Participation as Enactment of Power in Dialogic Organisational Action Research. Reflections on Conflicting Interests and Actionability
Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: "The article focuses on participation as enactment of power in dialogic, organisational \naction research. The article has a dual purpose: It shows how participation \nis enacted as power in processes between participating managers, employees \nand action researchers with different or conflicting interests. It discusses \nif and eventually how it is possible to handle participatory processes \nwhen participation is conceptualised as enactment of power. This is done by \nreflecting critically on two examples from a dialogic, action research project \ncarried out in two Danish, private organisations in 2008 and 2009. The overall \nperspective is to bring participation as enactment of power into the centre of \ndialogic, organisational action research processes and into action research that \nunderstands itself as participatory. \nThe article argues in favour of understanding participation as enactment of \npower in a project work between different partners (employees, managers, and \naction researchers) with different interests. This argument is based on a definition \nof participation as co-determination of goals and means. Moreover, the \narticle argues that combining reflexive and contextualised analyses from 1rst \nand 2nd person approaches with broader 3rd person action research perspectives \nmight make dialogic, organisational action research projects more actionable. \nTheoretically, participatory processes aim at empowerment. The article shows \nthat co-producing knowledge in dialogic, organisational action research implies \nongoing reflections on tensions in the action research concept of ‘co-‘. In \npractice, these processes unfold in a field of tensions between empowerment \nand constraint." (author's abstract)
Institution: Aalborg University
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1577005199