Qualimetrics Intervention Research

The qualimetrics methods were created in the early 1970s by Henri Savall and his colleagues at the Socio-Economic Institute of Firms and Organizations (Institut de Socio-Economie des Entreprises et des Organisations, ISEOR), a research centre associated with the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 and E. M. Lyon (École de Management de Lyon) in Lyon, France. At first, it is necessary to define qualimetrics intervention research. It is a specific Intervention Research methodology aimed at triggering a common representation system shared by all the actors of an organization through the use of qualitative, quantitative and financial data. On the face of it, qualimetrics intervention research shares the same sociological and anthropological roots summed up in the concept of ‘participative observation’, a method which consists in carrying out observations by participating in productive activities. As in action research, in qualimetrics intervention research, researchers are at the same time partners as regards companies' observation and co-producers of knowledge with company actors. Intervention researchers when applying a qualimetrics methodology adopt a decidedly transformative approach towards the research object, as the objective is to change the structures and behaviours observed in the company or the organization by experimenting both on and with the actors so as to better understand the phenomena observed ‘through and for action’. Like in action research, the objective of qualimetrics intervention research is to create a community of inquiry. However, qualimetrics is focused not only on the creation of such communities of inquiry regarding social phenomena but on a more comprehensive analysis of the organizations that takes into account both social and economic performance. Indeed, most action research and Intervention Research methodologies find their common origins in sociology and not in the field of accounting or economics. Conversely, the qualimetrics methodology as a measure of performance is seen as more efficient than classical quantitative measurement as it seeks to reconcile the three opposed logics systems—qualitative, quantitative and financial—by recontextualizing them so as to circumvent a silo type of approach and to get a clear picture of their interaction.

Qualimetrics methodology assumes that accounting only gives a partial representation of a company's overall economic performance. Traditional accounting is the realm of number crunchers. The rigidity of numbers (which, moreover, can be tampered with or selectively manipulated, as evidenced in the ethno-statistics approach) can lead to distorted images of organizational performance. Conversely, what is often referred to as the magic of words can also be misleading. To reconcile these opposite approaches to the bottom line, the qualimetrics modelization permits bringing meaning to both words and numbers. Qualimetrics is thus defined as an intervention into the way in which numbers are produced, analyzed, displayed and interpreted.