action research is both a sequence of events and an approach to change and to problem-solving.

Being an insider provides access to the drama of the informal organization with all its paradoxes and problems,

Action research works through a cyclical, four-step process of consciously and deliberately: (a) planning; (b) taking action; (c) evaluating the action; (d) leading to further planning, and so on.

Action researchers have to deal with emergent processes not as distractions, but as central to the research process.

Members of the system that is being studied participate actively

unimportant issues may be studied from the high ground according to predetermined standards and rigour, while the critically important ones, such as how to generate whatever changes in practice we wish to see, can be confronted only by being immersed in the ‘swampy lowlands’.

Action research may be defined as an emergent inquiry process in which applied behavioural science knowledge is integrated with existing organizational knowledge and applied to solve real organizational problems. It is simultaneously concerned with bringing about change in organizations, in developing self-help competencies in organizational