Abstract
AbstractThis paper discusses a number of avenues management scholars could follow to reduce the existing gap between scientific rigor and practical relevance without relativizing the importance of the first goal dimension. Such changes are necessary because many management studies do not fully exploit the possibilities to increase their practical relevance while maintaining scientific rigor. We argue that this rigor-relevance gap is not only the consequence of the currently prevailing institutional context in the scientific system, but that individual scholars can reduce the gap between rigorous and practically relevant research by modifying their research work. Thus, most of our suggestions refer to individual scholars’ research activities and relate to specific steps in the (empirical) research process. Our discussion does not imply that all management studies should be practically oriented; basic research will remain a very important part of management research. However, we believe that not enough management research studies are significantly influenced by practical relevance.
Highlights
Different parties have often accused management scholars of not sufficiently considering the practical relevance of their research, and of merely pursuing scientific rigor instead
There is no doubt that the institutional context considerably influences the type of research management scholars prefer, this paper mainly focuses on changes that individual scholars can make
This paper discussed a series of suggestions that could increase the practical relevance of management research without reducing its rigor
Summary
Different parties (i.e., business managers, executives, students, ministerial representatives) have often accused management scholars of not sufficiently considering the practical relevance of their research, and of merely pursuing scientific rigor instead. Given our above view of the second way of framing, this paper aims at offering a range of applicable suggestions which might help management scholars (re)arrange their research in order to make it more useful for decision-makers within firms Most of these suggestions refer to researchers’ undertaking of management research projects and not to the institutional context in business schools (e.g., a specific university’s incentive systems) or in the scientific community in general (e.g., academic journals’ reviewing processes). Practitioners’ efforts are very important, the present paper focuses on the specific ways through which individual researchers could increase the practical relevance of their work, since this is part of their professional obligation to deliver results with a practical impact Before we develop such suggestions, we briefly explain the terms “practical relevance” and “rigor”. The paper concludes with a brief summary of the main suggestions and a brief outlook
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