TY - JOUR
T1 - Closing the gap between scholarly knowledge and practice
T2 - Guidelines for HRM action research
AU - Bleijenbergh, Inge
AU - van Mierlo, Jorrit
AU - Bondarouk, Tanya
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is part of the research program Innovating Human Resource Management for Employee-Driven Innovation with project number 409-13-204 , which is (partly) financed by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) .
Funding Information:
This work is part of the research program Innovating Human Resource Management for Employee-Driven Innovation with project number 409-13-204, which is (partly) financed by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).
Funding Information:
Inge Bleijenbergh is associate professor Research Methodology at Radboud University, who specializes in participatory research methodology like action research. She conducted action research projects on gender and diversity in academia in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Turkey, funded by two European 7th framework grants (STAGES 2012–2016 and EGERA 2014–2018). She publishes widely in international academic journals like the Journal of Management Studies, Social Politics, Organization Studies and Organization, and was editor of the Oxford Handbook of Diversity in Organizations (2015) (with Regine Bendl, Albert Mills and Elina Henttonen).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020
PY - 2021/6/1
Y1 - 2021/6/1
N2 - In this paper we review the current use of action research in the field of Human Resource Management (HRM), and assess its potential contribution to the field. We show that action research is very suitable for theory development and excels in developing scholarly knowledge that informs practitioners and is relevant for specific contexts. Although only a handful of HRM papers label their research as action research (from our review of nine journals between 2000 and 2019), they substantially contribute to HRM by explaining the role of context and the dynamic nature of HRM design, implementation and evaluation and by showing the effectiveness of systemic interventions. We offer guidelines for conducting HRM action research projects, emphasizing the importance of involving relevant stakeholders, rigorously making field notes of the research process and reflexivity on the interests of both researchers and practitioners.
AB - In this paper we review the current use of action research in the field of Human Resource Management (HRM), and assess its potential contribution to the field. We show that action research is very suitable for theory development and excels in developing scholarly knowledge that informs practitioners and is relevant for specific contexts. Although only a handful of HRM papers label their research as action research (from our review of nine journals between 2000 and 2019), they substantially contribute to HRM by explaining the role of context and the dynamic nature of HRM design, implementation and evaluation and by showing the effectiveness of systemic interventions. We offer guidelines for conducting HRM action research projects, emphasizing the importance of involving relevant stakeholders, rigorously making field notes of the research process and reflexivity on the interests of both researchers and practitioners.
KW - Guidelines
KW - Practice
KW - Stakeholder involvement
KW - Theory development
KW - Action research
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85082525436&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.hrmr.2020.100764
DO - 10.1016/j.hrmr.2020.100764
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85082525436
VL - 31
JO - Human resource management review
JF - Human resource management review
SN - 1053-4822
IS - 2
M1 - 100764
ER -