SOME KEY ISSUES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANAGEMENT RESEARCH

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SOME KEY ISSUES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANAGEMENT
RESEARCH

• Andrew M. Pettigrew FBA
• Dean
• School of Management
• University of Bath
• Presentation to the Association of Business
  Schools Conference Business Schools of the 21st
  Century Global challenges and future
  directions October 17-18, 2005

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STRUCTURE OF PRESENTATON

• The Aspiration
• The present reality
• A better future? The five Is
• Impact
• Innovations in theory and method
• Interdisciplinarity
• Internationalism
• Involvement and independence
• Selected capacity building issues
• Demographic trends
• Leadership and management of collaborative
  research
• Experimentation with new doctoral programmes

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THE ASPIRATION

• THE DUTY OF INTELLECTUALS IN
• SOCIETY IS TO MAKE A
• DIFFERENCE
• Sir Thomas More
• (Shortly before his execution in 1535)

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THE PRESENT REALITY

• THE MANAGEMENT OF
• INDIFFERENCE

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A BETTER FUTURE?THE FIVE Is

• IMPACT
• INNOVATIONS IN THEORY AND METHOD
• INTERDISCIPLINARITY
• INTERNATIONALISM
• INVOLVEMENT AND INDEPENDENCE

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GREATER IMPACT?

• PURPOSE
• The Double Hurdle Scholarly Quality
• and Relevance
• WHAT KIND OF KNOWLEDGE?
• What-to Knowledge
• and
• How-to Knowledge

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MODERNIST SCIENCE

• Progress to be based upon reason
• Scientific progress dependent on knowledge
  expressed in universal law
• Knowledge best advanced through the dedicated
  work of scientific disciplines
• Truth would be determined through scientific
  testing
• This testing required precision and reduction
• Only then could scientists hand over to practice
  the fruits of their labours.

8
DOUBTS ABOUT MODERNIST SCIENCE

• Not so much with what
• the modernist tradition has done,
• but with what that tradition has left out

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THE EXHAUSTION OF THE VARIABLES PARADIGM

• Has led to real actors being replaced by
• variables, narrative causality by the reified
• causality of variables,
• real time by the order of the variables
• Andrew Abbott (1991)

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AFTER MODERNISM

• Searching for general truths AND give greater
• weight to temporal and spatial context
• The abstractionism and reductionism of the
  variables paradigm AND a new concern for action
  dynamics, context and complexity
• Temper the deductive ambition AND encourage
  inductive thinking and research practice
• The extending boundaries will create the
  conditions for greater scholarly AND policy impact

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SHAPERS OF EXECUTIVE BEHAVIOUR

• Contextual Realities
• Socio-economic political contexts
• Sectoral market contexts
• Intra organizational contexts
• Performance realities
• Temporal Realities
• The heavy hand of the past
• The life cycle of the sector, organization and
  leader
• Intended and unintended consequences of leader
  actions
• Changing contextual, performance, and political
  conditions The ever-moving platform

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INNOVATIONS IN THEORY AND METHOD

• A more contextualist and dynamic view of knowing
  will create new conditions to meet the double
  hurdle of scholarly quality and relevance.

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INTERDISCIPLINARY(Working Across Boundaries)

• Often misguidingly portrayed as an end in itself
• Issue is purposeful Big themes rarely
  effectively addressed from the myopia of single
  disciplines, or fields.
• Often requires construction of teams led by
  individuals open to interdisciplinary inquiry

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INTERNATIONALISM(Working Across Borders)

• One of biggest weaknesses of UK social and
  management science
• Management sciences are not culture free, but
  culture bound
• Truth is the daughter of space and time
• Policy makers in many fields are hungry for
  international comparison and perspective.

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INVOLVEMENT AND INDEPENDENCE

• The necessary condition for impact
• User interest in research is often
• Fickle
• Time and Context dependent
• Rests on quality informal interaction built up
  over time
• Creating and exploiting networks
• But need to balance involvement with independence
• Involvement should not mean capture by policy
  interests and values
• We must retain our capacity for iconoclasm and
  challenge

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SELECTED CAPACITY BUILDING ISSUES

• Demographic trends Reconfigure rather than
  merely replace those who go
• Leadership and management of collaborative
  research
• Foundations are fateful experimentation with new
  doctoral programmes

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PERCENTAGE OF ACADEMICS DUE TO RETIRE IN NEXT 10
YEARS IN UK FIELDS OF STUDY

• Education 48
• Sociology 36
• Management 33
• Economics 32
• Mathematics 31
• Physics 18
• Chemistry 16

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NEW DOCTORAL PROGRAMMES IN MANAGEMENT?

• Management a confluence of different fields of
  inquiry
• Fragmented
• Intellectually diverse
• Pluralism of theory and method
• Clearer and deeper intellectual traditions and
  identities since 1970s
• Uneven quality
• Limited impact beyond its own boundaries
• With exceptions of finance, progressive
  disengagement from roots in the social sciences
• Yet taken much more from social sciences than
  have given back

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DOCTORAL PROGRAMME IN MANAGEMENT GROUNDED IN
SOCIAL SCIENCES

• PURPOSE To widen and deepen
• students awareness, critical faculties and
  choice of perspective through engagement with
  appropriate management and social science fields

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TRAINING ELEMENT

• Principles
• Social science training not at expense of method
  training
• Strong method training utilising management and
  social science approaches
• Specialist management modules and selected social
  science contributions, perhaps thematically framed

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CANDIDATE THEMES

• Principles
• Themes are
• Chosen to reflect strong policy connections
• Chosen to reflect strong management and social
  science connectedness
• For example
• Choice and change
• Uncertainty and risk
• Innovation
• Globalization
• Business and society

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SUPERVISION

• Dual supervision by a scholar with
• strong management credentials and
• another with strong social science
• credentials

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AND FINALLY

• Such a doctoral programme will help supply side
  problems we face as a management community
• Social science element will attract strong
  candidates from social science disciplines
• Thematic element will attract in post experience
  candidates in late 20s, early 30s who are at
  the moment some of the best PhD candidates in the
  best US business schools.