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Action Learning: Research and Practice
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Action learning dissertations:
structure, supervision and examination
David Coghlan
a
& Mike Pedler
b
a
School of Business Studies , Trinity College , Dublin, Ireland
b
Henley Management College , Oxfordshire, UK
Published online: 18 Jan 2007.
To cite this article: David Coghlan & Mike Pedler (2006) Action learning dissertations: structure,
supervision and examination, Action Learning: Research and Practice, 3:2, 127-139, DOI:
10.1080/ 14767330600885797
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2. Action learning dissertations:
structure, supervision and
examination
David Coghlana
and Mike Pedlerb
a
School of Business Studies, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland; b
Henley Management
College, Oxfordshire, UK
In qualification programmes based on action learning, there has hitherto been little articulation of what
is particular to research dissertations undertaken in an action learning mode. This article addresses the
questions of what such a dissertation entails and how it can be undertaken, supervised and examined. It
discusses some of the foundations of action learning research and how accounts of practice may be
integrated with reflection. It suggests that an action learning dissertation may be framed around
Revans’ Systems Alpha, Beta and Gamma as interlocking systems that address the investigation of
the problem on which the dissertation is based, its resolution and the learning of the participant. A
blueprint is presented that incorporates four elements: (i) the work and organisation and the
participant’s engagement with it, (ii) the action learning set and what the participant learned
through it, (iii) the information and literature which have made a difference to the participant’s
thinking and (iv) the personal and professional learning of the participant.
Introduction
Action learning has been a recognised as an innovation in management development
in the UK at least since the major initiative undertaken in the General Electric
Company in 1975 (Casey Pearce, 1977). In the context of management education,
action learning has been controversial, both because of its elevation of the role of prac-
titioners over experts and teachers and because of the manner of its emergence in
opposition to traditional business school practice. In 1964, Revans, then the Professor
of Industrial Administration at the University of Manchester Institute of Science
Technology, proposed that action learning should form the basis for management
learning at the new Manchester Business School (MBS) (1980, pp. 193–198).
Despite the apparent rejection of this proposal at the time, it appears that the ideas
Action Learning: Research and Practice
Vol. 3, No. 2, September 2006, pp. 127–139
Corresponding author. University of Dublin, School of Business Studies, Trinity College, Dublin
2, Ireland. Email: david.coghlan@tcd.ie
ISSN 1476-7333 (print); ISSN 1476-7341 (online)=06=020127-13 # 2006 Taylor Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14767330600885797
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3. of action learning strongly influenced the ‘Manchester Method’ adopted by MBS,
especially in its early years (Wilson, 1992; Burgoyne, 2001).
Since then, action learning has perhaps been most practised by management
developers, but the last 10–15 years has seen an increasing use in postgraduate
and post-experience management education programmes. This reflects a move-
ment towards ‘practice-based’ qualification programmes, which depend less upon
inputs of ‘programmed knowledge’ (P) in favour of utilising the experience of par-
ticipants (Gosling Ashton, 1994; Mumford, 1995; Dromgoole, 2004). In these
programmes, participants typically undertake research in their own professional
settings and produce dissertations on the origins, design, progress and evaluation
of action in these organisational contexts. This sort of research involves people in
taking action in order to learn—both in terms of improving their own practice
and adding to knowledge in their professional worlds. This provides an opportunity
to acquire ‘understanding in use’, rather than ‘reconstructed understanding’.
Finally, and coupled with this move towards ‘practice-based’ management edu-
cation programmes, there has been a growing interest in action learning from manage-
ment learning academics seeking to bring a more critical edge to management
education (e.g., McLaughlin Thorpe, 1993; Vince Martin, 1993; Wilmott,
1994, 1997; Rigg Trehan, 2004).
Despite this growing interest in management education and management learning,
there has hitherto been little articulation of what is particular to research dissertations
undertaken in an action learning mode. For example, the chapter on dissertation
writing in Mumford’s (1995) collection of essays on MBA programmes by action learn-
ing focuses on action research rather than on action learning. It is not our intention here
to explore in detail the relationship between action research and action learning; they
belong to the same wider family and share many values and antecedents, but can be
said to have different emphases. For example, action learning emphasises the
primacy of practical action, personal learning and working with peer in an action
learning set. Action research has perhaps more emphasised the importance of theory-
building and writing, which is done primarily for the benefit of other researchers,
and therefore fits more comfortably into the academy; whilst Revans’ action learning
originates in a reaction to the dominance of ‘P’ in the universities. That said, there
are many varieties of both action learning and action research and the practices must
often overlap and merge (Reason Bradbury, 2001; Pedler et al., 2005).
In addressing the questions of what an action learning dissertation entails and how
it can be undertaken, supervised and examined, an underpinning assumption is that
such a qualification programme is structured so that: (i) participants both work on a
problem in their own organisation and participate in an action learning set on a
regular basis with fellow participants; and (ii) also meet with an academic supervisor
who facilitates consolidation of what is learned and its articulation in a formal disser-
tation. Other faculty members may also act as internal examiners.
We hope that the paper will be useful to those people charged with supervising and
assessing action learning-based qualification programmes, and who are probably con-
strained by institutional assessment procedures, based on more traditional research
128 D. Coghlan and M. Pedler
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4. designs. In a personal comment on an earlier draft of this paper, Tom Bourner
suggests that until ‘we figure out how to provide secure assessment of reflective learn-
ing, it will never play a major role in the mainstream of higher education.’
Foundations of action learning research
Research by action learning typically differs from that of more traditional research
(Table 1). Typically the latter begins with topic selection, then proceeds to literature
review, fieldwork and review of the literature in the light of research findings and
conclusions. In contrast, action learning begins with an experienced problem in an
organisational setting and proceeds via actions taken to resolve it, and results in
personal and organisational learning.
Action learning takes a distinct stance on the processes of learning and knowing,
which rest upon the pragmatic tradition in philosophy and in an experiential approach
to learning. In a so-called ‘knowledge era’ where people are increasingly organised
around bodies of knowledge and competence, we believe that the discipline of
action learning has a particular contribution to make to the development of human
understanding and action.
Bourner and Simpson (2005) suggest four ways of knowing: (i) through reason, ‘i.e.
through deduction or logic’; (ii) via received knowledge, ‘i.e. knowledge that is received
from other people through words—usually written word or spoken’; (iii) through
empiricism, ‘i.e. knowledge gained through sense-based data’; and (iv) through intros-
pection, ‘i.e. knowledge from an inner source’. Most academic dissertations require
demonstrated competence in the first three of these, whilst research by action learning
equally values the fourth way of knowing and the knowledge produced thereby. This is
because of the primacy of action and of learning from experience.
The first requirement of action learning is to take action to change the world as a
means of understanding it; we cannot say that we know something until we have
tried to act in the light of any ‘knowledge’. The origins of the research process
begin in questions inviting introspection: ‘What am I trying to do?’; ‘What is stopping
me?’ etc. (Revans, 1998). As Bourner and Simpson further point out, this fourth way
of knowing is connected to generative thinking and creativity:
Table 1. Action learning research and more traditional research
Action learning research Traditional research
1. Problem 1. Topic/field
2. Action 2. Literature
3. Reflection and re-framing 3. Field work (action)
4. Making sense/literature 4. Findings
5. Account of practice of personal and
organizational learning
5. Conclusions
Action learning dissertations 129
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5. Introspection is associated with lots of words that begin with ‘in’: insight, inspiration,
intuition, instinct and so on. What all of these words have in common is that the
source of the knowledge they yield lies inside yourself . . . Incidentally, words like
invent, innovate, incubate also have ‘in’ as a prefix. These words are associated with crea-
tivity . . . (2005, p. 135)
In seeking to understand how learning may take place at individual and
organisational levels, and in researching the processes of innovation, invention
and knowledge generation and utilisation, research by action learning is primarily
about useful action and learning which is ‘from’ and ‘for’ rather than ‘about’
practice (Pedler, 2001, p. 298), an emphasis shared by many action researchers,
critical theorists and Mode 2 researchers in management education (MacLean
et al., 2002).
Although management education has perhaps been foremost in understanding the
pragmatic and educational merits of action learning, this idea belongs to the much
broader field of human action and inquiry. Action learning has helped people to
develop their understandings, actions and practice in fields as diverse as mental
health, worker participation, social work, engineering, scientific endeavour and com-
munity development. Though action learning may make an important contribution to
management education, it is not to be contained by this field, and too close an associ-
ation brings several disadvantages, notably the perception by others that action learn-
ing is a ‘management technique’.
Moreover, a key motivation for the formulation and promulgation of action learn-
ing was Revans’ unhappiness with business school management education, which
continues to be dominated by the MBA. The focus of management education
should be in helping managers ‘learn how to solve problems’ (Revans, 1966, p. 5),
and he dubbed the MBA as ‘moral bankruptcy assured’ because it rests upon an
expertise in knowledge ‘about’ business management rather than a knowing based
on inquiry and practice:
A man may well learn to talk about taking action simply by talking about taking action (as in
classes at a business school) but to learn to take action (as something distinct from learn-
ing to talk about taking action) then he needs to take action (rather than to talk about
taking action) and to see the effect, not of talking about taking action (at which he
may appear competent) but of taking the action itself (at which he may fall somewhat
short of competent). (Revans, 1971, pp. 54–55, original emphases)
Given the first requirement of action learning—to take action on a problem—it
follows that a central part of any dissertation must be the ‘account of practice’.
Accounts of practice
Influenced by the work of Goffman and Garfinkel, accounts are narratives or ‘“story-
like” interpretations or explanations and their functions and consequences to a social
actor’s life’ (Orbuch, 1997, p. 455). Given that the focus of action learning on a
130 D. Coghlan and M. Pedler
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6. knowing based on inquiry and the development of practice—personal and organis-
ational, the writing of an account of practice is central to any action learning thesis.
Revans’ insistence on co-locating learning and action in practice is not unique, and
is apparent notably in Schön (1987, pp. 5–17), who defines practice as ‘professional
action dealing with problems in a field’. Practice embraces both rational problems
suitable for rigorous, objective inquiry, and non-technical ‘swampy’ problems that
defy rational inquiry. Practitioners need to be reflective in order to learn how to
deal with these messy problems: ‘The phenomenology of practice—reflection on
the reflection-in-action of practice—should enter the practicum via the study of the
organisational life of practitioners’ (Schön, 1987, p. 322). The notion of a reflective
and reflexive practice is a blend of conscious doing and learning for continuous
development.
This co-location has become much more common in more recent thinking about
learning and knowledge, for example, communities of practice theories (Lave
Wenger, 1991), that equate learning with participating in a given practice community;
activity theories (Engeström, 1987), which hold that knowledge resides in participa-
tive networks of action; and actor network theory (Law Hassard, 1999), in which
individual ‘actors’, human and non-human, cannot be isolated.
Practice is arguably a much more appropriate word to use in professional, manage-
rial or leadership development than the currently, almost universal, ‘competence’.
Practice, unlike competence, is always contextualised; it denotes the exercise of ‘pro-
fessional action’ in a particular context. It also joins and creates unities from entities
that might otherwise be separated, including most obviously, action and learning
(practice implies doing, and learning, and doing these at the same time), and the indi-
vidual actor with a context and a collective, wider world, including especially the
professional community of practice.
Participating in a community of practice
As Schön points out, any professional practice ‘is the province of a community of
practitioners who share, in John Dewey’s term, the tradition of a calling’ (1987,
p. 32). Based on an apprenticeship model, the community of practice idea sees work-
place learning as a process in which communities are joined and personal identities
are changed (Wenger et al., 2002). The transfer model of learning isolates the
learner and abstracts knowledge from the context in which it is practiced. ‘Situated
learning’ is inseparable from working and from the process of becoming a member
of a given community, be it one of doctors, TV repairers or people who sleep on
the streets. The central process is of becoming a practitioner, not learning about prac-
tice. ‘Legitimate peripheral participation’ allows the learner’s participation to grow in
from the periphery as a function of their developing understanding.
Practitioners need more than formal ‘expert knowledge’; non-standard situations
involve a good deal of learning about what is not explicit or explicable. TV repairers
can only learn what is not in the ‘programmed knowledge’ of the repair manuals by
accessing the local and ‘non-canonical’ knowledge of the community. This sort of
Action learning dissertations 131
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7. know-how is developed and framed in a particular communal context especially
through members collaborating, telling work-related stories and collectively con-
structing meaning: ‘To acquire a store of appropriate stories and, even more impor-
tantly, to know what are appropriate occasions for telling them, is then part of what
it means to become a midwife’ (Jordan, quoted in Brown Duguid, 1991, p. 48).
Naylor (2004) proposes that the relevant community of practice for action learning
research comprises the individual action learner, the employer and the university.
Obviously this set of stakeholders could be extended or varied in particular setting,
but it suggests that some ‘learning partnership agreement’ for action and learning is
part of engaging in this sort of research. An implication might be here that in
making any new knowledge claim, the researcher should demonstrate how this knowl-
edge is recognised and acknowledged by other members of the learning partnership.
The praxaeology of action learning: Systems Alpha, Beta and Gamma
Revans attempted a general theory of human action, which he called a praxeology to
denote the inseparable unity of doing and knowing. A brief description of this idea
provides a possible framework for an action learning dissertation.
In Developing Effective Managers (1971), Revans makes his most formal attempt to
develop a theory of action learning via three interacting systems:
The three principal influences on management may be represented by systems based on
the use of information. We call them System Alpha—the use of information for
DESIGNING objectives; System Beta—the use of information for ACHIEVING these
objectives; System Gamma—the use of information for ADAPTING to experience
and to change. (Revans, 1971, p. 33)
Dilworth and Willis (2003) see System Alpha as focusing on the investigation of the
problem, System Beta on its resolution and System Gamma on the learning of the par-
ticipants. However, Systems Alpha, Beta and Gamma are not linear or sequential; nor
are they discrete, overlapping as they do on important issues of learning, power and
politics. The three are perhaps best understood as a whole, whose parts are given
different emphases by Revans at different times.
Revans’ called his general theory a ‘praxaeology’, denoting praxis—practice or
doing as in the original Greek—but also as in Marx’ usage of the word meaning the
inseparable unity of theory and practice, thinking and doing:
System Gamma was the essence, . . . (it) . . . represents in its own way the structure of all
intelligent behaviour, and offers in conjunction with Systems Alpha and Beta, one start-
ing point for a general theory of human action, for a science of praxeology. (1971, p. 58)
System Gamma perhaps represents a development in Revans’ thinking, from his
earlier, more science-based, studies to the later work, where learning becomes more
salient. Revans trained as a physicist and valued scientific inquiry, and in the 1950s
and 1960s, he worked in an operational research mode in studying mines, factories,
hospitals and schools. As he developed his thinking about action learning, Revans
notes the new emphasis on self-development in the management literature (from
1975 he says) and describes Alpha, Beta and Gamma as three sets of relationships
132 D. Coghlan and M. Pedler
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8. that each individual action learner must make, first with themselves (Gamma);
second, with other persons (Beta) and third, with the world external to these two
(Alpha) (1982, p. 724).
Reason and Bradbury (2001, preface) make a parallel proposition for action
research: experience, knowledge and research can be for the person, for the face-
to-face inquiring group and for the wider community. Revans ascribes the origins
of his triune to Thomas Aquinas (1982, p. 724), so perhaps this coincidence is not
surprising, being grounded in antiquity and archetype, but it serves to emphasise
here the commonalities of action learning with action research.
The issue of organisational learning was also important to Revans, who points to
the ‘cycle of institutional learning’ of all three systems interacting together:
Problem solving enables men both better to understand each other and to learn the wider
objectives out of which the particular problem under review arises. Thus confidence in
the policy-forming processes will, in turn, be engendered if the organisation, like its indi-
vidual members, is capable of learning. The Inter-University Programme illuminates
clearly the symbiotic nature of personal and institutional change. . . (Revans, 1971,
pp. 129–130)
Applying Alpha, Beta and Gamma to action learning dissertations
It is our proposal that, as Systems Alpha, Beta and Gamma are at the core of Revans’
theory of action learning, they may provide the foundation for constructing a frame-
work for action learning research dissertations.
System Alpha focuses on the identification and analysis of a real organisational diffi-
culty, which suggests that any action learning dissertation should therefore present an
analysis of the problem at the outset (Dromgoole, 2004). This could involve analysis of:
. The external environment in which the organisational problem is embedded and
the challenges that confront the organisation from that context. This could go
beyond the descriptive and entail a critical literature review.
. The internal situation in the organisation and the current responses to the external
challenges. This involves a process of inquiry into the issue under consideration—
its history, manifestation, what has previously been attempted and what has pre-
vented the problem from being resolved. This needs to be taken into the present
(Dilworth Willis, 2003), and could involve a critique of current organisational
performance.
. Management values. Revans nominates ‘managerial values’ and the value system of
the enterprise as the factor most likely to hinder effective action and learning:
‘where those in charge do not know by what marks they are trying to navigate,
they cannot delegate responsibility . . .’ (1971, pp. 65–67). What are the organis-
ational goals, policies and purposes? What agreements and differences exist
between key political players? How are power and risk distributed? What do the
managers want to achieve? And how do these accord with their own life goals.
What ought to be happening? What do we need to do to make it happen?
Action learning dissertations 133
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9. With regard to System Alpha, dissertation supervisors and examiners are on relatively
familiar ground and can draw on other experiences of research supervision. However,
action learning, with its particular emphasis on getting things done, pays particular
attention to learning what Revans termed ‘the micropolitics of organising’. Learning
how to get things done and how things work in this particular organisation is the prize
awaiting the assiduous action learner—whether the substantive project outcome is
seen as successful or not.
System Beta involves the rigorous and scientific exploration of the resolution of the
problem through cycles of action and reflection. An essential aspect of any disser-
tation is to tell this story as a critical part of the account of practice. Building on
the initial framing of the project in System Alpha, the story is told of how the
problem was initially framed, what initial actions were planned, how they were
implemented, how the understanding of the problem evolved and how the multiple
iterations of action and reflection were undertaken.
The reasoning processes are important here—how are events interpreted at specific
times? How are these assumptions tested in action and how does any reframing lead to
further action? This reasoning is guided by the hoped-for outcomes and by the under-
lying ‘managerial values’. Supervisors would facilitate that exploration of framing and
reframing in the light of the cycles of action and reflection, and examiners would look
for evidence of how the narrated action led to framing and further action.
Although learning is implicit in systems Alpha and Beta as so far discussed,
System Gamma emphasises the learning of the actor and the changes in the
person’s views and understandings. This is grounded in the interaction of the
action learning set in supporting and challenging to enable individual critical reflec-
tion and learning. The development of the problem is analysed in conjunction with
the emerging learning and the changing self of the action learner. This individual
learning is linked to organisational learning through reflecting on the micropolitics
of organising, including the issues of closeness and distance, role duality, power
and politics, which are germane to researching within one’s own organisational
system (Coghlan Brannick, 2005).
The application of System Gamma can be framed by drawing on Reason and
Torbert’s (2001) reflection on action-oriented research in terms of upstream and
downstream learning. ‘Upstream’ learning is via the process of inquiring into basic
assumptions, desires, intentions and philosophy of life. ‘Downstream’ learning is
via inquiring into behaviour, ways of relating and action in the world in terms of
interpersonal and managerial behaviour.
The Revans Institute for Action Learning and Research at Salford University based
its dissertation assessments on the Botham/Morris Triangle (Vick, 2001). The
middle M stands for Monitoring the three dimensions of learning from work, from
the set and from ‘information’—in the Batesonian sense of ‘any difference that
makes a difference’ (Figure 1).
In a development of this triangle (Pedler, 1998), there are four strands of learning to
balance and which make up the whole ‘DNA’ of the action learning dissertation.
These are learning about and from self, work, set and information (Figure 2).
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10. Supervisors attend to the participants’ learning-in-action—how the actions they are
taking in pursuit of their desired outcome are challenging their framing of the
problem, their values and their skills in finding a solution. Examiners look for a coher-
ent articulation of this learning.
On quality in action learning dissertations
Contemporary action learning practice is not a single, agreed set of activities but
encompasses a considerable variety (Pedler et al., 2005). In this context, the question
of what constitutes quality within action learning may be a useful way of grounding
evaluation and examination of action learning dissertation work.
Figure 1. Botham–Morris Triangle
Figure 2. DNA of an action learning thesis (Pedler, 1998)
Action learning dissertations 135
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11. As action research has moved towards an articulation of quality that emphasises its
complementary validity to positivist research, action learning can articulate its own
quality requirements. One such articulation is found in Willis (2004) who suggests
a ‘gold standard’ in listing 23 characteristics of Revans’ ‘theory-intact’ of action
learning.
One of the traps into which the writers of action learning dissertations can fall is
assuming that their personal learning story is all that is needed. Candidates sometimes
present their theses, carrying in front a flag which says something like ‘The writer is
freed from the conventions of writing about research’, based on the conviction that
what they have done is different from traditional research (Table 1). However, this
can result in what one of us has criticised as ‘mere autobiographical jottings’ and
even ‘self indulgent personal memoiring’. Whilst autoethnography is a challenging
and engaging way of approaching accounts, there must be a social effect and thus a
social aspect to any account of action learning.
The traditional assessment criteria for research make this plain in the apparently
daunting call for a ‘significant original contribution to knowledge’. Contributions
to knowledge have a social value beyond the personal learning of the researcher,
and then only when learning is made available to others, and adjudged by them to
be new or useful. Bourner et al. define practitioner-centred research as ‘the intentional
creation of shared new knowledge’ (2000, p. 230), which makes clear that any new
knowledge is created in the context of a wider system or given community of practice.
This is particularly true in action learning and other forms of action-based inquiry.
Additionally, as Gheradi suggests, the creation of new knowledge is likely to arise
from ‘multiple perspectives and negotiations’ rather than just from the individual
researcher and the ‘univocal narrative of scientific authority’ (2001, p. 137).
This provides us with three criteria—focused on problems, action and learning—for
assessing action learning research. The criteria look simple but require interpretation
in particular contexts:
1. What is the evidence of real problems being addressed?
Where ‘real’ problems are those recognised by others and not just the researcher.
This can include the stakeholders to any problem as well as other researchers.
‘Problems’ are differentiated in from ‘puzzles’ (which ultimately have ‘right’ or
technically correct answers) to denote intractable and complex issues and
situations that are amenable to change, development and learning but that have
no ‘right’ or technically correct answer.
2. What is the evidence of action being taken on these problems?
Action can also be hard to define. We take it to be an intentional effort by the
researcher to change the situation (and not just to observe it) that is visible to
others. However, there are various complications to resolve here in any particular
dissertation. For example, as the researcher—as an actor in the situation—is part
of the problem, this can include personal action taken by the actor on him/herself
as a means of changing the situation.
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12. 3. What is the evidence of learning has taken place?
Some of this may have appeared in response to the first two criteria, e.g. learning
about the problem via re-framing, etc. From Systems Alpha, Beta Gamma,
three, perhaps overlapping, categories of learning can be addressed:
(a) Personal learning—what has the researcher learned about their own prac-
tice, including the ‘micropolitics of organisation’, as a result of action on
the problem?
(b) Practitioner learning—what has been learned about the practice which is
useful to other practitioners?
(c) Organisational learning—what has been learned in the wider system in
which the researcher and the problem are located? For example, what
have the stakeholders of this research learned?
Conclusions
This paper originates with the problem that there has hitherto been little articulation
of what is particular to research undertaken in an action learning mode. We have
sought to address this by defining the elements of a qualification-based action learning
research process grounded in Revans’ Systems Alpha, Beta and Gamma.
We suggest that the writing of an account of practice should be central to any thesis,
and that this should include learning about and from four strands of the DNA of action
learning: self, work, set and information. As practice is always located in a relevant com-
munity, the value of any contribution to ‘shared new knowledge’should be assessed via a
‘learning partnership agreement’ between stakeholders in a particular setting.
We welcome contributions from others on how they assess action learning research
and other practitioner-based qualification programmes. If the future of such research
in higher education depends upon the development of a ‘secure assessment’ process,
then more evidence and examples are needed of how this can be done.
We conclude this paper with two questions that have emerged for us in writing this
paper.
(i) Taking the nature, supervision and examination of action learning dissertations
as a problem, how can we in the action learning community develop quality
expressions of action learning research within the academy setting that contri-
bute to better professional and managerial practice?
(ii) What has been tried? What works? What has not worked? And what has been
learned? What approaches to have been tried and what has been learned gener-
ated through implementing different procedures for action learning (and other
practitioner-based) dissertations around the world?
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Tom Bourner of the University of Brighton, and the
three anonymous reviewers, for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Action learning dissertations 137
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13. Notes on contributors
David Coghlan is a member of the School of Business Studies at the University of Dublin, Trinity
College, Ireland. His research and teaching interests lie in the areas of organisation deve-
lopment, action research, action learning, clinical inquiry, practitioner research, doing
action research in one’s own organisation. His most recent books include Doing Action
Research in Your Own Organization (co-authored with Teresa Brannick, Sage, 2005), and
Changing Healthcare Organisations, an application of OD to the Irish health, system
(co-authored with Eilish McAuliffe, Blackhall, Dublin, 2003).
Mike Pedler is Professor of Action Learning at Henley Management College, UK.
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