Researching Business?

A recent article in one of my favorite publications - The Economist - analyzed the role of research at business schools ("Practically Irrelevant?", August 28th 2007). Coming from a scientific research background, it had been difficult for me to understand how the social sciences could produce quantifiable research. However, after reading many articles on business research in several classes (and delving into publications like the Harvard Business Journal), I had concluded that, after all, it was possible to research business.

However, this article cites the recent declaration by the AACSB International - a global accrediting agency for business schools - that questions the emphasis that schools place on research from their faculty.

The basic premise is that, in its current form, academic research at business schools rarely produces anything useful to the practice of business on a real-world managerial level. In a 'publish or perish' mentality, business faculty seek to produce as a sizeable reputation for themselves and the school on producing highly quantitative, hypothesis-driven, and esoteric research in the more than 20,000 business articles that are written each year in journals, who, themselves, seek to build a reputation by publishing a sheer volume of articles, whether practical to managerial business or not. The Economist cites a 2006 issue of Strategy and Leadership that said that "[Research] for the most part...has become a self-referential closed system [irrelevant to' corporate performance." 

Therefore, the AACSB is proposing evaluating the research performed at schools by requiring schools demonstrate the value of their faculties' research, not solely by listing citations in journals, but demonstrating the impact it has on the work environment (however that can be quantified).

Critics of this plan argue that publishing research in academic journals, designed for the academic, ensures peer reviewed rigor. Ultimately, they claim, this research is "translated" into the business world, either by consultants or by teaching in MBA and other executive programs.

However, many debate this "translation" hypothesis, claiming that the research performed and published in academic journals rarely make it to the classroom, where professors maintain the standard practice of teaching traditional methods and beliefs. Instead, inductive research - that which proceeds without preconceptions, and instead observes organizational behavior and then draws conclusions - is much more likely to be applied in the real world than the theory driven articles in most academic journals. Yet, "Inductive research tends to draw sneers from the editors of academic journals."

I know from my own experience that the most relevant and memorable academic articles I have read at b-school have been precisely those inductive studies. The theory-driven articles takes it out of context and makes it hard to apply to my life. Yet, having become the tradition among faculty across the academic institution, it will be hard to deviate away from the prestige that the current system evokes for faculty. Hopefully, the industry will be able to strike a balance.

Comments

[Joe Mahoney]

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Also go an rate other news entries you think are worthwhile... Cheers!