Value of academic research

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The value of business school academic research

JH Oosthuizen PhD

Without a vibrant foundation in academic research and development, management practice will find

it difficult to cope in the knowledge based economy in the 21st

century. Unfortunately, the value of

academic research at business schools is generally underestimated in terms of the contribution itmakes to the world of work and the people engaged in solving managerial challenges faced in the

21st

century business landscape.

To appreciate the value of academic research, an understanding of the process through which it is

produced is needed; an understanding that often lacks outside of academia. Generally, a research

project has its origin with industry-relevant questions that hold potential for industry practitioners to

better manage certain aspect of the organisation. The emphasis, however, is on rigorous inquiry,

because research that does not have rigor as foundation cannot be summarily trusted. The reliability

of a research report is therefore dependant on its degree of thoroughness and precision.

It is this depth and narrow focus that differentiates academic research from research conducted byconsultants and industry practitioners, which generally has to do with urgent resolve of current

problems in specific organisational settings and not intended to provide widely applicable principles

to related organisational problems. Academic research is more concerned with the long-term

understanding of the function, cause and consequence of phenomena within multiple business and

organisational environments. Thus, if taken in isolation academic research might appear irrelevant to

practice. Granted, no individual research project is likely to help managers improve business

decision-making. It is the cumulative body of knowledge resulting from a stream of research and

gets published as a series of reports that becomes relevant to management practice. The value of

academic research must therefore be seen from a holistic perspective, in that it is in this collection of

rigorous and organised investigations that access to valuable findings for application by

management practitioners are to be found.

In addition to research by academic subject-matter experts at business schools, the importance of

the dissertations of MBA students as contributors to the cumulative research output of business

schools is therefore also evident. Coming from industry, students have contextual experience and

can relate their dissertation research with problems or opportunities within that context.

Dissertations that meet the standards of rigorous inquiry also lend themselves to the extraction of

concise research papers for publication in journals where learning from multiple investigations is

distilled, and the emphasis is on contemporary relevance of the findings and concepts presented.

Because of the strict review and editorial processes followed by these journals, readers can place

confidence in the researchers claims.

In an age where innovation is at a premium and knowledge based solutions are being pursued for

economic growth, it is essential that support for academic research conducted through business

schools is strengthened. Business schools have the potential to be incubators of discovery and

innovation in business- and management sciences, thus fuelling advances in all sectors of the

economy.

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That said, much more can be done to develop relationships between business schools and industry.

The reciprocal effect implies that business school academics must understand industrys needs and

challenges, while industry should assist with setting the research agenda. This exchange can be

achieved by industry serving on the advisory boards of business schools, doing guest lectures,

allowing requests for research access and volunteering their companies for case study compilation.