In the Middle Ages there were gaols and dungeons, but punishment was for the most part a spectacle. The economic changes and growing popular dissent of the 18th century made necessary a more systematic control over the individual members of society, and this in effect meant a change from punishment, which chastised the body, to reform, which touched the soul.

This article focus on paradigms, methods and ethics of action research in the Scandinavian countries. The specific features of the action research paradigm are identified. a historical overview follows of some main action research projects in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The tendency towards upscale action research projects from organisational or small community projects to large-scale, regional based network approaches are also outlined and discussed. Finally, a synthesised approach of the classical, socio-technical action research approach and the large-scale network and holistic (...) approaches is suggested as a promising approach for the future. (shrink)

Identity building in organisations is often viewed as legitimacy of value systems of the organisation. Based on empirical studies the task of this article is to argue that such a legitimacy approach risks failing in the longer perspective, if the proactive capability development is neglected. The participatory scenario method presented in this article is one of the possible methods to enhance identity building based on proactive capability development.