Action Research

Volume 1(2): 153164: 038146[1476-7503(200310)1:2]

Copyright 2003 SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks CA, New Delhi
www.sagepublications.co.uk

SHAPING
THE
FUTURE

New forms of knowledge

production and the role of
action research
Bjrn Gustavsen
Work Research Institute, Oslo

ABSTRACT
In efforts to combine theory and practice, action research confronts a challenge that pertains to all kinds of research. It is,
consequently, a challenge that is subject to much discussion,
not least in fields like epistemology. These discussions provide
valuable points and insights but they cannot be converted
directly into research positions, which also demand consideration of practical issues. When research sets out to learn from
practices a new challenge emerges: how is this learning to take
place? Can the single researcher understand the world or is there
a need for social relationships between (many) actors to develop
this learning? This contribution discusses the theory-practice
challenge and the need for new forms of social relationships
within the research community itself.

KEY WORDS

action research

critical theory

networking

phenomenology

pragmatism

social capital

153
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154 Action Research 1(2)

Introduction
In 1997, the political authorities in Sweden introduced development as a third
task for the universities and other institutions of higher learning, in addition
to research and education (Brulin, 2001). The third task has given rise to several
discussions, to some extent of a controversial nature: first, concerning the legitimacy of the task itself; second, if the task is found legitimate, how to live up to it.
In this context action research has made its appearance, or rather, reappearance,
since from the 1960s there have been several projects and programmes that
correspond to the idea of action research. Action research, as it emerges as a part
of the history of social research, is not, however, automatically embraced by all
as the most adequate response. Partly it is seen by many conventional academics
as an esoteric kind of research, which generally has difficulty gaining academic
acceptance. Even those who may look more favourably upon action research,
often find it difficult to relate to. Actual, ongoing projects, be they in Sweden or
elsewhere, seem strongly linked to their local contexts and, consequently, to show
a lot of variation. What, then, does action research really mean? What should the
person who would like to join the ranks of action researchers actually do?
The purpose of this contribution is not to try to answer the basic questions.
The purpose is more modest: to look at the way in which the questions are
approached. When we want to develop an answer to a question, how do we set
about doing it? Do we, for instance, try to find one single project that is thought
to represent all good things about action research or do we look at a number of
projects simultaneously, to compare, to add, or to learn from differences?
Throughout most of its history action research has been project-bound.
Single cases have tended to form the focal points for most of the discussions. Each
researcher has had the expectation that the project that I am doing just now is the
project that will answer, if not all questions, at least the most burning ones. Each
project has tended to be its own island of understanding, meaning and action.
Against this there have been some broader programmes where projects have been
grouped, or clustered, in such a way that interaction between projects has been
possible (Gustavsen, 1992, 2001). Even these, however, have been linked to
contexts that are not particularly broad when seen in a global perspective.
The emergence of the Handbook of Action Research (Reason and Bradbury, 2001) has changed this picture in the sense that for the first time there is a
broad overview available. This overview prepares the ground for a discourse
where the relationships between action research projects are placed in focus.
This is, in itself, a many-sided issue. Some of the issues have been dealt with
by this contributor in other contexts; in particular the use of a programatic
approach (Gustavsen, 1992, 2001, 2003). This topic will be bypassed here in
favour of two others. First I will touch, however, briefly upon the theorypractice problem in general as it has appeared in theory of science, partly to

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remind ourselves that this is a general problem that has to be confronted by all
kinds of research, partly to point out that we cannot deal with operational
research challenges purely by developing theoretical arguments. Second, I will
discuss a theme that is seldom commented on in research: the broader social relationships among researchers. If we want to develop arguments based on linking
experience from a broad range of projects, there is a need for certain kinds of
social relationships between the researchers who work in the different projects.

Theory and practice

Through performing not only research but also action, action research has always
existed in a field of tension between theory and practice. In its most pointed form
the tension amounts to the thesis that if research becomes involved in practical
action the ability to perform good research is lost. For those who, this notwithstanding, have wanted to combine research and action, the question has been to
what extent this tension can be overcome: is it possible to find ways in which
theory and practice can be combined without the ability to perform good research
being lost?
A number of reasons from theory of science can be mobilized in this context. Here only a very brief overview of some of the main positions can be given.
First, it is important to note that the distinction between theory and practice in its most radical form is in itself a historical product. Starting with
Descartes, the distinction has been linked to the specific conditions prevailing in
17th-century Europe, in particular a growth in the size and strength of the
bourgeois class. This class did, it is often argued, not only launch a struggle for
political and economic hegemony, but also one for new forms of reason. The core
thrust of this new form was to decouple reason from its previous links to religion,
as in the Middle Ages, or to practice, as during the Renaissance, and make it
stand on its own feet. However, others, such as Toulmin (1990), have pointed less
at bourgeois reason than at bourgeois unreason, in particular in the form of all
the conflicts and wars that characterized the 17th century. The 30-years war, in
particular, implied a breakdown of relationships, organization and stability that
may have been surpassed only during the first half of the 20th century. Reason
could survive only in the mind, not in human practices.
This effort to decouple mind from matter, theory from practice, thought
from action, subject from object did not go unchallenged. One of the most
famous of all contributions to philosophy, Kants Critique of Pure Reason, is,
as the title indicates, a critique of the idea of a reason that is completely selfsufficient and independent of any condition outside itself.
Of more significance to research was, perhaps, the position developed by
Kierkegaard, since it gave rise to phenomenology, and eventually also to more

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specific research strategies. In its simplest form, the question raised by Kierkegaard is: do we understand the world better through the eyes of theory? Having
read Hegel, Kierkegaard found reason to voice skepticism. Theory or other
forms of conceptual schemes that are thought in some way or other to exist and
be adopted prior to a confrontation with reality can act as filters and screening
mechanisms that steer us in a wrong direction as much as in a right. The point is
to understand the world as it is by confronting it directly; by trying to grasp the
phenomena as they really are.
A somewhat different approach to the theory-practice problem was developed by the pragmatists. The ultimate purpose of any theory is to enable us to do
something better in the real world (Peirce, 19311958; see also Reason, 2003, on
the modern pragmatist Richard Rorty). The point is not to what extent the theory
resembles the world but to what extent it helps us perform rational action. A
theory can be anything, from a large text to a short formula; the point is that it
identifies action to be performed and levers to be pulled if we want to do something about reality.
What eventually came to be called critical theory has its roots in the 19th
century as well, in particular with Marx. Of the various efforts to convert Marx
into specific research positions it is perhaps those that were mediated by the
Frankfurt school that came to exert most influence in the period after the second
World War (Horkheimer, 1982). In brief, the core point here is that the world
can be understood only if it is understood that it could have been different. No
portrait of the world as it is will tell us much since it makes the world appear as
a metaphysical destiny and consequently hides the reasons why it is as it is.
Instead, whatever is must be seen against a background of what might have been.
The role of theory, then, is not only to help us make a picture of the world as it
is, but also and of greater importance actually to make us see how the world
could have been. Understanding is consequently something that plays itself out
between three reference points: theory, practices as they are and practices as they
could have been.

Research responses
The research positions to emerge out of these schools of thought are many and
varied, in particular since the relationship between theory on a philosophical level
and actual research practices is not a simple one. With this reservation, one may
point at some lines between the phenomenology of Kierkegaard and positions
such as anthropological field studies, participant observer methodologies, the
Chicago school (Whyte, 1955), the idea of thick descriptions (Geertz, 1983) and
the kind of action research called ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967). Of interest to note is that these forms of research, when they emerged, played important

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roles, developed new insights and rightfully attracted a lot of attention. It is also
clear that they are, if not gone, no longer core thrusts in contemporary research
activities. They provide inspiration, questions and concerns, but it is obvious that
another detailed study of the mores of a Pacific tribe will hardly exert the influence that the studies of Mead, Malinowski and other students of the natives as
they really are once had.
In some ways, the research positions inspired by pragmatism may be more
strongly present in the contemporary landscape. There are links between pragmatism and the idea of the experiment in the laboratory and in the field as
well as between pragmatism and practice-oriented pedagogics, action learning
and similar. However, there has been no simple solution to how to give ideas of
this kind expression in research terms. If we see at least some of the main streams
of Western action research as related to pragmatism, we also need to face the
point made by Greenwood (2002), that even though action research may have
enjoyed advances and even some elements of prestige in some contexts, the overall story of action research is far from one of linear success.
Critical theory has always had an ambivalent relationship to actual
research positions. There is a certain degree of skepticism running through most
of critical theory towards the kind of commitment to and contacts with society
necessary to perform research. The most famous effort of this school to enter the
field of empirical research, the authoritarian personality studies (Adorno,
Brunswick, Levinson & Sanford 1950), gave rise to a major debate carried on in
the form of the so-called positivist dispute in German sociology (Adorno, Albert,
Dahrendorf, Habermas, Pilot & Popper, 1976). In the relationship between critical theory and actual research much remained unsolved. Instead, critical
theory in the early Frankfurt school version reached its peak in the year 1968,
when students all over the world tried to put into practice the idea that we need
to understand how the world should be, before it is possible to understand how
it actually is.
However briefly and unjustly they have been presented here, certain points
emerge from these schools of thought and their various fates.
First, there is no simple answer to the theory-practice problem. None of the
perspectives on the relationship between theory and practice inherent in these
schools are particularly easy to convert into research positions. Action research,
with its claim to be able to transcend this division, consequently faces some major
challenges. But those who criticize action research on the basis of the Cartesian
argument have hardly considered the critique against this argument. The proponents of purely descriptive-analytic research maintain their position simply by
overlooking this critique rather than responding to it.
However, the point that all the research positions to which these schools of
thought have given rise seem to have followed a rise-and-fall curve, indicates that
positions on a philosophical level cannot provide full answers to the challenges of

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operative research. Topics like ontology and epistemology can identify some of
the challenges that have to be met and provide some ideas on how to meet them,
but they are not the same as specific research positions. Nor can we meet the challenges of today simply by recirculating, say, the thick descriptions of Geertz or the
action research of Lewin and associates (Lewin, 1943). There is no Golden Age
that can be recaptured. Research positions must be formed to meet the specific
conditions under which research is to operate.

The new production of knowledge

What, then, are the conditions and requirements of today? Let us turn to the
analysis (Gibbons, Limoges, Nowotny, Schwartzmann, Scott & Trow, 1994). His
point of departure is that research is becoming more and more interwoven with
society. The boundaries are changing and so are the transactions across the
boundaries. Research acts, for instance, more and more within the framework of
substantial innovation systems, often with a number of other actors in dense
interaction but with different roles. Nor is research linked only to thinking about
the outcome; research can contribute to design, production, marketing and more.
When research becomes more and more strongly interwoven with other actors it
means, to an increasing degree, to operate in contexts defined by others. These
contexts are, furthermore, not identical. There is hardly any area within modern
society where research is not present. This means that the themes, or objects,
differ across a very broad field and that there is a need for different research
strategies. As pointed out by Toulmin (1996), one can hardly expect studies of,
say, birds in flight, people in a traffic jam or the movements of heavenly bodies to
be performed in exactly the same way. The need for differentiation is growing.
Science or research can hardly be defined through one set of simple criteria applicable everywhere. It is to a growing extent something that has to be worked out
in each specific context. Again we see that the research process is conditioned by
external factors which can be seen as the practices of society. But to what conclusions does the new production of knowledge lead to for action research?
Although the context is radically different, the high-tech research team in
the pharmaceutical laboratory shares one point with the medieval monk brewing
his broth of roots and frogs: whatever ingredients they work with, the ingredients
do not speak back. In the social field, however, which is not excluded from the
analysis of Gibbons and colleagues, the situation is different: the new boundaries
and forms of work change the relationships between subjects since subjectivity
does not belong to theoretical actors only but to practical ones. Consequently, we
enter the difficult terrain already staked out by the schools of thought indicated
above, among others. Given the rise-and-fall pattern that seems to characterize all
historical efforts to transcend the theory-practice division in research terms, we

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also face the problem that the research responses to the theory-practice challenge
are still with us. Today there are more situations and contexts that bring this
challenge to the surface. What to do; where to turn?
Since there is little hope of inventing a new basic position in epistemological terms, nor of deducing new ways of expressing the old ones as an exercise
purely of the mind, there is only one direction in which to turn: towards those
relationships to practice and practical actors that constitute the challenge in the
first place. This can be done in two different ways.
One is to look at the research practices to which the new contexts give
rise, in this case modern action research: in what contexts does it operate, what
challenges does it try to meet, what does it actually do. This is largely done in
Reason and Bradbury (2001) and the picture to emerge is that action research is,
on the one hand, a fairly widespread activity and on the other hand also highly
context-bound. If we want to learn from research practices as they actually are,
we need to be able to compare, and in other ways work with, a broad range of
different projects and activities. Then, however, a new challenge emerges: how is
this to be done? Here it can be of interest to explore the practices of other actors:
those that research, work with, and write about it.

Learning from practices

Social capital, in terms of understanding, communication, trust and solidarity
between people, is found to promote such phenomena as innovation. In this context, social capital refers to something that exists between other people; those
people that research writes about. What, however, about research itself? Can the
notion of social capital be applied to the research community? Since research
tends to become an actor among many in larger innovation systems, can research
avoid being a participant in the kind of relationship that is referred to as social
capital?
If research itself is to be caught by its own concepts, what does it mean? To
stick to the example of social capital, it would mean relationships of this kind not
only between research and its partners but within the research system itself. But
is the research community not already characterized by relationships of understanding, trust and solidarity? If this is the case, it is not because of classical epistemologies and research positions. Researchers operating on the basis of these
positions are generally forced into an individualist role by such a position. Each
researcher is brought to see him- or herself as a complete rational subject capable,
as an individual, of understanding the world. Why, then, work with others?
Relationships of understanding, trust and solidarity would dramatically
increase the communication potential in the research community. It would be far
easier to exchange experiences and develop common pools of knowledge.

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Misunderstandings would be radically reduced and the number of wasted debates

likewise. Only then can study build on study, different experiences be applied in
joint learning processes and results from a broad range of projects brought
together to form a joint pattern. The strength that cannot be reached by the
individual researcher can be reached by working together. Working together is,
furthermore, not only not even primarily a question of working in groups. The
point is to be able to form innovation systems that span far beyond the face-toface group in terms of scale.
Social capital can emerge under a broad range of different circumstances.
Most favourable, as well as most in need of social capital, are situations characterized by actors who are in a position of equality in relation to each other and
who need to work together on the basis of complementarity. Complementarity
implies that all actors have something unique to contribute and that no actor can
substitute for another. This means, however, that the idea of the single rational
subject evaporates. It is the network as a whole that generates the understandings
as well as the actions that the understandings give rise to. There is no single point
in the network that provides an overview superior to that which can be gained in
other points and no single actor who can provide all relevant elements of understanding and action (Shotter & Gustavsen, 1999). The idea that reason resides
in collectivities rather than individual subjects is not new. What is new is that
the modern production of knowledge knowledge production in Mode II in
Gibbons terms is an actual expression of this principle in practical organizational terms rather than a theoretical stipulation still waiting to be given practical
expression.
Social capital is one dimension that can be thrown back at the research
system on the basis of its own studies. Another example can be objectivity. In
Cartesian theory of science the need to decouple theory from practice seeks some
of its foundations in the need for theory to be objective, neutral or disinterested.
Objectivity becomes a concept to be defined in terms of theory of science, through
a process of self-reflection performed by the individual researcher. It has, however, turned out to be notoriously difficult to reach unequivocal groundings that
all can agree on for requirements like objectivity. In fact, if there is any main conclusion to emerge out of the postmodern and deconstructive tendencies of the last
decades it is that scientific theory can provide no such groundings (Baynes,
Bohman & McCarthy, 1987). There is no argument available, no position we can
enter, no words we can use, that ensure objectivity irrespective of what we
actually do when we carry out our tasks. In this sense research is in the same position as, say, a referee in a football match: he is under continuous scrutiny from
the public who will immediately notice if he breaks with the idea of objectivity. If
such breaks occur, the referee will not be much helped by arguing that he has a
philosophy of objectivity that the public does not understand. Objectivity
becomes, in other words, a set of practical requirements. When research is actu-

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New forms of knowledge production 161

ally performing its tasks it is in the same kind of situation. In fact, given all the
complex relationships that research has to enter into under present forms of production of knowledge, the demand for objectivity has probably never been higher and more critical than at present. The challenge is to find practical ways of
handling practical challenges and such a task can best be approached by looking
at what research actually does when it makes an effort to be objective, under
what conditions research comes under criticism for not being objective, and so
on, but also at what other actors do when they make an effort to be objective.
A third example, introduced by Johannisson (2003), is entrepreneurship.
Even here we have a concept that attracts much attention from research, but as
something pertaining to somebody else. Johannisson makes the point, however,
that we may also see research as an entrepreneur. Why not learn from those
actors who seem able to create something although it may be in entirely different
fields? This perspective will, in many ways, lead towards the social capital perspective. Whereas it used to be common, to see the entrepreneur as a deviant, it
has become more common to see the entrepreneur as someone who may have
especially strong networks and relationships.
One may ask if such an incorporation of practices into research implies that
out of the three main efforts to overcome the theory-practice separation indicated
above, pragmatism is actually chosen above the other ones. To some extent this
is true, but it is also defensible on the grounds that pragmatism is setting out to
create an interplay between theory and practice (Reason, 2003) and not only, as
phenomenology, to find new ways of understanding the world. Compared with
critical theory, pragmatism has a stronger constructivist orientation and will not
as easily fall victim to the argument that it offers only critique, no alternative.
The reasons for improving on the possibilities for learning from practices
across project boundaries can be sought in the overall situation of action research. They can, however, also be anchored in more specific needs emanating
out of specific contexts: This contributor generally works within the field of
work, organization and participation, to a large extent within a Nordic perspective. If we count, say, all the projects that are unfolding or have been taking place
recently on the level of single organizations in this field, the Finnish National
Work Organisation Program (Alasoini & Kyllnen, 1998) recently concluded a
phase with 500 enterprise projects. There are between 100 and 200 projects of
this kind going on under the framework of the Norwegian Value Creation 2010
programme at the moment. Sweden has no comparable programmes but there is
no lack of projects here either, since most universities and university colleges
plus a number of research foundations and other research organizations have
responded individually to the demands of the third task. In Denmark several
topically oriented initiatives are unfolding in the same field. The sum total of
organization development projects that can claim attention is approaching a fourdigit figure. In actual practice the number of cases really worth consideration is of

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course far less, but the gross figure nevertheless gives some indication of the scale
of the challenge. There is, of course, some communication, but the overall picture
remains characterized to a large extent by each project being a closed universe
where communication is difficult because others do not understand.
The Nordic countries do not constitute the ultimate framework for communication. Beyond the Nordic countries there is a global audience. Even this
audience can, however, be reached only if there is some kind of shared frame of
reference, something that does, in turn, demand some social relationships that
can provide understanding and trust (Ennals & Gustavsen, 1998).

Concluding remarks
In its effort to link reflection and action, theory and practice, action research confronts one of the most basic of all challenges facing research. The challenge is not
unique to action research, but is something that has several consequences. One
cannot, for instance, bypass the theory-practice challenge simply by rejecting
action research. The challenge remains, nonetheless. It also means, however, that
action research is not the only branch of research where this problem is attacked.
Any discourse on the relationship between theory and practice does not enter virgin terrain but a terrain that is quite well-filled with actors, discourses and views.
A number of these discourses take place in fields like ontology and epistemology. They can help clarify the challenges and provide points and arguments,
but they do not contain full specifications for research positions. In developing
research positions other concerns need to enter the picture as well, not least concerns emanating from the more specific tasks research sets out to deal with and
the context in which it is done.
By influencing tasks and contexts, practice makes its impact on research.
How do we set about understanding these tasks and contexts? Do we, for
instance, set about it in the same way as when working with theoretical issues? In
the last case it is generally assumed that the researcher is a rational point from
which everything can be seen and understood, if not in detail at least in a broad
outline. If we imagine that practice cannot be fully understood in theoretical
ways, the idea of the rational, all-encompassing subject evaporates. Practices may
need forms of understanding that are, in themselves, practical. What other actors
do when they want to understand practical issues is to form relationships with
each other. Where innovation is to be promoted, these relationships encompass
not only mutual understanding in a way sufficient to read each other but go far
deeper in terms of mutual trust, ability to rely on tacit knowledge etc. To learn
from practices, research needs to develop social relationships; internally within
the research community as well as in relation to other actors. The new production of knowledge as identified by Gibbons and colleagues (Gibbons et al., 1994)

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is above all a network activity, and research cannot stay outside this process and
remain as isolated individuals looking at the world from up above.

Notes
1

This contribution is a revised and translated version of a keynote speech originally held during the conference University and society in co-operation, Ronneby,
Sweden, 1416 May 2003.

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Bjrn Gustavsen is research director for a workplace development programme in

Norway and is visiting professor at several institutions. His main field of interest is
the use of research to support society level processes, in particular within the field of
work, organisation and co-operation. Address: Work Research Institute, P.O. Box
6954 St. Olavs Plass, NO 130 Oslo, Norway. [Email: bjoern.gustavsen@afi.wri.no]

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