Dialogues on Work and Innovation (vols. 1–15, 1996–2004)

Researching Enterprise Development is written by the key researchers of a large Norwegian Action Research program on enterprise development (Enterprise Development 2000). This book tells the stories of how the seven participating modules were developed, created and sustained as Action Research activities. Based on these stories, reflection on a broader analysis of core issues of the program are given on the following topics:

• the processes within the program and changing models for leadership

• how research groups become proficient as action researchers

• local research as networking with the regional business community

• enhancing the innovation capacity of participating companies

• participation and democratic processes in enterprise development



The reflections and stories provide detailed accounts of how this Action Reseach program was developed and ample ideas on how Action Research modules can be implemented for other enterprise development projects.The book is preceded by Work Organisation and Europe as a Development Coalition (edited by Richard Ennals and Bjorn Gustavsen, 1999), and the results of the ED 2000 project are explained in Creating Connectedness (edited by Bjorn Gustavsen, Hakon Finne and Bo Oscarsson, 2001).

Employment is clearly one of those fields of political activity that reveal the manifold problems and difficulties accompanying the process of European integration and supranational institutionalization. In particular the conflict between supranationalists and intergovernmentalists and the degree to which member states show willingness to cooperate with each other become manifest. The Union is struggling for new employment policies that should, on the one hand, be compatible with the European model of the welfare state, and, on the other, adopt to new economic constraints. These debates are accompanied by many conflicts between different interest groups and lobbies.

This study succeeded in looking behind closed doors within the EU organizational system. Committee meetings were tape-recorded and analysed, drafts of policy papers were examined for recontextualizations and the impact of interest groups and different economic and ideological concepts on policy-making made explicit. A comparison of decision-making processes in the European Parliament and in small networks of the Commission illustrates the different argumentation patterns and discursive practices that are involved in the formation of new employment policies. The ethnographic research is accompanied by a systemic linguistic and sociological analysis of various institutional genres and political spaces.

Searching explains how to make the fundamental cultural change required for a desirable sustainable future. It describes the ‘two-stage model’ of open-systems social science in action and covers two major methods: the Search Conference for strategic planning and community development; and the Participative Design Workshop for the genotypical design and redesign of organizational structures. The result of nearly 50 years of integrated conceptual and practical development, Searching shows that by replacing 200 years of mechanistic assumptions with concepts and principles which accurately capture human and social realities, these methods generate intrinsic motivation and release human potentials for change. Starting with the building blocks of this internally consistent theoretical framework, Part I explains the interrelations and shows how the power of the methods for achieving this cultural change is generated. Part II of the book describes the methods and illustrates their flexibility by discussing some of their most common variations.

Supported bilaterally by Sweden and Norway, the Scandinavian Action Research Development Program (ACRES — Action Research in Scandinavia) emphasized conceptualizing research questions and self-conscious writing processes for experienced action researchers. Participants came from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Holland, Great Britain, and the United States.

A learning experiment in the tradition of Scandinavian industrial democracy, ACRES had both intellectual and organizational tensions common to action research projects. This book includes theoretical and historical overviews of action research, reflections on the writing process, narratives about the design and difficult internal processes of ACRES, and a selection of the participants’ writings. A particularly unique feature of the book is the discussion of the problematic relationship between action research and conventional modes of research writing and an analysis of the complex social processes collaboratively managed projects create, in combination with a set of participant cases.

Organizational theorists talk a lot about organizational development. Although they can express themselves eloquently, too often the practitioner is not convinced by their talk. The authors of The End of Organization Theory? are in favor of the ‘doers’ doing most of the talking themselves. Thus, in this book, Øyvind Pålshaugen tells the story of an action research project in which a reorganization of the discourse between management and workers serves as the basis for an organizational development process. Björn Gustavsen, Dag Østerberg and John Shotter add critical comments.

The Swedish Working Life Fund — a temporary organization functioning from 1990 to 1995 — distributed 10 billion Swedish crowns for workplace development and initiated 25,000 projects. About half of the total labor market was affected. This evaluation study, which is built on case studies as well as a survey of a representative sample of the project population, describes the emergent characteristics of organization development in Swedish enterprises and services. In order to locate the efforts of the Fund within an explanatory context, the study draws on the idea of concept-driven change, of participation in development processes, of development coalitions, of infrastructure for change and of a society, that is supportive of change.

State administration in modern industrialized countries is facing major challenges to its basic institutional premises. The changing conditions of the global economy mean that the public sector needs to develop far-reaching strategies for innovation. A fundamental reform of the public sector is thus one of the most urgent issues on the international agenda. The volume examines and compares trends, issues and experiences of this reform process in Sweden and Germany.