Action Research in Public Organization Development

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Table of Contents

Summary
Contemporary Thinking
Research Importance
Application
Reflection
Conclusion
References

Many organizations conduct research works to determine whether their business needs any improvement. Usually, this measure is taken to calculate the efficiency of current processes and the ability to reach certain goals. For instance, a company must be very specific and ask questions only about those fields that are relevant to it (O’Leary & Hunt, 2016, 50). This paper analyses the article that discusses what elements does the quality research has when used for organizational development.

Summary

The article by Coghlan and Shani (2014) discusses three crucial elements that help to make the research process effective. It claims the process must be rigorous, reflective, and relevant. The first feature stresses the importance of data collected during the study. The second one discusses whether the data is linked to previous or contemporary research that can be found in literature and case studies. Finally, the relevancy element determines whether the collected data addresses the goals set by an organization. All three elements are applied to several steps of the research process.

They include the purpose of research, the context, methodology, and method of inquiry, design, narrative and outcomes, reflection on the story, and discussion. The authors of the article offer a table that matches rigor, reflectiveness, and relevance with these features. Each combination is supported by questions that have to be addressed at each point of research. The discussion finalizing the article states that there are four primary factors for evaluating action research. These are the importance of context understanding, the quality of collaboration between researchers and employees, the quality of the process itself, and the development of collaboration from learning by practice.

Contemporary Thinking

The article corresponds well with the contemporary perception of the topic. For instance, studies suggest that context is one of the most important factors for conducting quality research (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2016, p. 99). A person who is responsible for evaluating various elements of a process must be skilled in collecting the right data. It takes a deep understanding of the culture in which he or she is trying to function. An article by Coghlan and Shani (2014) features several questions that are important while acting in a context. They call for determining whether the contextual data is collected in a way that corresponds with quality standards and whether it is supported by the previous research. It may sometimes take a long time for researchers to collect the necessary information. The important part is to have a systematic approach to every detail noticed and recorded during weeks or even months.

Research Importance

The article illustrates the importance of using analytics for decision-making within organizations. It makes it understandable that effective studies of organizational processes can draw positive results from each outcome, whether it is a negative or a positive one. A positive outcome would require the company’s top management team to keep the same strategy as it was using before. An adverse outcome is an opportunity to learn new ways of tackling the issue. Thus, the management team is making decisions based on organizational research, and their results are directly linked to the quality of data collected and analyzed.

Application

This article has given me an understanding that context is one of the most important factors in conducting organizational research. Another factor that I have found to be important is the importance of collaboration between researchers and employees. The public administration calls for a deep understanding of processes that flow inside a working community. Understanding psychology and behavior is crucial is one wishes to collect the necessary data. All work should be conducted in an atmosphere of collaboration. Interviewees should understand that all research questions that are discussed during the research will help to make considerable changes to the way they work and to any performance factors required from them.

Reflection

I have found the topic of this article to be quite interesting to discuss. A perspective from rigor, reflectiveness, and relevance is much broader than I thought it should be for conducting an organizational study. However, there is a good point that there are several frameworks for collecting data and analyzing it. I believe that this article reveals the importance of those frameworks being relevant to an organization and to various fields it needs to analyze. It would be overwhelming to test every single process within a company, as it takes time and might be irrelevant for the primary questions facing a management team.

Conclusion

The research method in an organization that includes the focus on rigor, reflectiveness, and relevance seems to be much more effective than the approach of using a universal framework. The article demonstrates the importance of linking context, data collection, design, analysis, and conclusions to these factors. The process of making decisions becomes facilitated when a research team focuses only on those issues that are relevant to the main goal and were analyzed in the past for drawing connections between the past and the current situation.

References

Coghlan, D., & Shani, A. (2014). Creating action research quality in organization development: Rigorous, reflective, and relevant. Systematic Practice & Action Research, 27(6), 523-536. Web.

Eriksson, P., & Kovalainen, A. (2016). Qualitative methods in business research: A practical guide to social research. London, UK: Sage.

O’Leary, Z., & Hunt, J. S. (2016). Workplace research: Conducting small-scale research in organizations. London, UK: Sage.

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