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Idea Networking: Constructing a Pragmatic Conceptual Frame for Action Research Interventions

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Abstract

Action research interventions require use of some form of conceptual frame to guide and evaluate the intervention. Pragmatism offers an explanation of ideas that enables this conceptual frame to be constructed inductively from diverse participants’ ideas. They define ideas as experienced patterns of activity. The purpose of this paper is to explain why and how this pragmatic explanation of ideas can be used to induce an action research conceptual frame. As a demonstration, the paper inducts (emerges) a conceptual frame using idea networking for service providers in an emerging cultural accommodation industry. 50 h of interviews and site visits provided 117 individual idea statements which were networked. The conceptual frame that emerged had five elements: sufficient-legitimation, selected-market, inclusive-boomi, appropriately-financial, and collaboratively-empowered. This provides a coordinated, multi-part, way of evaluating any possible future changes.

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Notes

  1. This case study has been published in more detail elsewhere and is include here only to illustrate how a conceptual frame was emerged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Najmeh Hassanli & Mike Metcalfe

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  1. Najmeh Hassanli
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  2. Mike Metcalfe
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Correspondence to Mike Metcalfe.

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Hassanli, N., Metcalfe, M. Idea Networking: Constructing a Pragmatic Conceptual Frame for Action Research Interventions. Syst Pract Action Res 27, 537–549 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-013-9312-x

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