Enriching Action Research with the Narrative Approach and Activity Theory: Analyzing the Consequences of an Intervention in a Public Sector Hospital in Finland

Source: Educational Action Research, Volume 20, Issue 1, 2012, pages 75-93.

The current study aims at contributing to the development of theory and methodology in the field of organizational intervention research.

The study puts action research, narrative inquiry and activity theory into interplay in a novel way.
Theory and practice are in a dialogical relationship in the study.

An empirical case is presented of a public-sector hospital unit that was in crisis and took part in an organizational change process based on action research.

The study asks what a combinatory framework can offer the theoretical and methodological development of organizational intervention research.

The long-term consequences of the project are traced and analyzed by conducting ethnographic field research, including narrative inquiry.
A meta-analysis of the action research process and narrative accounts is conducted with activity–theoretical concepts of material–artifact mediation and object-oriented activity.