It is the turn of each of the following students to write a paper for this class meeting: Yue LIU, Bixia XU, Silvia PONCE, Rashmi ASSUDANI, and Xiao Yun WANG. The topic is action research.

Remember that you must write your paper as if you were presenting your responses to an audience of other researchers (for instance, other doctoral students, professors, journal readers) who are completely unfamiliar with the topic and who have not read the papers that you have read.

When writing your paper, be sure to state the question at the beginning of the paper.

The paper must be submitted no later than Sunday, June 15, at 10am. Follow the instructions in the syllabus for submitting the paper to AllenLee@Management.McGill.ca. By noon, all of the papers will be forwarded to the entire class via the electronic discussion list, Lee-PhD@Management.McGill.ca. All students must read these papers in preparation for class.

1. (Yue LIU, Bixia XU, Silvia PONCE). Please answer the following.

(a) Make up your own explanation of what "action research" is, where you may base your answer on the assigned readings. In your explanation, you may limit yourself to just five key elements or characteristics of action research. A professor of administration or a doctoral student of administration should be able, upon reading your explanation, to understand what action research is.

(b) Devote no more than a few sentences or a single brief paragraph to each of the following: What can action research tell us that laboratory experiments or statistical experiments cannot? ...that positivist case studies cannot? ...that multivariate analysis and statistical hypothesis testing cannot? ...that explanatory surveys cannot? ...that secondary data analysis cannot? ...that interpretive case studies cannot? ...that hermeneutics cannot? ...that ethnography cannot?

(c) How is action research different from consulting?

(d) Describe just two or three ways in which you believe the research in the article by S. Jönsson & A. Grölund could be improved.

2. (Rashmi ASSUDANI, and Xiao Yun WANG). Please answer the following.

(a) Make up your own explanation of what "action research" is, where you may base your answer on the assigned readings. In your explanation, you may limit yourself to just five key elements or characteristics of action research. A professor of administration or a doctoral student of administration should be able, upon reading your explanation, to understand what action research is.

(b) Devote no more than a few sentences or a single brief paragraph to each of the following: What can action research tell us that laboratory experiments or statistical experiments cannot? ...that positivist case studies cannot? ...that multivariate analysis and statistical hypothesis testing cannot? ...that explanatory surveys cannot? ...that secondary data analysis cannot? ...that interpretive case studies cannot? ...that hermeneutics cannot? ...that ethnography cannot?

(c) How is action research different from consulting?

(d) Describe just two or three ways in which you believe the research in the article by Tony Hindle, Peter Checkland, Michael Mumford & David Worthington could be improved.