Action research for management research

Action research has become increasingly prominent among management researchers as an espoused paradigm used to justify the validity of a range of research outputs. In this paper we introduce and discuss 12 contentions which, we argue, justify an action research project as quality research. The contentions are presented through a discussion of a number of important issues: generality and theory generation, the type of theory development appropriate to action research, the pragmatic focus of action research, designing action research and validity of action research