USE OF ACTION RESEARCH IN THE FIELD OF APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES

Action research has the potential to develop solutions and allows the construction of longitudinal theoretical-practical research. It has a dynamic character and enables the development of organizations, becoming a plausible strategy in the applied social sciences. The objective is to verify how researchers in the field of applied social sciences (administration, accounting, and economics) have used the action research methodology in their work through a systematic review of the national literature. The word research-action was used as a descriptor in the summary of two databases with a temporal filter from 2015 to 2020, resulting in a portfolio of 50 articles after the exclusions. This study highlights operational aspects of action research that are used in different ways in the analyzed articles: research objective, phases of action research, context and involvement of the researcher, method of data collection and data analysis. This article contributes to the field of applied social sciences, by presenting cautions and limits during the operationalization of action research, since it can be seen as an umbrella process, that is, a research strategy that can involve different paradigms, epistemologies, ontologies and forms of data collection and analysis.

Keywords:
Action research; Research Strategy; Applied Social Sciences