Table Of ContentAction Leadership
Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt
Action Leadership
Towards a Participatory Paradigm
123
OrtrunZuber-Skerritt
Brisbane,Australia
[email protected]
ISBN978-90-481-3934-7 e-ISBN978-90-481-3935-4
DOI10.1007/978-90-481-3935-4
SpringerDordrechtHeidelbergLondonNewYork
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2011922305
©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaB.V.2011
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SpringerispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www.springer.com)
Idedicatethisbooktothedisadvantaged
andoppressed,i.e.thosewithlittle hopeand
spirit,whetherpoororrich,andtothose
whohelpthesepeopleattainempowerment,
confidenceandself-worth.
Learningdoesnotmeantofillabarrel,but
toigniteaflame.
(Heraclitus,sixthcentury BC)
Foreword
In Chapter 2 of this book there appears a characterization of action research.
AsOrtrunZuber-Skerrittsays,‘Itisaworkingdefinition’.Unlikemostdefinitions,
itisnotcouched inawaythatassumesauniversalaudience. Itbegins‘Ifyoursis
asituationinwhich...’.Soitinvitesreaderstorecognizehowfartheyarealready
engagedinaprocessandhowmuchfurthertheymightwanttotakeit.Thisworking
definitionwasanoldfriendofmine.ReadingitagaininthisbookIwassuddenly
transported back over 20 years to a Symposium in Brisbane organized by Ortrun.
I had been lucky enough to be among the participants there, and so part of the
processofproducingwhatwasthen,literally,a‘workingdefinition’.
TheSymposiumwasaneye-openerforme.OrtrunhadorganizedtheSymposium
inawaythatIhavesincecometorecognizeasahallmarkofherstyleofworking.
Shehadplannedthatagroupofacademicsfromvariouspartsoftheworldshould
come together and discuss approaches to action research for a couple of days. On
the third day we were to be joined by representatives of various local businesses,
big and small. They would be interested to find out what action research could do
fortheirownpracticalpurposes.
We academics argued passionately for 2 days with each other (and with the
planned programme), questioning everything and agreeing, it seemed, on little.
Towards the end of the second day we realized that the following day we were to
meetthebusinessrepresentativesandthatweneeded,collectively,topresentthem
with something more than 2 days worth of academic argument. Very quickly, it
becameapparentthatwhileweretainedourdifferences,itwasnotdifficulttoagree
ona‘workingdefinition’.Ithinkittookusmuchlessthananhourtodoso.Andon
thenextday,I,forone,wasastonishedtofindjusthowconstructiveandproductive
werethosediscussionswiththerepresentativesfromthat(tome)unfamiliarworld
of business. Since then, members of the Symposium, including myself, have used
thedefinitionintheirownworkfortheirownpurposes.Evennow,solongafterthe
original Symposium, Ortrun shows in this book that it remains both relevant and
useful.
Whathappened atthatSymposiumistypicalofthewayOrtrunisabletobeof
academia but also to reach beyond it. She makes her work relevant to a range of
government and business organizations, all the while remaining interested in, and
vii
viii Foreword
attunedto,recentacademictheorizing.Particularlysignificantfrommyperspective
as somebody with a close interest in social justice issues is the way she has kept
heracademicandethicalintegrity.Unlikesomeacademicswhoworkcloselywith
big business and big government, she keeps her focus firmly on justice, including
on those whom Fanon called ‘the wretched of the earth’. Furthermore, she is able
to combine attention to relatively abstract theory with attention to the details of
organizingandmanagingworkshopsinarangeofinstitutionalcultures.
Thisisaneducationalbook.Itdrawsonawiderangeofacademictheoryinorder
toshowhowtheoryandpracticeareinseparable.Indoingso,itgoesbeyondsimply
arguingthecasebygivingpracticalandrealexamplesthatcanilluminateforothers
howtheymightthemselvestransformpracticesintheirowncontexts.
Edinburgh,UK MorwennaGriffiths
Acknowledgements
Isincerelythankmy‘criticalfriends’whokindlyreadandcommentedonthefirst
draft of my book or of individual chapters: from Australia, Mary Farquhar, Bob
Dick, Ron Passfield, Geoff Coffey, Abi O’Neill and Margaret Fletcher; from the
UK,MorwennaGriffiths;fromtheUSA,DavyddGreenwoodandJoeRaelin;from
Canada,PatDiamond;fromSouthAfrica,JonathanJansen;fromHongKong,Bruce
Stinson; from New Zealand, Eileen Piggot-Irvine and Jan Robertson; and from
Austria,PeterPoschandStephanLaske.
Iappreciatethemanysuggestionsforimprovementandprofessionaleditingby
MaureenTodhunter;thetechnicalskillsofdrawingthediagramsbyGerhardWeis;
andtheformattingbyNeilAitkin–allfromGriffithUniversity.
ix
Contents
Introduction
1 FromActionLearningandActionResearchtoActionLeadership . 1
ChapterOverview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
DefinitionofTerms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
PurposeandAims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Readership. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Storyline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
BookContent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Chapter2:PALARConcepts,ModelsandValues. . . . . . . . . . . 15
Chapter3:PALAR:DialecticofTheoryandPractice . . . . . . . . . 15
Chapter4:PALARParadigmandMethodology . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Chapter5:HigherEducation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Chapter6:ManagementEducationforOrganizationDevelopment . . 17
Chapter7:CommunityDevelopment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Chapter8:ActionLeadershipWithinaParticipatoryParadigm . . . . 17
LimitationsandContributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
ChapterSummary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
DiscussionStarters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
PartI ConceptualFrameworkforPALAR
2 PALARConcepts,ModelsandValues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
ChapterOverview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
ActionLearning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
ConceptsandCharacteristicsofActionLearning . . . . . . . . . . . 25
ActionLearningProgrammesandProjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
xi
xii Contents
ActionResearch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
ConceptsandCharacteristicsofActionResearch . . . . . . . . . . . 34
ParticipatoryActionResearch(PAR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
ActionScience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
ActionResearchRequirementsandQualityCriteria . . . . . . . . . . 38
TheConceptofPALAR:IntegratingActionLearning(AL)
withParticipatoryActionResearch(PAR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
PALARModels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
AGenericModelforPALARProgrammes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
ValuesinaPALARCulture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
CoreValues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
EspousedandGoverningValues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Model1andModel2ValuesandStrategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
SuccessandFailure:ManagedChange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
WhatMakesPALARProgrammesSuccessful? . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
WhatMakesPALARProgrammesUnsuccessful? . . . . . . . . . . . 54
OtherPotentialPitfallsandHowtoAvoidThem . . . . . . . . . . . 54
ChapterSummary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
DiscussionStarters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3 PALAR:DialecticofTheoryandPractice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
ChapterOverview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Dialectic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Praxis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
PALAR:ASynthesisofTheoryandPractice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
KnowledgeIntegration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Indigeneity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
IntegratingKnowledgeandAction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
PracticalTheories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
ChapterSummary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
DiscussionStarters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4 PALARParadigmandMethodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
ChapterOverview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Dialectic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Paradigms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
CompetingParadigms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
TheoreticalFramework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
GroundedTheory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
ActionTheory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
