The book 'Action research and new media' by Greg Hearn, Jo Tacchi, Marcus Foth and June Lennie, breaks new ground in a number of ways. It explores the new internet media using action research. At the same time it uses the new media to reach out to the participants in action research studies....

I think of action research as an extension of a natural approach to problem solving. Faced with a novel situation we often first investigate. We then develop an intention to act, and carry it out. We notice if it worked. Action research similarly cycles between intention, action and review. To...

I have observed over the last decade that managers' perceptions of interpersonal conflict are changing. Ten years ago, there was a tendency either to deny that conflict was usual, or to complain that it was frequent, but should not be. When managers were asked what aspects of human behaviour...

This is the second part of a practical paper showing how conflict resolution skills can be used by managers. Part I of this article appeared in Vol. 2 No. 3 which outlined the FIDO model. This emphasised the importance of working through the four key issues of Feelings, Information, Decisions...

This paper is Bob Dick’s latest conceptualisation of much of his extensive work (including his AREOL course: action research and evaluation online). His focus is on postgraduate programs. He discusses the choices that a postgraduate student faces in conducting action research: as a technician...

OutlineThis paper presents the results of a recent evaluation of the Urban Development Grant in Belfast. In contrast to cities in Great Britain, the Urban Development Grant in Belfast has been available not just to property speculators, but also to owner-occupiers of commercial premises. The...

This paper seeks to test the influential 'risk society' thesis using quantitative data from the major UK longitudinal surveys. Two hypotheses are derived from the thesis: distanciation (the claim that more recent generations understand and manage their social lives in relation to risk and...

The theory of risk society claims that 'individualisation' has led social class positions to loose their significance in explaining risk and risk perceptions in late modernity. Using social survey data from England, this proposition was put to an empirical test for three types of risks: income...

Of welfare-to-work programs evaluated by random assignment, two stand out as having exceptionally large estimated effects: one in Riverside, California, and the other in Portland, Oregon. The authors use data from 24 evaluations and the tools of meta-analysis to examine why. The findings...

Could Total Quality Management (TQM) provide the "reconceptualisation" of management required in Africa? TQM is a coherent, established management framework, and the collectivism and high power distance culture of African countries might match the internal customers' teamwork of TQM's quality...