Action Research for Organizational Learning

This position paper deals with a case of action research concerning the organization of administrative work processes in an Italian medium sized athenaeum. First, we briefly outline how action research is actually conducted in the case in question. Then, we discuss the particular approach to action research, by highlighting the underlying idea of personnel’s participation, organizational choices and rationality. On this basis, we suggest that the idea of organizational learning developed by Fabbri (2003, 2004) underlies the action research under discussion. We conclude by highlighting the main concepts of this theoretical framework and the hypothesis it suggests in respect to the effectiveness of the action research taken into consideration here.