Indeed, to be used integrally with situations of change management, this is a necessity. It achieves this responsiveness and flexibility through being cyclic. In content and in methodology its later cycles are informed by its earlier cycles. In a word, it is an emergent methodology. Method and data and interpretation and action develop simultaneously, and from cycle to cycle.
Larger cycles span whole phases of a research program.
At the other end of the continuum, researchers may be fine tuning their actions moment by moment as their understanding of a situation grows. In most of its forms, action research is also participative. In the interests of building commitment to action, the actors are involved at least as informants. More often than not they also share other roles with the researcher. Finally, though this is by no means a necessary characteristic, it tends to be qualitative.