Performance Backstage Activity
University Managerialism Publication Vampires
Performance Management Dominant Grant Prostitutes
Ethical Risk Management ‘I am my CV’
Culture ‘Play the Game’
Corporate Managerialism
Machiavellian Cabals
‘Servants of Power’
University Liberalism & Potential of informal,
Subordinate
Formal ‘Work Arounds’ covert and messy
Corporate ‘Authenticity’ research to support
Culture
‘Leadership’ and critical action and
‘Learning’ ‘Leadership’ reflection

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Project Background:
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Any Port in a Storm
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UNIVERSITY
Engineering ‘Mobilisation of Bias’
ARC Grants and S.Oz funding
INSTITUTE
Port Kembla Link (Plant Managers)
HR Involvement (Defensive OD)
R&D T.A.C.
PROJECT
Evaluation of Leadership

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th The Guts of the Change
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GETTING IN
“This project… is not one that has been proposed for us by academics. It has been a truly joint
development… The University has worked with us to define an approach to evaluation in a way that
embodies the learning principles of the program itself.”
Requiring ARC ‘sign off’ and ‘success’: (used the ‘evaluation v storytelling’ tension - 4th generation
evaluation - balancing TAC v OD interests shifted, some alliance with OD,university uninterested,
academic credibility but personal distrust from head of OD)
Broader Restraints: politics of HR, positivist view of social science, restrictions on ‘research by
walking around’ (ethics etc.), problem of relevance with 2 year time-lag
GETTING ON “
Permission is for collection .. and analysis by themes only. There is to be no validation or cross
checking ... There is to be no engagement by the University of the (Steelmaking Oz) political system
with respect to the continuation of the Leadership Programme.”
Restrictions: Restricted ‘Evaluation’; Restricted ‘Access’; Restricted ‘Intervention’; Restricted Access:
‘Publication’ v ‘In There’; ‘Internal PR as Corporate Citizen’; ‘Freed Up’ to do other projects;
‘Restriction’ was itself data; Restricted data also good
GETTING OUT
‘the collection of stories on the program and the appreciative inquiry processes were of significant
value and interest to the business.’
Mobilise other parts of the ‘client system’, Good data and time for publication, autonomy of publication
depends on mobility of people, policy etc., protected website, minimal ‘feedback’ -

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Anthropological Irony:
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Tension between Platitudes & Attitudes
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The Flippant The Serious
quot;The next necessary thing...is neither
the construction of a universal
Esperanto-like culture...nor the
Clifford Geertzʼs internship as a
invention of some vast technology of
copyboy for The New York Post
human management. It is to enlarge
dissuaded him from becoming a
the possibility of intelligible discourse
newspaper man.
between people quite different from
one another in interest, outlook,
quot;It was fun but it wasn't practical,quot;
wealth, and power, and yet contained
So he switched to philosophy!
in a world where tumbled as they are
into endless connection, it is
increasingly difficult to get out of each
other's way.quot;
ʻInterview with Gary A. Olsonʼ, in Clifford
Geertz, C., 1988, Works and Lives: The
Geertz on Ethnography and Social
Anthropologist as Author
Construction, 1991

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The Creative Researcher:
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Not 5 Point Zero!
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Doesn’t Buy the Act and Colour Between the Lines

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Recommending the Mudpit!
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....not because career needs a grant, top tier journal article
or need travel money and an R.A. for dirty work BUT:
‘‘As thought is conduct, the results of thought
inevitably reflect the quality of the kind of
human situation in which they were obtained’
.....and this should be our focus, our end, our ‘thing-in-itself:
for without it we become mere functionaries - and we know
where that ends up! But ‘mind the gap’!