Action Research for Innovation Management: Three benefits, three challenges, and three spaces

Seminar abstract

Given that the innovation landscape is changing, and new forms of organisation and management are emerging, this study discusses the potential benefits of action research for innovation management as it provides a closeness to living in emerging systems, generates rich insights as well as knowledge for both rigorous theory development and change in practice.

Drawing from a large-scale action research study involving complex collaborative organisational construct, this presentation outlines three challenges from employing action research.

The process is both reflective and progressive, the researcher is both an outsider and an insider and the outcome is both general and specific.

A model of three social spaces (the action research space, the academic space, and the practitioner space) is proposed to address the challenges and assist in navigating the multitude of processes, roles, and outcomes association with action research.

The study argues that action research for IM is well suited to exploring tacit aspects of practices and processes in the emergent or shifting study contexts to transform practices through interventions. Thus, if implemented carefully by experienced researchers, it can provide valuable data that is indispensable for theory development in the field of IM.

Booking

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Speakers bio

Professor Susanne Ollila

Susanne Ollila, is Professor in Organisational Behaviour and Vice Head of Department for Graduate Education at the Department of Technology Management and Economics at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.

She is the founder of the Managing In-Between research group, focusing on understanding the managing and organising for knowledge creation and innovation emerging in spaces in-between established organisations.

Her research has focused on relational aspects on knowledge sharing and the organising and managerial practices in open and collaborative innovation,

Her current research is focusing social and relational aspects of value relation and value capture, ecosystems from a design perspective as well as citizen sourcing in Smart Cities.

Professor Ollia's work has been published in;

• Creative and innovation management
• International Journal of Technology Management 
• Journal of Applied Behavioural Science
• Journal of Knowledge Management
• R and D Management

Dr Anna Yström

Anna is a Senior Lecturer (docent) in Industrial Organisation at the Department of Management and Engineering at Linköping University.

She has a PhD in Technology Management and Economics from Chalmers University of Technology.

Her research focuses on management from different forms of inter-organisational collaboration and new ways of organising innovation work, and she is currently working on topics like knowledge dissemination and integration in knowledge ecosystems, urban innovation governance for collaborative innovation cities, and the future of management related to the integration of AI in complex systems.

Anna's previous work has been published in;

• R and D Management
• Journal of Applied Behavioural Science
• Creativity and Innovation Management
• International Journal of Innovation Management.