Variety, Novelty, and Perceptions of Scholarship in Research on Management and Organizations: An Appeal for Ambidextrous Scholarship

Abstract

It is an exciting time to be a scholar studying management and organizations. Not only is the world of organizations becoming a richer place in terms of forms of organizational activities, it is also becoming richer in terms of the diversity of locales in which these varied forms of organizations are situated. The scholarly base, likewise, is increasing in absolute numbers, but also in the diversity of backgrounds of the scholars. Any demographic dimension by which the scholarly base can be measured is moving to a lower concentration and more variety. An important component to this shift is the wider variety of places from which scholars are emerging. Even at the start of the 1990s, the perceived international academic world was essentially a bipolar one, with one pole (the United States) larger in many respects than the other pole (Europe, but with a concentration in the United Kingdom). Pockets of management scholars in France, German, Japan, and Italy, among other places, were engaged in management research, but to a large extent were operating as isolated communities of scholars. Since the 1990s, however, we have seen an increasing number of previously highly localized scholarly communities join and contribute regularly to international conversations. Management scholar communities in any number of countries across the world are now more tightly connected with international academic debate on common management issues. By 2013, we could no longer consider the international academic community to be concentrated at the two poles. The international academic world had become easily tripolar and with a clear trajectory towards moving to a world without poles. Academics