The past is an increasingly unreliable guide to the future. European workplaces and the regions in which they are located face unprecedented pressures and challenges. Whereas in recent decades incremental adaptation has largely been sufficient to cope with external change, it is no longer clear that this remains the case. Globalisation, technological development and dissemination, political volatility, patterns of consumption, and employee expectations are occurring at a rate which is hard to measure. The rate of change in these spheres is far outstripping the rate of organisational innovation in both European enterprises and public governance, leading to a serious mismatch between the challenges of the 21st Century and the organisational competence available to deal with them. In this context, there is no clear roadmap. The contributors to this volume address these issues and demonstrate that building the knowledge base required by actors in this volatile environment requires continuous dialogue and learning – a context in which social partners, regional policy makers and other participants share diverse knowledge and reflect on experience rather than seeking and imitating any notion of 'best practice'. Action Research has a crucial role to play, embedding shared learning within the process of innovation.

The past is an increasingly unreliable guide to the future. European workplaces and the regions in which they are located face unprecedented pressures and challenges. Whereas in recent decades incremental adaptation has largely been sufficient to cope with external change, it is no longer clear that this remains the case. Globalisation, technological development and dissemination, political volatility, patterns of consumption, and employee expectations are occurring at a rate which is hard to measure. The rate of change in these spheres is far outstripping the rate of organisational innovation in both European enterprises and public governance, leading to a serious mismatch between the challenges of the 21st Century and the organisational competence available to deal with them. In this context, there is no clear roadmap. The contributors to this volume address these issues and demonstrate that building the knowledge base required by actors in this volatile environment requires continuous dialogue and learning – a context in which social partners, regional policy makers and other participants share diverse knowledge and reflect on experience rather than seeking and imitating any notion of ‘best practice’. Action Research has a crucial role to play, embedding shared learning within the process of innovation.

This cutting-edge Research Agenda takes a hard look at workplace innovation practices that are vital for dealing with the global disruptive changes we currently face. It unpacks the ways in which organisations can become more sustainable, not only for value creation and profitability but also for sustainable employability and employee skill development.

Innovation is a source of building long-term sustainability. If implemented successfully it can lead to superior organizational performance. To be competitive, companies and their leaders continuously strive to engage in new market spaces by developing and engaging in an innovative culture so as to differentiate themselves from their rivals. With contributions from scholars and practitioners, this Handbook provides evidence-based case studies to identify workplace innovation practices in developed and developing countries. Chapters are based on an organizational innovation framework and focuses on two major areas: the determinants of innovation and the process and outcome elements. It covers in-depth, cutting edge specialised topics such as frugal innovation, innovation associated with leadership as well as numerous organisational contexts such as for-profit and not for profit sectors and small, medium and large organisations. Essential reading for any student or scholar of innovation studies, this handbook provides novel coverage of innovation practices linked to organizational variables such as culture, ethics, leadership and performance.

′For anyone seeking to create meaning out of life, inspire others with publication of research discoveries and insights, and help the world become a better place within which to live and work, action research holds great promise as an approach. The challenge is to do it well and with rigor. The Handbook is a magnificent collection of articles that will help the reader do all of that′ - Richard E. Boyatzis, Case Western Reserve University and ESADE ′This second volume will be a welcome extension of the landmark first volume of the SAGE Handbook of Action Research. It effectively secures the field′s ′second wave′ in a particularly powerful and creative articulation of well-theorised practice. It could not be more timely for a fast-growing field that has attracted recent appreciation from parties as disparate as Shell, 3M, Australian Aboriginal women in outback Australia working to prevent harm to children and the Secretary General of the UN′ - Yoland Wadsworth ′For anyone thinking about or doing action research, this book is an obligatory point of reference. If any one text both maps the action research paradigm, and at the same time moves it on, this is it′ - Bill Cooke, Manchester Business School Building on the strength of the seminal first edition, the The SAGE Handbook of Action Research has been completley updated to bring chapters in line with the latest qualitative and quantitative approaches in this field of social inquiry. Peter Reason and Hilary Bradbury have introduced new part commentaries that draw links between different contributions and show their interrelations. Throughout, the contributing authors really engage with the pragmatics of doing action research and demonstrate how this can be a rich and rewarding reflective practice. They tackle questions of how to integrate knowledge with action, how to collaborate with co-researchers in the field, and how to present the necessarily ′messy′ components in a coherent fashion. The organization of the volume reflects the many different issues and levels of analysis represented. This volume is an essential resource for scholars and professionals engaged in social and political inquiry, organizational research and education.

Critical participatory action research creates opportunities for people to work together to solve problems and address issues about the conditions under which they work, through mutually agreed on actions in practice. Partnership and recognition hold together the practices of critical participatory action research, and as mutually entwined ideals are fundamental for site-based education development. Drawing on the theory of practice architectures, this book interrogates and extends the concepts and practices of partnership and recognition in action research as they are explored in different educational settings, and as these are played out in the day-to-day experiences and practices of people participating and collaborating in educational change. Partnership and recognition are considered in terms of the agency and actions of both individuals and collectives as they encounter one another in educational change, and in terms of the cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political conditions that enable and constrain possibilities for partnerships and recognition. Of central importance is the concept of practice theory, and the authors illuminate how recognition, change, learning and development practices are experienced and recognised by people in a range of partnerships. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Action Research.

The capability to innovate in an on-going manner is emerging as a decisive key factor in today's world of business and work. The ability to stay competitive is becoming identical with the ability to innovate. This book originated from the research and development project “International Monitoring” and outlines the topic of innovative capability from a practice-oriented angle. Contributions of German and international experts offer an enlightening glimpse behind the scenes of innovations. The central issue is not the description of features of successful innovation processes or how innovations can be efficiently controlled and managed, but under which conditions they can emerge in the first place. In what way can individuals, organizations, networks and societies be enabled to continuously induce innovations?