How can action research apply to health services?

The authors ask whether and how action research can apply to health service s research, given action research's claim to be radically different from ma instream research. They analyze the key tenets of an idealized version of a ction research, comparing them with those of the approach characteristic of mainstream research. The authors conclude,firstly that action research des erves all credit for pioneering flexible and imaginative ways of working. Y et, there is nothing in the fundamental logic of the mainstream approach to preclude it from adopting some of these. Action researchers therefore need to reconsider their critical stance toward mainstream research. Conversely , mainstream researchers need to reconsider their critical stance toward th e ways of working pioneered by action research and to adopt them as appropr iate.