This article on the one hand wants to survey action research in the area of management in these aspects that are relevant to knowledge management research. It also gives an overview of qualitative evaluation research in the area of education. On the other hand the article tries to point out how these two research trends relate to the model of qualitative social research. In addition to that the article introduces the relatively unknown mode 2 research; its basic idea of integrating different understandings of research can sometimes be already found in educational psychology. By this way the article highlights possibilities of an integrated understanding of research in scientific knowledge management projects and encourages to discuss a scenario for knowledge management driven by Mode 2 research.