Engaging companies in relevant and rigorous research: a hybrid approach at the intersection between Action Research, Collaborative Management Research and Design Science Research

The number of companies engaging with academics to increase innovation or to improve performance continues to rise. In these situations, the boundaries between research and consulting are increasingly blurred, complicating researchers’ ability to meet the new expectations with satisfactory insights and outcomes. These conditions strain research tools to extract empirical insights with rigor. To examine action, collaboration and knowledge creation in social situations, three methods of Mode 2 research– Action Research, Collaborative Management Research and Design Science Research – are often applied in engaging companies because it grounded in a philosophy of practical knowing as social science. However, all three are different from traditional research, evaluative research or practitioner research orientations, which have implications for practitioners engaging companies in research. This article aims to explore the epistemological and methodological implications of Mode 2 research to propose a hybrid approach. It begins with a brief review of these three methods and advance a hybrid-based framework emerging from an empirical research project. IDeaLs, is a collaborative research platform where a research team orchestrates a collaborative research project with seven partners simultaneously – that offers similarities and differences with the three mentioned methodologies. The discussion is based on the similarities and the differences that emerge from this research project in comparison with the three approaches, highlighting opportunities that may help in overcoming some of the limitations of Mode 2 research when engaging with companies.