Action Theory

The Action Sequence

Action theory differentiates five phases of the action sequence: (a) goal development and choosing between competing goals; (b) orientation (i.e., collecting relevant information about the task and the conditions in one's work environment) and prognosis of future events; (c) plan development and selection; (d) execution of the plan and monitoring; and (e) the processing of feedback, which in turn influences the development of subsequent goals. These action steps are not always taken in the same order (e.g., initial plans may be refined during action execution). The action sequence allows for an analysis of the interface between the objective work environment and subjective task representations, because employees' specific redefinitions of tasks presented by the organization (e.g., to operate a machine) determine their individual goals and plans (e.g., whether and how to take action when the machine breaks down).

Four Levels of Action Regulation

From a structural point of view, actions are organized hierarchically, because higher-order goals are broken down into subgoals, and higher levels of conscious intellectual regulation are superordinate to lower levels of automatic operations. Recent versions of action theory distinguish four levels of action regulation, ordered from lowest to highest:

• 1.
  Sensorimotor level. Stereotyped and automatic movement sequences are organized without conscious attention.
• 2.
  Level of flexible action patterns. Ready-made action schemata that do not require conscious representation are tailored to situationally defined parameters.
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• 3.
  Intellectual level. New actions in a complex environment are consciously regulated.
• 4.
  Heuristic level. Metacognitive strategies such as general problem-solving approaches are pursued either consciously or automatically.

The Operative Image System

One's accumulated knowledge of the relationships between specific conditions, actions, and results is stored in the so-called operative image system. This system reflects the cognitive base for action regulation and entails long-term representations of schemata or strategies applicable to action regulation at all four levels (e.g., movement-oriented schemata to be regulated at the sensorimotor level, and strategies to be implemented at the intellectual level). Originally, cyclical test–operate–test–exit (TOTE) units, which imply that action is taken until there is congruity between the current state and a criterion, were considered the basic units of action regulation. To reconcile this classic discrepancy reduction approach with the notion of discrepancy creation, action theorists have emphasized the role of goals as desired end states and the impact of active approaches on the environment.

Applications of Action Theory

Action theory has implications for several domains, including stress, training, job analysis, work design, error management, emotion regulation, competence development, and personality enhancement. Action theorists emphasize socialization processes by considering malleable facets of personality, motivation, and cognitive ability as dependent variables that may be affected by work action. For example, work environments encouraging forward thinking induce action styles such as planfulness (i.e., the detailed development and persistent implementation of long-range plans). New ideas on error management and the function of errors in the learning and training process were also derived from action theory. Research examining why so-called superworkers produce superior results without spending more time at work revealed that they engage more frequently in planning and have better operative image systems, reflected in greater knowledge of error frequencies, the signals indicating errors, and the duration and efficiency of different strategies of dealing with errors.

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