Abstract
An alternative research assessment (RA) tool was constructed to assess the relatedness of published business school research to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The RA tool was created using Leximancer™, an on-line cloud-based text analytic software tool, that identified core themes within the SDG framework. Eight (8) core themes were found to define the ‘spirit of the SDGs’: Sustainable Development, Governance, Vulnerable Populations, Water, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Food Security, Restoration, and Public Health. These themes were compared to the core themes found in the content of 4576 academic articles published in 2019 in journals that comprise the Financial Times (FT) 50 list. The articles’ relatedness to the SDG themes were assessed. Overall, 10.6% of the themes found in the FT50 journal articles had an explicit relationship to the SDG themes while 24.5% were implied. Themes generated from machine learning (ML), augmented by researcher judgement (to account for synonyms, similar concepts, and discipline specific examples), improved the robustness of the relationships found between the SDG framework and the published articles. Although there are compelling reasons for business schools to focus research on advancing the SDGs, this study and others highlight that there is much opportunity for improvement. Recommendations are made to better align academic research with the SDGs, influencing how business school faculty and their schools prioritize research and its role in the world.
Highlights
The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015 as a ’universal call to action’ in support of the elimination of poverty, ensuring a healthy planet, and ‘peace and prosperity’, by 2030 [1]
When applied to the FT50 articles, we found that, overall, 10.6% of themes found in the FT50 journals had an explicit relationship to the SDGs, while 24.5% were implied
We found that a subset of journals within the FT50 list were more closely aligned with the SDG themes than others
Summary
The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015 as a ’universal call to action’ in support of the elimination of poverty, ensuring a healthy planet, and ‘peace and prosperity’, by 2030 [1]. The literature suggests that the SDG’s 17 goal framework, while an effective communication tool that inspires countries and organizations to get on board with the agenda and helping to track progress against the 17 goals, is an imperfect research measurement tool, as it includes over-lapping concepts between individual SDGs, which may complicate assessment This may explain varied results across previous studies, in particular differences found in which SDGs align with particular academic articles. Urgent global matters require a more efficient means of facilitating academic contribution beyond publishing in the current list of ‘elite’ business journals To this end, for future research we suggest that it is progress towards the “spirit of the SDGs” that should be assessed, using the distinct underlying themes identified through the current analysis. Steps and suggested changes to help push business research output toward impact are presented
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