Doing transdisciplinary studies through the lens of Intervention Based Research

Transdisciplinary research commences with exploratory research to understand and solve complex real-world problems followed by explanatory research to generate academic knowledge. This paper conceptualises transdisciplinary engineering through the lens of intervention-based research, which seems useful to solve societal problems when practical knowledge to handle the problematic situation contradicts solution proposals emerging from prevalent theories. The proposed model combines academic knowledge, practical knowledge, and artefact portraying the problematic situation into means to achieve the end, which when implemented transforms the problematic situation into the desired situation. To explicate the proposed model, the study draws on a longitudinal research conducted by the two authors of this paper. In this study, which focuses on designing digitalised solutions for data-driven decision-making at shop floor level, we faced serve research-related challenges. The academic knowledge revealed a clear picture of how to design the solution, but the practical knowledge exposed that the digital solution was merely an illusion; i.e. a gap between theories and practical understanding. The proposed model to handle this gap forwards the role of artefacts and suggests that artefacts, academic knowledge and practical knowledge rank alongside.