Chapter 13: Advancing Research That Makes a Difference

This paper addresses a number of issues related to what the faculty at the University of Southern California have referred to as “Doing Useful Research” (Mohrman & Lawler, 2011,). This is a topic that includes a number of different approaches that share a number of common characteristics, which include doing research with, rather than doing research on, people. It is also research that is directed toward the improvement of performance, research that is action oriented, and research that is both situational specific and a contribution to more general scientific knowledge. Approaches sharing these characteristics include: Action Research, scholar-practitioner research, the socio-economic approach to management (SEAM), and Appreciative Inquiry. This chapter builds on earlier comparisons of Qualimetrics and SEAM beyond the comparison to Appreciative Inquiry and other forms of Action Research. The central organizing theme of the chapter deals primarily with a comparison of SEAM and Appreciative Inquiry to other forms of Action Research, a continuation of a theme that was presented at the doctoral conference in Lyon, the National Academy of Management Conference, and an analysis by Sorensen, Yaeger, and colleagues (2010) in the Organization Development Journal.