Utilizing Participatory Action Research to Change Perception About Organizational Culture From Knowledge Consumption to Knowledge Creation

Abstract

This study explains how participatory action research has been used to create a new intersubjective awareness of the phenomenon of organizational culture. The question of creating voluntary democratic participation has been crucial for all stakeholders in this case. Through this two-and-a-half-year study including more than 30 workshops, in a marine industry, we have managed to create new beliefs about being part of and responsible for creating the organizational culture. With these new understandings of the culture, which has been dramatically changed, the participants have created new personal knowledge about themselves and working in an organization like this. The management group have discovered that they are responsible for their own knowledge creation.