Making research in management more relevant for the practice

I have been inspired by the article by Prof.C. Gopinath of Suffolk University, Boston,US that appeared in Business Line, dtd April 29,2013(“Research blues in social sciences”). The initial part deals with the much publicized mistakes in the research paper published by two well known economics professors at Harvard (Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff) and how  a recent paper  by a new team of researchers using the same set of data could prove that the findings of the earlier paper  were questionable. In the later part,Prof. Gopinath laments about the relevance of research in social sciences in general and management in particular.

Most of the researchers try to do research to impress other researchers. Many of the researches appearing as papers or articles by some of the so-called  highly acclaimed researchers  cannot be  fully understood even by other researchers, forget about practitioners. Take for example papers appearing in some of the highly rated journals like Journal of Finance or Journal of Applied Finance or The Journal of Marketing. If any one of the practitioners  from the field of finance or marketing intends to gain anything from such journals, they must spend at least two-three years learning  research methodology. And what can be expressed  in terms of simple averages or percentages, many researchers complicate by applying advanced statistical tools. Very often, research rigour, rather than the applicability, becomes the focus of research. And, if a researcher tries to establish his point with the  help of simple mathematics or statistics, he will not be welcome to many journals or even conferences.

In many of the conferences, while papers are being presented, very rarely there is a question about the very idea or the concept which the researcher tries to put forth. Most of the thrust is given to the research methods used by the presenter even when the idea is not at all relevant. Even in conferences dealing with subjects like corporate governance(which according to me has more to do with human behaviours, leadership, integrity and ethics),  attempts  are seen  to make it more of a number game.

And, there are extremes at the other end, if I go by one of my recent experiences and  the researchers  go wrong very often in their anxiety to do research. I happened to attend a conference on corporate governance where one of the researchers was presenting her paper on the importance of internal control systems for better corporate governance. The lady used a sample comprising of undergraduate students of her college for the study. I don’t know to what extent a group of undergraduate students  understands about the importance of internal controls on corporate governance. Even most of the MBA students won’t be able to  make comments on the same.

Any research, to, me will be meaningful if it contributes to practice . Of course, researches can be conducted for creating or evolving new concepts or theories because most of the time good theories lead to good practices. Practices also must be researched to evolve new theories. Doing research shall not be an end in itself; it must be a means to some end.