Action Research in Action: Thinking and Using Soft Systems Methodology Between Reality and Actuality

This is the first book to provide the fundamental backbone for the field of action research (AR). One of the main characteristics of AR is to achieve a kind of learning based on experience through action in the real world, connecting and reconciling theory and practice by reflection for / in / by action. A standard form of AR has not yet been found, however, because it is difficult for conventional academicians to effectively bridge the gap between objectivity in theory and subjectivity in practice. For the past 50 years, soft systems methodology (SSM) has developed the methodology to deal with subjectivity by rigorously adhering to a coherent guideline of a systemic means for discussion-- for example, accommodation (i.e., living with different individual worldviews).

The author began to reinterpret SSM from an Eastern context at Lancaster University (UK), and received a Ph.D. at the London School of Economics, introducing the "actuality" point of view. This idea originated with the eminent Japanese psychiatrist Bin Kimura, who argued that schizophrenics do not lose touch with reality but with actuality. That is, there are two aspects of the world, reality and actuality, based on Latin res ("thing") and actio ("action"). They can recognize all things of the world as "reality" as expressed by that noun but cannot comprehend with a feeling of reality the predicate "actuality". Introducing actuality into SSM as a new dimension opened a new perspective in SSM both theoretically and practically. This topic is discussed in detail in Part II of this book.

Part I contains three chapters. Chapter 1 provides a basic conceptual overview of SSM. Chapter 2 provides an actual trace of the evolution of SSM over the last 25 years. One topic that is expected to become the subject of serious practical application of SSM in the future is its application to resilience. This is discussed in some detail in Chapter 3.

The actuality aspect of SSM has been used for more than 20 years in various contexts, yielding many good results. Among those are a new explanation of accommodation using paleo logic or predicate logic; a new management cycle based on actuality, such as learning for / in / by action; and the novelty of the methodological tool itself. Those 20 years of learning authenticate the guideline for the way of discussion or agreement that is relevant to actuality. Especially in the recent Covid-19 pandemic, it has oriented the restoration of actuality in the digital-based society, where actuality is deadened. This result is also dealt with in Part I.