Innovation Action Research_ Creating New Management Theory and Practice.

An alternative approach, innovation action research,^ has scholars actively engaged in helping organizations to implement a new idea. Through such active engagement, the scholars learn not only about the idea itself and how to improve it, but also about the conditions for successful implementation in organizations. This approach is also not easy. The scholars must be able to produce changes in the status quo in organizational design and practices. Many organizations espouse that they desire change and improvement. But almost all organizations actually practice a theoryin-use that is quite hostile to change. In attempting to implement a new method of managing, the scholars face an uphill battle, attempting to instill more order and rationality into processes, which through past experience and inertia, have been running on automatic for many years. Organizations have also developed considerable (if implicit) skills to diffuse the energy and direction from new initiatives.
; greatly appreciate the comments, on earlier drafts, from David Norton, Anthony Atkinson, Michael Beer, William W. Cooper, Paul Healy, Krishna Palepu, Bob Simons, Michael Shields and Mark Young and, especially, Chris Argyris, who inspired me to write thiagement Accounting Research, 1998
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for leading and managing organizations? How do such scholars develop and validate the new ideas?
The scholars could search widely and attempt to find organizations where a "better idea" has been implemented, collect a broad set of data on such implementations and compare the results with those achieved by comparable organizations that are not following the proposed new idea. This approach, however, has some limitations. It requires that the scholars already have a well-formulated, complete idea about what the innovation is, so that they can recognize it when they find it. It also requires that the innovating organizations have implemented the new idea well, both technically and organizationally, and it requires finding such organizations and having them cooperate in allowing their experiences to be documented.
If social scientists truly wish to understand certain phenomena, they should try to change them. Creating, not predicting, is the most robust test of vaiidity-actionability.
— Kurt Lewin, as quoted in Argyris (1997).
Field research in management is generally associated with (1) crosssectional research, the systematic collection and analysis of data from multiple sites at a point in time, (2) time-series research, collecting and analyzing longitudinal data studies from one or a small number of organizations, and (3) case studies, in-depth, intense study of the experiences of a single organization at a single point in time. Much field research is descriptive. It helps develop theories to explain how the world is and how it maintains itself. Field research can also be used for testing theories. Such theories are generally about stability, equilibrium and optimality. The theories predict that people, or organizations, behave in certain ways. The field researcher collects data that can test whether the actual behavior of individuals and organizations is consistent with the hj^otheses in the theory.
But what if some scholars believe that the current practices occurring in companies are not desirable or optimal? What if they believe that new ideas could change the status quo and introduce an improved approach
JMAR Volume Ten
1998
Innovation Action Research: Creating New Management Theory and Practice
Robert S. Kaplan Harvard University
Abstract: Much research in social science and management develops and tests theories about existing phenomena and practice. Researchers who believe that existing practices can be improved, however, can attempt to develop and implement entirely new approaches. Action research engages the researcher in an explicit program to develop new solutions that alter existing practice and then test the feasibility and properties of the innovation. In developing two new management accounting approaches—activity-based costing and the balanced scorecard—my colleagues and I used a particular form of action research, referred to as "innovation action research." In this mode, we initially documented a major limitation in contemporary practice, then identified a new concept to overcome this limitation, and continued to apply and improve the concept through publication, teaching, and active intervention in companies. In this innovation action research cycle, the researcher enhances the underlying theory and, in the process, also becomes a skilled implementer of the new concept.