The article is a first- and second-person inquiry into power relations between action researchers and participants based on a dialogic action research project with a group of managers at Bang & Olufsen, Denmark. It focuses on discrepancies between our espoused values of dialogue and our theories-in-use characterized by self-referentiality. This concept emerged during the process and describes a non-dialogic way of transforming the perspectives of the other into your own a priori categories and ways of relating. It denotes a power mechanism imposing our regime of truth on participants so that their reality does not count. First- and second-person reflection on self-referentiality is a process of mutual vulnerability and seems to enhance the quality of third-person action and research.
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