Interactive Research

The Context of Interactive Research: A Brief History of Action Research in Scandinavia

Norway has been a dominating influence on the development of action research in Scandinavia, where the ideas of Kurt Lewin were used to underpin what came to be known as the Industrial Democracy Project. In the 1950s and 1960s, socio-technical experiments in industrial development were taken up across Denmark, Sweden and Finland, supported in some cases by government funding. Intimately tied up with consensus within the workplace, these experiments foundered as neo-liberal ideas took hold to a greater or lesser extent within the respective countries. Criticism of action research in the 1970s came from a number of directions, and that criticism has led to a different emphasis in each of the Scandinavian countries. For some, the approach had become appropriated by capital and the state as a mechanism for imposing the neo-liberal agenda. Conversely, government and industry were concerned that the promise of action research had not been realized, particularly in the area of innovation. Many of the experiments had failed to move beyond short-term change in individual factories and workplaces. For those working in the social fields, action research was seen as having failed in its task of achieving social change. The strongest critique, however, came from university-based social scientists in Denmark and Sweden who argued that action research was not proper research but rather a form of consultancy. This view still prevails in Denmark and to a lesser extent in Finland and Sweden despite the call in the latter countries for universities to engage in co-operating with society on issues of social change. By contrast, in Norway, action research has become mainstreamed and embedded in the governmental system, largely due to the efforts of Bjørn Gustavsen and Morten Levin, leading academics in that country who also have a strong international presence in action research. In Denmark, the University of Roskilde has been prominent in maintaining action research.

...