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Subject: Business and Management, Organizational Theory and Behaviour, Technology and Knowledge Management
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199275250.003.0016
The focus of this chapter is upon producing actionable knowledge. Propositions that are actionable are those that actors can use to implement
effectively their intentions. Effective implementation occurs when (a) a match is produced between the intentions of the actors and the actual outcomes,
(b) in such a way that the outcomes persevere, and (c) without deteriorating the existing level of problem-solving effectiveness.
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the validity of the knowledge.
15.2.1 The Importance of Describing the Universe as Completely and Validly as Possible
One of the most fundamental norms of the social science community is that the task of scholars is to describe their chosen universe as completely and
validly as possible. The test for completeness and validity is the derivation of falsifiable hypotheses that are tested empirically.
One rule that flows from this norm is that scholars should remain descriptive and avoid being normative and especially prescriptive. The latter
emphases are delegated to applied researchers who are not conducting basic research.
For example, Cronbach and Suppes (1969) separate conclusion-oriented research (basic) from decision-oriented research (applied). Coleman
(1972) continued and expanded the distinction by calling the former discipline research and the latter policy research. Many scholars accept this
distinction. An excellent compilation of their positions can be found in Stringer (1982). Basic research is designed to test theories and to produce
generalizations, is open to scrutiny by the scholarly community, and does not begin with an intention to be of help or to produce implementable
knowledge (Coleman 1972).
Action or applied research, on the other hand, seeks to solve client problems and to produce workable solutions that are usually not abstract (in order
to be relevant to the concrete problems of practice), are rarely subject to scholarly scrutiny, and are intended for implementation. Some would go as
far as saying that it might not be necessary or useful for such researchers to be concerned about truth. Indeed, they might find that being helpful
requires ignoring truth (Ellis 1982).
McGrath and Brinberg (1984) have developed a model that attempts to show why many of these differences between basic and applied research
may be symptomatic of researchers defenses. Using the validity network schema, they are able to show that basic and applied research may have
different pathways but that both are centrally concerned with the validity and generalizability of propositions. They suggest that both camps show an
interest in each other's biases but that they tend to deal with that interest by mentioning it last. I believe that there is much wisdom in McGrath and
Brinberg's perspective. However, I hesitate to agree with their proposition that basic researchers are primarily concerned with the conceptual domain
and applied researchers with the substantive domain.
Peters and Robinson (1984) conclude that both versions of applied research espouse involvement-in-change and organic research processes heavily
influenced by collaboration between researchers and subjects. They also conclude that the researchers who advocate the strong version tend to place
a heavier emphasis upon constructivist / interactionist epistemology. The latter stresses that our understanding of the world is partially constitutive of it,
and that social actors create their own histories and are capable of reflection-in-action in order to change the world as it is. The strong version, they
conclude, is emancipatory.
I believe further that research to produce actionable knowledge can and should be exposed to self-correcting procedures. It may be, as Coleman
(1972) suggests, that much of the self-correcting activity in present policy research is best conducted by independent studies. I am recommending that
self-correcting procedures should be designed into studies because these procedures protect the human subjects, as well as foster the production of
valid basic knowledge.
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they are not able to learn, and that the cause of this inability is the focus on what is taken for granted namely, routines. If one claims that limited
learning, quasi-resolution of conflict, and competitive coalition groups are omnipresent and routine, it is not difficult to conclude that they are to be taken
for granted and therefore not likely to be altered.
I turn next to the concept of control. March states that control is a fundamental process in most organizations. I agree. Then, March links control and
conflict in the following way. He suggests that control systems drive conflict systems because once measures are developed to evaluate performance
and compliance they invite manipulation. Once the rules of evaluation are set, conflict of interest between the rule setters and their followers assures
that there will be some incentives for the latter to maximize the difference between the rule setters and the rule followers. It assures that there will be
some incentives for the latter to maximize the difference between their score and their effort. Any system of accounts is a road map to cheating on
them (March 1981: 220).
The reasoning appears to be as follows. Control processes are fundamental to organization; controls require the evaluation of performance. People
cope with such evaluations by manipulation and cheating. They create coalition groups to bring about and to protect these self-protective processes. If
this self-interest is not consistent with the organization's, then more manipulation and cheating will occur. This, in turn, results in more control. The
processes can become self-reinforcing.
March uses similar logic in discussing trust and loyalty. Trust and loyalty, he asserts are hard to find. The problem of trust is exacerbated by
organizational politics. Organizational politics is a central feature of most organizations. [T]he first principle of politics is that everyone is rational and no
one can be trusted. There may be a few who can be trusted, but they are to be characterized as innocent and naive (March 1981: 219).
The consequence is that the organizations are composed of winners and losers. The players will try to look trustworthy even though they are not, in
order to be trusted by those people who might become winners. It is therefore, a palpable feature of organizational life, that organizations may be
validly characterized as individuals and groups pursuing their own interests by the manipulation of information (March 1988: 6). It is not surprising that
March concludes changes in the domains of conflict and trust through the confrontation and resolution of conflict are not likely to be effective (March
1988: 8). In effect, March paints a valid (I believe) picture of dysfunctionalities around issues of control, loyalty, trust, cheating. He then argues that
these are not likely to be alterable. Not surprisingly, he and others have not conducted empirical research to test the claim.
There is a theme running throughout this reaction that also occurs throughout the chapter. The theme is illustrated by Lewin's advice that if we wish to
understand the universe fully we should strive to change it. The discussion above provides several reasons why this advice is sound.
First, as we have seen, describing the universe, tells us little about the actions that the members of that universe used to create the universe in the first
place. Thus, the relational concepts represent, in my view, valid descriptions of organizations. However, stopping at this description tells us very little
about how these variables were produced in the first place.
Second, if the universe is described as being composed of relatively stable patterns, it is necessary for us to explain the causal mechanism by which
the patterns maintain their stability. These causal mechanisms are not likely to be discovered until there is an intervention intended to change them
fundamentally. Under these conditions, the causal mechanisms that create the stability will be activated.
It follows, I suggest, that making description the ultimate goal risks placing organization theory in the role of being the servant of the status quo. The risk
related to the world of practice is that such knowledge will not help practitioners who seek to change the status quo. The risk to science is that the goal
of seeking as complete descriptions of the universe is limited by design because little attention is paid to understanding how to make fundamental
changes in the patterns.
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be done, for example, by developing an intervention program, intended to surface and reduce the defenses. I believe Van Maanen would not disagree
with this possibility but would maintain that intervention to change taken-for-granted behavior is not part of his research practice. The point that I am
making is not that he must change. The point is that he and other ethnographers ought to specify the distancing that they create, just as they specify
the distancing the positivists create.
Another position often taken by field researchers who focus on naturalistic observations is that such research goes deeper than does research that is
designed to be distant in order to be objective. Again, this position seems plausible. However, there are gaps and inconsistencies to be found, which
are illustrated by Dyer and Wilkins's (1991) critique of Eisenhardt's (1989) position on how to conduct research.
Dyer and Wilkins favor using stories to generate theory. They believe that single case stories can deliver deep insights, while those developed from
comparative case studies are likely to be thin. The difficulty is that they craft their position so that it is not disconfirmable; indeed, it is not producible.
For example, what are the properties of an effective story? What are the properties of thin insights? Dyers and Wilkins state: Although it is difficult to
determine how deep a researcher must go to generate good theory, the classic case study researchers certainly went deeper into the dynamics of a
single case than Eisenhardt advocates (p. 616). But the authors do not define what an appropriate depth is. Until this is done, how can we judge
Eisenhardt's position to be wanting?
Dyer and Wilkins assert that in multi-case studies the focus is on the construct to the detriment of the context. I am in favor of focusing on the context.
But those of us who support contextual research are, I suggest, responsible for defining context in a way that is not self-referential, which makes testing
features of it difficult. Dyer and Wilkins approvingly cite several classic case studies that tell a story (for example, Whyte 1991). Yet, as Eisenhardt
shows in her reply, those studies had features that were consistent with her view of context as much if not more than with Dyer and Wilkins's view.
Finally, Rosen (1991) also suggests that ethnographers do not allow any theoretical preoccupations to decide whether some facts are more important
than others. I agree that competent ethnographers focus on the relatively directly observable data. It is difficult to agree, however, that ethnographers
do not allow any theoretical preconceptions to decide whether some facts are more important than others. As I see it, by eschewing interventions to
change the constructed world they describe, they ignore, or do not permit to surface, the data that would arise if anyone tried to change that world.
They may not let their preconceptions decide which facts are and are not important. But they allow their preconceptions to create conditions under
which crucial facts will never arise.
Kunda is quoted by Rosen (p. 21) as saying that ethnography is the only human activity in the social sciences [that] is not divorced from the modes
of experience that I consider human. I do not question that Kunda considers ethnography to be connected to what it means to be human, but the
validity of the assertion is, in my judgment, doubtful. Kunda's study, which in my opinion is an excellent example of ethnography, misses the core of
what it means to be human, according to his standards. Being human means to act, to construct a world, and to engage the world in ways that engage
the actors.
Kunda observed human beings being human, but he never became human in the sense of taking action to help his subjects in the struggle of being
human. It was possible for Kunda to become as human as his subjects by developing interventions. Interventions are human experiments that have
the intention of constructing different virtual worlds. Engstrom (2000) suggests that ethnographers consider seriously to become more interventionist in
approach if they are to fulfill the claims that they espouse.
Another example of counterproductive rivalries is illustrated by a review of invited papers to a conference on applied communications. The papers
were selected by applied communications experts as representing some of the best and current empirical research representing the naturalistic,
humanistic, interpretive (NHI) approaches. An analysis of these papers indicated that the writers were critical of the objectivist positive approach. Yet,
the papers represented some puzzles. For example, the proponents of NHI speak of wholeness, choice, meaning, flexibility, open texts, and dialogue.
Yet much of the research that I reviewed was in the service of compliance, closed dialogue, and closed texts. Many of the scholars questioned the
normal science concepts of causality. Yet, my analysis suggests that the reports rely upon a tacit concept of causality. The NHI scholars were critical
of the distancing produced by positivism yet, they produced their own distancing and seemed unaware that they did so (Argyris 1995).
Finally a problem arises ironically by attempts made by scholars to reduce the counterproductive consequences of academics by integrating various
approaches. The result of these approaches is to integrate through the use of approaches that amount to a live-and-let-live approach where the
strengths of each approach is emphasized and the weaknesses are de-emphasized.
For example, Morgan and Smircich (1980) suggest a way to integrate the various paradigms. They present an analytical model that describes each
paradigm's assumptions about ontology, human nature, epistemology, metaphors, and research methods. The resulting thirty-box table is organized
around the concepts of inter-pretivist and functionalist paradigms, which, in turn, are conceptualized along a continuum ranging from subjectivist (for
the former) to objectivist (for the latter).
A first reaction to the table is that it makes good sense. There are indeed paradigms that are primarily subjectivist and others that are primarily
objectivist. However, a second reaction is that the table does not accurately characterize the assumptions regarding ontology, human nature,
epistemology, metaphors, and research methods if intervention and implementation are to be taken seriously. Those who conduct such research find
that almost all the categories are relevant. For example, in an organizational study, it is shown that the pattern of the director group's defensive routines
represents reality as a social construct. It is implemented in a realm of symbolic discourse. It is a contextual field of information. It is a representation of
concrete processes and structures in the sense that these processes and structures exist out there. It coerces different directors to behave in similar
manners (Argyris 1993).
The assumptions about human nature illustrated in this research also range from the extremes of subjectivism to those of objectivism. For example,
the participants were symbol creators, symbol users, and actors using symbols. The intervention research depended heavily on understanding them
as information processors with limited capacity to deal with environmental complexity. Many examples were described where the same individuals
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were primarily adapters and responders before and after the interventions.
Finally, the research methods ranged from explorations of pure subjectivity, to script and symbolic analysis, to contextual analysis, to historical
analysis of the director group, and to the design and execution of many experiments. Moreover, the entire research project occurred over a period of
five years before publication and it continues. History became increasingly important as the interventions became cumulative, but so did the testing
and experimenting used to assess the extent to which the new pattern contained processes and structures that coerced action in the service of
learning and of reducing defensive routines at all levels.
When individuals, groups, intergroups, or organizations are studied under conditions where interventions are an integral part of the activity, I suggest
that both subjectivist and objectivist assumptions will always be relevant. For example, the interventionists had to help the directors become aware of
how they constructed reality (subjectivist). They then helped them see how these constructions led to a pattern that was out there because they had
placed it out there, through actions designed to inhibit. This, in turn, required that they map contexts and study systems and processes. Finally, this led
the interventionists to help the directors see how they had created a world where a positivist stance was both necessary and counterproductive.
When the subjects were helped to learn a new pattern, it was done by using metaphors and to keep side-by-side the metaphors of theater and culture
and the metaphors of cybernetics and organisms. The directors were also helped to design and implement many experiments in order to create over
time a new pattern that was out there and that coerced the new behavior.
When the objective is to produce actionable knowledge, the strategy is not consistent with the pluralistic strategy of using several different perspectives
relatively independently of each other. For example, Hassard (1991) has described a study in which four different paradigms (functionalist,
interpretive, radical structuralist, and radical humanist) were used to study features of an organization. Each study was conducted consistently with
each perspective's assumptions regarding ontology, epistemology, human nature, and methodology. Each produced different descriptions of different
features of the organization.
Moreover, there was no attempt reported to produce actionable knowledge relevant to changing the status quo. The exercise met the needs of the
researchers, who wanted to see what the different perspectives would produce, and the subjects interests were subordinated to the researchers
interests. The same is true of the analysis made by Allison (1971) of the Cuban missile crisis.
The researchers also produced, by design, defensive routines in their relationships with the subjects. They withheld their interest in conducting the
research with four different paradigms, because they feared that they might not gain access if they revealed their intentions fully. In my view, they
bypassed embarrassment and threat and covered up the bypass.
Donaldson (1985) suggests that integrative research, which allows paradigms to be used conjointly, is necessary because integration can lead to
increasingly comprehensive theories, a consequence favored by science. Those in the pluralistic camp disagree. They claim that such approaches
are, in, effect, a succumbing to the dominant paradigms, such as the functionalist-positivistic. Jackson and Carter (1991) defend paradigm
incommensurability because doing so expands dramatically the scope of organization studies, the interests represented, and those empowered to
speak (p. m). I support the expansion. My argument is that when guided by pluralism, it does not go far enough or deep enough because the necessity
for implementable knowledge is reduced. Therefore, the plea for incommensurability, which is intended to avoid domination by any one approach or
combination of approaches, may have the unintended consequence of becoming a plea for merely a different kind of scientistic authoritarianism.
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found out? Indeed, what would happen to the credibility of the researchers in the eyes of society?
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above reality in order to sustain America's narcissistic delusion of itself. These defensive actions were shaped by feelings of pride, anxiety, pain, that,
in turn, were connected to their experiences in their early lives. All these causal explanations may be valid but the interpretative processes are not
defined explicitly so that readers, and more important, potential users, can make up their own mind as to its validity and implementability.
How implementable are recommendations based upon the above psychoanalytic explanations? Let us assume that highly skilled psychoanalytic
scholars can implement the recommendations. But, how about, for example, the executives whose ways of managing would be greatly affected. It is
doubtful that they could become as skillful as the professionals. It is even more doubtful that they could create an organizational setting where the
psychoanalytic concepts can be used by the participants at all levels of the organization. The psychoanalytic professionals may respond that they do
not claim that their perspective is implementable by non-professionals. They recognize that implementable validity for non-professionals may be low.
There are, at least, two problems with this response. First, it makes the practitioners dependent upon the professionals precisely in the area of
managing where their sense of competence is highly involved. The resulting sense of unilateral control over the executives, according to the
psychoanalytic theory, should lead to inner conflicts and anxieties, which, in turn, activates defenses on the part of the client. The psychoanalytic
professionals may be creating the same top-down management action that NASA officials were accused of using and that was diagnosed by the
psychoanalytic professionals as dysfunctional.
The second problem is related to managers developing the requisite skills and using them in the task of managing employees at all levels. All too many
years ago, I interviewed British executives on organizational issues. They asked me about advice that might emanate from research about intergroups
and interdepartmental conflicts conducted in the United States. I was surprised because one reason I was visiting England was to study the Tavistock
approach to these problems. I asked the executives why they were not looking to Tavistock for help. As I recall, at least six executives, had attended
Tavistock workshops. They found them to be interesting. They felt however that British, or any executives, were not likely to develop the requisite skills
nor was it clear how managers or employees could be educated so that legitimate claims of the implementability of the Tavistock concepts could be
given a fair test. The value of psychoanalytic theory, as exemplified by Tavistock, an organization that Gabriel describes as a pioneering one (a claim
that I believe is justified) had decreased in the eyes of the managers.
The reader might ask if it is not a fundamental assumption of psychoanalytic theory that if awareness is enhanced, it will help individuals become
more effective in designing their actions. The answer is yes. Such an answer, however, raises a deeper question. How do we know when we have
understood something? I suggest that our claim that we know something is most rigorously tested if we can produce what we claim we know.
If we claim that through the use of such concepts as neurosis, narcissism, and repression we can explain the Challenger tragedy, a test of this claim
would be for us to produce ways to help NASA learn not to repeat the organizational defensive routines that were documented. In other words,
awareness should be in the service of action. Action then becomes the criterion for the validity of our awareness.
This suggests that if other theories exist that provide a causal theory of the Challenger tragedy that is more closely connected to action; to re-education
of the executives, and to organizational change, they should be compared with the psychoanalytic position.
One candidate is the theory of action described in this chapter. An analysis was made of the Challenger disaster using similar reports (Argyris 1990).
The analysis suggested that an explanation can be achieved by focusing on the theories of action used by the participants, the organizational
defensive mechanisms and barriers to effective communication. The analysis also suggested that these problems are not unique to NASA. Indeed
many organizations (private and public) exhibit the same features. Finally, it was shown that this theory has been used to design intervention
programs to correct many of the individual group, and organizational errors described above. Let us now turn to describing the theory of action
approach.
I should now like to close with a very brief description of how a theory of action approach deals with many of the problems identified above.2
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questioning the defensive reasoning. We now have self-fueling processes that maintain the status quo, inhibit genuine learning, and reinforce the
deception. (Figure 15.1)
Human beings learn their theories-in-use early in life, to use them constantly, and therefore the actions that they produce are highly skilled. Little
conscious attention is paid to producing skilled actions. Indeed, conscious attention could inhibit producing them effectively. This creates unawareness
of what we are doing when we act skillfully. The unawareness due to skill and the unawareness caused by our unilaterally controlling theories-in-use
produce a deeper unawareness; namely, we become unaware of the programs in our heads that keep us unaware. The results are skilled
unawareness and skilled incompetence (Argyris 1980). For example, when individuals have to say something negative to others (e.g. Your
performance is poor) they often ease-in, in order not to upset the other. Two of the most frequent easing-in actions that we observe are (a) non-directive
questioning and (b) face-saving approaches. In order for these to work, the individuals must cover up that they are acting as they are, in order not to
upset the other. In order for a cover-up to work, the cover-up itself must be covered up.
Under these conditions, we find that the recipients are wary of what is happening. They sense that there may be a cover-up. Because they hold the
same theory-in-use, they too cover up their private doubts. The result is counterproductive consequences for genuine problem-solving. All of this occurs
with the use of skillful behavior; hence, the term skilled incompetence.
When organizational worlds become dominated by these consequences, human beings become cynical about changing the self-fueling
counterproductive process.
Not surprisingly, they learn to distance themselves from taking responsibility, losing, and suppressing negative feelings, especially those associated
with embarrassment or threat. Individuals use behavioral strategies consistent with these governing values. For example, they advocate their views,
making evaluations and attributions in such a way as to ensure their being in control, winning, and suppressing negative feelings.
In short, individuals learn theories-in-use that are consistent with producing unilateral control. It is true that organizations are hierarchical and based on
unilateral control. It is equally true that individuals are even more so. Place individuals in organizations whose structures are designed to be more
egalitarian, and individuals will eventually make them more unilateral and authoritarian. The most massive examples of such situations of which I am
aware are the alternative schools and communes of the 1970s. Most have failed and slowly have faded away (Argyris 1974).
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up; they are engaged (Argyris 1982; Argyris and Schn 1974).
To the extent that individuals use Model II theory instead of merely espousing it, they will begin to interrupt organizational defensive routines and begin
to create organizational learning processes and systems that encourage double-loop learning in ways that persist. These are called Model II learning
systems (Argyris and Schn 1996).
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would use in this meeting.
3. Next, split your page into two columns. On the right-hand side write how you would begin the meetingwhat you would actually say. Then write
what you believe the other(s) would say. Then write your response to their response. Continue writing this scenario for two or so double-spaced
typewritten pages.
4. In the left-hand column, write any idea or feeling that you would have that you would not communicate for whatever reason.
In short, the case includes a statement of the problem, the intended strategy to begin to solve the problem, the actual conversation that did or would
occur as envisioned by the writer, the information that the writer would not communicate for whatever reason.
15.5.8 Basic Criteria for Success in Diagnosing and Changing at any Level of the Organization
There are four criteria that are central to design diagnostic instruments and interventions in organizations. They are:
1. The criterion for ultimate success should not be change in behavior or attitudes. The criterion should be changes in defensive reasoning and the
theories-in-use that produce skilled unawareness and skilled incompetence and the resulting organizational defensive routines.
2. The changes just described should unambiguously lead to reductions in the self-fulfilling counterproductive activities, at all levels of the
organization.
3. It is not possible to achieve Criteria 1 and 2 without focusing on the actual behavior of the participants. The trouble with the old criteria is that
they began and ended with behaviors. The new criteria begin with behavior in order to get a window into the mental maps and type of reasoning
that the individuals use and the organizational culture that they create.
4. The success of programs is not assessed by measuring insight gained or learning reported by the participants. Individuals often report high
scores on insight and learning, yet have not changed their defensive reasoning, their theories-in-use, their skilled unawareness and incompetence,
and the organizational defensive routines.
15.5.9 Summary
1. Actionable knowledge requires propositions that make explicit the causal processes required to produce action. Causality is key in implementation.
Shoham (1990) writes, If causal reasoning is common in scientific thinking, it is downright dominant in every day sense making (p. 214).
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2. One of the most powerful inhibitors of effective action is inner contradictions. Inner contradictions exist when the propositions to act are implemented
correctly, the result is the effective consequence predicted and necessarily counterproductive consequences that were not predicted.
3. One cause of inner contradiction is the methodologies used by most normal social scientists to discover problems and to invent solutions. The
design of these methodologies is dominated by the requirements of internal and external validity.
4. The features above cause the degree of seamlessness and the validity of the implementation to be reduced. Moreover, the actors tend not to be
aware of these problems while they are producing them. If they become aware, the tendency is to blame factors for which they claim they are not
responsible.
5. The focus on describing reality in ways that satisfies the requirements of internal and external validity makes it less likely that attention is paid to the
implementable validity of the propositions. This, in turn, leads to propositions that are abstract (in order to be generalizable) and disconnected from
implementable action. This is a major problem because much of the advice about effective leadership, organizational learning and transformational
change promises Model II consequences but they are formulated in Model I concepts. This results in major inconsistencies, which, in turn, results in the
advice losing its credibility, and is often relegated the status of fads (Argyris 2000).
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Figure 15.1 does not adequately describe what is going on in order to produce action. The reason is that action is required in order to implement each
of the phases. For example, the phase discovery, if it is to be produced, requires actions that include discover how to discover, invent ways to
discover, produce the inventions, and evaluate the effectiveness of the production. This is true for invention, production, and evaluation. If they are to be
implemented each requires action and therefore each requires sub-cycles to produce their respective phases. We have therefore, a model similar to a
hologram where each part (sub-cycle) of the whole contains the same features of the whole (Figure 15.4).
Actionable knowledge is produced when all four phases and their respective sub-cycles are implemented. It is important not to view the knowledge
required to produce discovery and invention as actionable. These actions are in the service of producing discovery and inventions and not in
producing the intended consequences derived from the inventions. The moment that attempts are made to implement the plans or policies, those
actions are about actionable knowledge.
For example, two recent and well-known examples, in the United States, are the Clintons health programs and the policy recommendations for
securing nuclear secrets defined by the Secretary of Energy, Mr Richardson. Both plans failed the criterion of being implemented. The creators of the
health policy assumed that if their plans were first rate they would be implemented. The Secretary acknowledged that the security plans were not
implemented because of what he described as the culture of the laboratories.
3. Researchers will have to become more concerned about their credibility with the society at large that funds and wishes to use their research. For
example, in the United States, a congressman who was a strong supporter for giving social scientists freedom to choose their research, reluctantly
concluded, after twenty years, that he was systematically lied to by social scientists who promised that user-friendly actionable knowledge was a
primary concern (Johnson 1993). In the early days, the Ford Foundation had a similar policy of encouraging the freedom of social scientists to choose
their research. After several decades, the officials decided if the Foundation were to help mankind then they would have to define the research to be
done. Indeed many now support various experiments designed and produced by non-social scientists.
4. Social psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists have produced an enormous literature about the impact that situations, roles, and culture
have upon the way human beings think and act; upon their sense of competence, self-efficacy, self-confidence, and upon their fundamental values.
May I suggest that we will take seriously these findings to examine our actions and our respective scientific communities. I suggest that we create for
ourselves, what Thorstein Veblen called trained incapacity (1919).
Imagine, for example, what would happen if social scientists dealt in the way they deal with those seeking to benefit from their research. They might
say to the child facing conflict or bewilderment, in effect, that they focus on describing the universe. For example, my focus is describing phenomena,
and I cannot offer any suggestions to you. Finally imagine a child pleading for prescriptions and being told by the parents that the existing descriptive
data are inadequate to formulate prescriptions. This is precisely what happens when adults called clients, seek help from those scholarly-consultants,
who adhere to the rules described above. In a study that I have just begun, I have interviewed and observed world-class consultants who are also
world-class scientists. They all hold, with various degrees of explicitness, a framework to understand and explain as well as rigorous empirical
methods to conduct inquiry. I ask them if they have been in a situation where they felt their analysis was sound and the clients expressed doubts. All
responded affirmatively. Next, I ask what do they do. In effect they repeat the presentation to assure the client of its validity. They often ask the clients to
present the reasoning behind their doubts. When they do, the scholar-consultants identify gaps and inconsistencies in the clients reasoning processes
by using the framework that got them into trouble in the first place. They appear to hold the rule: if the client doubts the validity of the presentation,
repeat the presentation. If the client continues to have doubts, encourage them to express the doubts and, by using the original framework, help them to
see where they are wrong. If repetition of this strategy does not work, find polite ways to exit the relationship. By the way, the clients also produce their
version of defense. The two versions clash and the result is little learning and self-sealing processes.
Holding a position that makes the production of normative and prescriptive knowledge as central makes social scientists vulnerable. It is one thing to
be challenged about actionability and be able to respond that one is focused on being descriptive. It is quite another to be challenged when the social
scientists prescriptions do not work as predicted. Perhaps the defense of this trained incapacity is an additional cause for the down play of
actionable knowledge.
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details see Privacy Policy).
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Actionable Knowledge
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Actionable Knowledge
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Notes:
(1) Because of space limitations, I refer to my book The Inner Contradictions of Rigorous Research for many more examples.
(2) Because of space limitations I am able to select an example that deals with individual and group phenomena. Illustration of organizational
phenomena may be found in Argyris 1982, 1990, 1993, Argyris and Schn 1996.
Chris Argyris
Chris Argyris is the James Bryant Conant Professor Emeritus, Harvard University. His books include Overcoming Organizational
Defenses (1990), Knowledge for Action (1993), Flawed Advice (2000), Reasons and Rationalizations (2004), Theory in Practice (1994),
and Organizational Learning II (1996), both with Donald Schn, and Action Science (1985) with Diana Smith and Robert Putnam.
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