The Sage Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice (2nd Edition)

′For anyone seeking to create meaning out of life, inspire others with publication of research discoveries and insights, and help the world become a better place within which to live and work, action research holds great promise as an approach. The challenge is to do it well and with rigor. The Handbook is a magnificent collection of articles that will help the reader do all of that′

- Richard E. Boyatzis, Case Western Reserve University and ESADE

′This second volume will be a welcome extension of the landmark first volume of the Sage Handbook of Action Research. It effectively secures the field′s ′second wave′ in a particularly powerful and creative articulation of well-theorised practice. It could not be more timely for a fast-growing field that has attracted recent appreciation from parties as disparate as Shell, 3M, Australian Aboriginal women in outback Australia working to prevent harm to children and the Secretary General of the UN′

- Yoland Wadsworth

′For anyone thinking about or doing action research, this book is an obligatory point of reference. If any one text both maps the action research paradigm, and at the same time moves it on, this is it′

- Bill Cooke, Manchester Business School

Building on the strength of the seminal first edition, The Sage Handbook of Action Research has been completely updated to bring chapters in line with the latest qualitative and quantitative approaches in this field of social inquiry. Editors Peter Reason and Hilary Bradbury have introduced new part commentaries that draw links between different contributions and show their interrelations.

Throughout, the contributing authors really engage with the pragmatics of doing action research and demonstrate how this can be a rich and rewarding reflective practice. They tackle questions of how to integrate knowledge with action, how to collaborate with co-researchers in the field, and how to present the necessarily ′messy′ components in a coherent fashion. The organization of the volume reflects the many different issues and levels of analysis represented.

This volume is an essential resource for scholars and professionals engaged in social and political inquiry, organizational research and education.

I retired in 2009 from an academic career at the University of Bath in which my primary contribution was to the theory and practice of participatory action research. I was Director of the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice (CARPP) and co-founder of the MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice. In these programmes we pioneered graduate education based on collaborative, experiential and action-oriented forms of inquiry.

Hilary Bradbury Huang, Ph.D., is Professor in the Management Division of Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Her research, scholarly activism and teaching focus on the human and organizational dimensions of creating healthy communities. At OHSU she teaches in the healthcare MBA and physician leadership development programs.  She also develops the action research approach to Community Based Participatory Research for Health. 

Hilary is editor-in-chief of Action Research Journal.  She co-edited the bestselling Handbook of Action Research (Sage, 2001; 2008) with Peter Reason.  Her journal articles have appeared in Organization Science, Sloan Management Review & Journal of Management Inquiry, among others. Previously Hilary was Research Associate Professor at University of Southern California and Director of Sustainable Business Research at the Center for Sustainable Cities. Before that she was Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University.  She lives with her family in Portland, OR.
Hilary Bradbury, Ph.D., is Director of Sustainable Business Programs at University of Southern California Center for Sustainable Cities, www.sustainablecities.edu. She brings her expertise in action research to work with businesses on issues of sustainability. Prior to this she was Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University| Weatherhead School of Management in Cleveland, Ohio. She has published widely in journals including Organization Science and Academy of Management Executive. She is editor of Action Research and co-editor with Peter Reason of the bestselling Handbook of Action Research (Sage, 2001, 2006, 2008). Hilary is multi lingual, having grown up in Ireland and having worked in Germany, Switzerland and Japan. She lives in LA with her family. The project that takes most of her time now is SEER (Sustainable Enterprise Executive Roundtable). SEER enables collaborative learning among Southern California business leaders so that more sustainable practices result, benefiting the environment and the bottom line, through projects that promote sustainable development.SEER is committed to developing actionable knowledge and measurable positive impact. www.seer.net. Also see: www.Bradbury-Huang.net.