ACTION RESEARCH ABOUT AND INSIDE WORKING LIFE

Most Norwegian research on work and working life is carried out as so-called action research. Introduced to Norway in the early sixties by Einar Thorsrud, action research tries to improve work environment and work organization and to gain new understanding and knowledge about organization and work through the process of changes created by the research process. Action research has changed considerably since the field experiments conducted by Thorsrud and collaborators in the sixties. The objective of the early research was to introduce democracy in the workplace and to study the consequences of increased worker participation and changed work design on productivity. Now, the most important type of action research is the so-called participatory action research. Here both the objectives and the implementation of changes in work organization are developed in participation with the workers. Action research has had important and long-term effects on the institutions that regulate working life in Norway. This is most evident in the law about work environment from 1977. However, the activities of the Norwegian action researchers have also been important for the regulation and design of work in the oil and shipping industries. This article describes this research tradition and attempts to evaluate its scientific contributions. It is argued that action research has developed into a set of tools for producing changes in organizations which satisfy certain ethical and philosophical principles. The formulation of these principles has been an important activity in recent research. Action research has been much less concerned about reporting, to other social scientists, new knowledge and insight about organizational structure and processes. Nor has the study of the effectiveness of techniques for change and the evaluation of the long-term consequences of organizational change been an important concern in recent action research.