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The article brings the quality characteristics of action research to project management and explores how these quality characteristics of well-designed and executed action research can inform and enhance the practice of project management.

A reflective paper.

The article identifies five imperatives in bringing together action research and project management. The authors argue that project management may be conducted in a manner that is rigorous, reflective and relevant.

The integration of project management and action research is not empirically described. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test and further develop the model in relation to the design and management of projects.

Practical questions are posed for implementation.

The integration of action research and project management is a collaborative venture and the engagement imperative emphasizes that collaboration.

By bringing together action research and project management the article integrates five imperatives: design, engagement, improvement, action and research and quality characteristics of action research to enhance project management as rigorous, reflective and relevant.

Doctoral education (DE) is central to the development and application of operations management (OM) thinking. The European Doctoral Educational Network (EDEN) seminar on research methodology in OM is a structured initiative developed in 1999 by European Operations Management Association (EurOMA) and European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management (EIASM). This intensive five-day seminar has run annually since and, to date, has engaged 486 students. The purpose of this paper is to ask: what role has the OM EDEN seminar played in the formation and academic career development of doctoral researchers, and how has it contributed to the development of EurOMA as a community of practice?

The authors developed a retrospective case on the design, launch and growth of the OM EDEN seminar employing two data gathering methods (collecting secondary and archival data, and a survey of four selected seminar participants) and a social network analysis.

The EDEN seminar is an effective educational intervention in developing doctoral researchers and their subsequent academic careers. The seminar has also contributed to EurOMA as a community of practice, bringing faculty together to teach, write and publish leading edge contributions in research methods for OM.

The case is focused on the OM EDEN seminar only, within which the survey is limited to four of the early participants. While another set of participants might respond differently in detail, the authors’ expectation is that participant perception of the role of the seminar would not change. The paper provides an exemplar for European academic associations to guide how they might explore the formation and academic career development of doctoral candidates within a community of practice.

The seminar merits the ongoing support of EurOMA and EIASM, not just in educating doctoral students but also in bringing faculty together to publish leading edge contributions to the OM domain.

The paper draws on the areas of student formation, academic career development and communities of practice to illustrate the role played by the OM EDEN seminar.

This paper is the first description, analysis and reflection on the role played by the OM EDEN seminar.

This article presents a nucleus of organizational levels which attempts to articulate an OD framework which acknowledges how large system change is a systemic interlevel process. This framework describes four levels in terms of a task at each level—bonding at the individual level, creating working, functioning team at the team level, coordination at the interdepartmental group level and adaptation at the organizational level—and attempts to articulate the dynamic interrelationship between the individual's bonding to the organization, the team's functioning, the interdepartmental group's coordination and the organization's adaptation, particularly in a change situation. This focus on interlevel dynamics is not common in the OD literature, yet is at the heart of many consulting experiences. The article describes this framework, positions it in relation to other OD levels approaches, and argues for the notion of organizational levels to be understood in dynamic systemic terms and that interlevel dynamics be constructed into OD theory and practice.

Many models and typologies exist in the fields of organisational behaviour and consultation. One model, developed by Rashford and Coghlan, focuses on organisational levels as a framework for managing human resources. Four organisational levels — individual, face‐to‐face team, group‐divisional and policy‐strategy — are distinguished and each level is defined in terms of tasks and interventions. In the field of consultation, the typology of Blake and Mouton is well established. This typology presents a classification system of five consultation interventions — acceptant, catalytic, confronting, prescriptive and theory. It has widely influenced thinking on, and training in, consultation skills. The Blake and Mouton typology is applied to the Rashford and Coghlan framework with a view to its further development.

Kubler‐Ross′ stages of death and dying – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance‐have formed the basis of much of the therapeutic work with the terminally ill. As death and dying are the ultimate instances of change in a person′s life, it is hypothesised that Kubler‐Ross′ work has an application to the theory and process of change. A four‐stage model of organisational change‐denying, dodging, doing and sustaining – based on Kubler‐Ross is presented. These four stages are linked to the four organisational levels, generating a seven‐phase framework that integrates the complex interplay of denying, dodging, doing and sustaining in the individual, the team, the group and the organisation.

Organisation Development has played a significant role in the renewal of Catholic religious orders since the Second Vatican Council (1962‐5). Religious orders have used consultants in their change processes. As religious orders are a unique form of non‐profit organisation and have a particular culture based on their vocational service nature, consultants must be sensitive to this culture. This article describes OD interventions on four levels of apostolic religious ministry.

Within the context of the changing nature of research and of universities, insider action research provides a particular expression of action research that poses considerable challenges to those engaging in it. The purpose of this article is to address the challenges of insider action research.

The paper draws on such research undertaken in Sweden.

Insider action researchers need to confront the issues pertaining to preunderstanding, role duality and organizational politics. Attention to experience, understanding and judgement which leads to action, provides a methodology through which they can affirm what and how they know. They need to do so in a critical realist approach which challenges them to transcend their own subjectivity through the quality of how they are attentive to the data, intelligent in their understanding, reasonable in their judgements and responsible in their actions. Such transcendence provides the criteria for a rigorous epistemology and quality action research.

This paper brings the work of Bernard Lonergan to the field of action research and insider action research in particular and addresses in concrete terms how his critical realist approach may be actualized in practice by those engaging in insider action research.

Training and developing managers in skills that enable them to deal effectively with the multiple issues within an organisation is a perennial task for management, trainers and consultants. There are many approaches to the issues of behaviour in organisations and organisation development on which such training could be based. One approach, developed by Rashford and Coghlan, articulates and links the different levels of behaviour through the concept of organisational levels. Their use of the construct differs from the common use of organisational levels in organisational behaviour and organisation development texts. This article describes how this paradigm was used in management development courses in the United States.

Organisation development consultants in their work in organisations can find that managers, teams, groups and organisations frequently act out of what is, in effect, a distortion of reality. Distortions seriously impair an organisation′s functioning and affect the ability to manage change effectively. Some common distortions are identified on each of the four organisational levels. Process consultants intervene to confront distortions and to facilitate reflection on how the distortions arise.