The Relevance of Business Research - Literature review Example

The Relevance of Business research Introduction: There is increasing criticism being leveled in the field of business research studies, which are too focused upon satisfying the scientific community from the perspective of validity rather than proving to be relevant for use by the business community. Management research has swung too far in the direction of rigor at the expense of relevance. In order to address this problem, van Aken (2005) has suggested a higher degree of communication between researchers and practitioners, to ensure that research studies are more relevant and applicable in practice. Analysis of four articles: Bennis and Toole: Bennis and Toole (2005) contend that business schools are too focused on scientific research and as a result, are hiring professors who do not have sufficient experience in real world situations. As a result, the students graduating out of MBA schools are ill equipped to deal with the complex problems that they encounter in the real world. These schools have applied a scientific model to business studies and treat it as an academic discipline rather than facing the realization that business calls upon the work of many academic disciplines. The authors point out that top faculty members have few responsibilities other than attending to their disciplines and turning out generations of scholars. They contend that business schools have adopted this approach largely due to the proclivities of professors to provide scientific respectability to the research that they enjoy doing. However, while scientific research may require significant skills in statistics and experimental design, they do not allow students to exercise insight into social and human factors which may comprise the actual problems that managers in the workplace have to deal with. Bennis and Toole (2005) question the relevance of the research methods that business school professors use, by testing a hypothesis on data, using regression analysis. Simulations are carried out to see how people might behave in a laboratory situation. However, as these authors have pointed out, the kinds of problems and questions facing managers in real life situations are so complex, broad and multi faceted that they do not easily lend themselves to scientific experimentation or validation. Secondly, professor evaluations of business research methods are based upon the number of articles they publish in scientific journals, whose outreach is restricted to the academic community, rather than to practitioners. Strategic decisions within organizations cannot be based purely on quantitative factors, but the most important elements such as human factors and matters relating to judgment, ethics and morality cannot be measured. It is however these elements that make the difference between good business decisions and bad ones.(Bennis and Toole, 2005:4). While statistical, quantitative data is most important in academic, scientific research, whereas business leaders fail because they do not attribute the correct weightage to the quantitative and qualitative factors that should figure in their decisions. Most professors of management today have never set foot within a real business. Bennis and Toole (2005) are of the view that while quantitative skills must be taught by business schools, the current focus of business schools on serving the faculty’s research interests and career goals are unlikely to produce graduates who are skilled practitioners. They advocate that business schools follow the model of law schools. While research is an important part of legal education and practice, the nature of research work is applied research without the essential requirement of scientific validity. It is important to focus on case studies as Harvard Business School is doing and to recognize that business education is becoming overwhelmingly technical and failing to impart interpersonal skills and practical wisdom. Pfeffer and Sutton: Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) recommend an evidence based research approach applied to Companies. Most managers tend to use performance management and measurement practices based on their own prior experience, through benchmarking other Companies or by making decisions that capitalize on their own strengths. Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) suggest that organizations would perform better if their leaders applied evidence based practice. However, in order to successfully implement evidence based practice, managers must be willing to put aside their traditional beliefs and conventional wisdom, and be ready to learn all that they do not know. As a part of evidence based management, these authors suggest that every time a change is proposed, evidence of efficacy should be demanded. Backup research on proposals must be generated, however the presentation of such research must also be examined closely for the gaps in exposition, logic and inference. These authors also point out that management research often consists of studies that use surveys or collect data from company records and use these to correlate these with various performance outcomes. This kind of research is non experimental, however there is a need to examine the logic of the research design and to statistically control for alternative explanations. In this aspect they appear to offer views opposed to those offered by Bennis and Toole (2005) in advocating the efficacy and benefit of scientific methods to be used in research. However, they corroborate the views of Bennis and Toole (2005) in clarifying that any kind of research or expert knowledge that has been developed through the field of research is unlikely to be useful to an organization unless it is tailored, modified, or adapted to suit the individual organizational practices. They also point out that benchmarking may also be useful only to a limited extent. Evidence produced by benchmarking will be applicable and useful within an individual organization to the extent that strategy, business model and workforce environments are similar. While Bennis and Toole (2005) have highlighted the inapplicability of purely scientific research to business issues because it is too focused on numbers and does not take into account human factors, ethics and judgment issues, Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) offer the view that available research is ineffective for organizations because available evidence is too large in quantity yet without enough good evidence, may not quite apply or may be geared towards misleading managers. Just as Bennis and Toole (2005) have pointed out that case studies are useful forms of research, these authors are also of the view that stories about implementation of effective new policies are likely to be useful to managers in so far as applying the research to their own organizations is concerned. Vermeulen: Vermeulen( 2005) addresses the issue of management research that is inapplicable to actual organizational practice. Organizational science theories have been found to have little validity and usefulness and the available research is lacking because it is not motivated by the problems that are being faced by practitioners. There have been pleas made to scholars to eschew the strictly quantitative research methods that are currently being used, in order to branch out into other kinds of research methods such as qualitative and action research. There have also been suggestions for the use of different research designs that will also engage practitioners to study different areas that would be more relevant in the context of organizational practice, such as involving managers in research efforts or studying the public sector. Veermeulen (2005) points out several anomalies that have occurred over the years in the field of management research. While earlier business research focused on stories as a means of transferring information, there was criticism of this aspect on the basis that a more objective approach was necessary that also needed to reflect theory. While the earlier stories were more relevant, they were replaced by rigor in research, making it more and more academic and inapplicable in practice, However Vermeulen (2005) argues that this is not necessarily an indication that the pendulum should swing back towards relevance, because what is really necessary is balance. He has corroborated the views offered by Bennis and Toole (2005) that management research is too focused upon reaching other academics as opposed to reaching practitioners and the structure of this system needs change. This needs a change in the current tenure system which encourages professors to engage in the kind of research that is targeted at academic circles. Changing the incentive systems upon which tenure criteria are based may be effective in achieving a shift in research that is focused the development of truly relevant knowledge. Vermeulen (2005) believes that business research should be made more relevant, not only by enabling organizations to improve and enhancing their learning, but also if necessary to help them increase their profits, so that the economic benefits filter down to the general society. While individual researchers retain the choice about that subjects they will research, their zeal mist be focused towards researching a real practical questions while searching for the answers in a rigorous way. Van Aken: All of the above three articles have highlighted the increasing irrelevance of business research, which is becoming narrowed focused at the academic community. Van Aken (2005) deals with the same subject and points out that while scientific validity of research studies needs to be upheld, business research also needs to be relevant before it can serve as useful knowledge in practice. However, van Aken (2005) is able to address the concerns that have been raised in the articles of the authors in the three studies above by providing three approaches to improve the relevance of academic management research. Firstly, van Aken (2005) suggests that that prior to undertaking of the research studies, communication with practitioners needs to be improved in order to assess whether the studies will be valid and relevant in the business community. Secondly, she suggest that the process of the research itself may need modification, so that there is greater researcher-practitioner interaction, in order to ensure that the researcher gains a better understanding of the problems that managers face in practice. Thirdly, she suggests that it is necessary to examine the context within which research knowledge is produced, so that it is not focused merely on knowledge production in the context of immediate application rather than on the production of knowledge which may be transferred and applied in other contexts. Van Aken (2005) also recommends that the knowledge aim of management research should be prescriptive and field problem driven rather than descriptive, which tends to focus on theoretical approaches. She has also made several suggestions about changes to research designs. One of these is by field testing and grounding technological rules. For example, rather than relying heavily on algorithmic rules, she suggests that more heuristic rules be applied, which can be used by a practitioner as a design sampler. Such rules allow for the development of specific variants which may be modified for application in specific cases. Field testing technological rules involves the inclusion of multiple case studies with cross case analyses driving the main thrust of knowledge. Using a descriptive research format in management studies, allows for a translation into technological rules which can form the basis of management theory, provided that (a) dependent variables describe something of value to the organization and (b) the independent variables describe something that can be changed or implemented by the designers.(van Aken, 2005). In addressing one of the major problems in management research, i.e, the problem of generalization of knowledge, van Aken (2005) points out that when research studies are developed along the lines suggested above, the general knowledge that is developed can become relevant to the extent that it can be transferred to certain contexts, either to a greater or lesser degree. It could prove to be a source of valuable ideas which can provide insight into general principles, which can be modified and applied by individual organizations within their specific contexts. Conclusions: The first three articles have raised the issue of lack of relevance of management research, which is becoming increasingly oriented toward rigor in research design and subjects, thereby producing knowledge that is not relevant to practitioners. In addressing this problem which has been raised in the first three articles examined in this report, the fourth article suggests measures to tackle the problem by calling for more research that is geared towards the production of solution oriented research products, or the management theory that cam complement the existing organizational theory and therefore be more relevant to managers. References: * Bennis, W. & O’Toole, J. (2005), How business schools lost their way, Harvard Business Review, vol. 83 no. 5, May, pp. 96-104. * Pfeffer J. & Sutton R. (2006), Evidence-based management, Harvard Business Review, vol. 84, no.1, January pp. 62-74. * Van Aken, Joan Ernst, 2005. “Management research as a design Science: Articulating the research products of Mode 2 production in Management”, British Journal of Management, 16: 19-36 * Vermelen, F. (2005) On rigour and relevance: fostering dialectic progress in management research, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 48 no. 6, pp. 978-982. Read More