ARAL 2016 - Special Track on Action Research and Action Learning: ARAL 2016

There are several approaches to Action-Research, many of which are opposite to each other. Both opposites are intellectually legitimate, socially useful, managerially practical, and epistemologically valid3. In its origins, action-research was mainly meant to do research via action, and lately it mostly means to take action via research. With the first perspective, research is the purpose and the action was one of the main means. With the second perspective the principal purpose is action and one of the means used is research. Kurt Lewin4, one of the pioneers of Action Research, conceived this kind of research as doing research in the field rather than in a laboratory. On the other side Operations Research has been since its origin oriented to research (basically in mathematical optimization) oriented to support operational decisions to be made before the respective actions. Lewinian approach is an example of theory-driven action, oriented to generate knowledge, while Operation Research is (at least in its origin) an example of practice-driven research, where knowledge is generated as means of supporting decisional processes oriented to take actions.
The difference is basically related to what is sought as an end and what is used as a mean. Figure 2a and 2b schematically visualize of both opposite approaches found in the literature and in the practice of Action-Research. Practitioners and professional tend to prefer doing-through-knowing and theoretically oriented academics and researchers tend to prefer knowing-through-doing. Both complement each other. This is why, in our opinion, several different approaches emerged between these two opposite perspectives, especially in the case of scholars who are trying to integrate academic activities: Research, Education, and Consulting or Real Life Problem Solving.