Dean George Yip spoke on the duality of the challenge facing
ERIM, bringing to life the dual impact. He outlined the unique
challenges - that of two audiences: academics and business
practitioners. Academics are, of course, working outside the
business organizations. He provided the example of other faculties
- law, medicine, and other faculties - who do not suffer from this
duality. Academics are more connected to practice in these
disciplines than Business Admin. PhDs can possibly be. The context
makes research more interesting for managers. There is, according
to Professor Yip, a need for two different types of methodology,
and for studies with more variables than observations. What is
needed, essentially, is conversion but NOT translation. The
research carried out should be converted into readable
interpretations that are palatable for the business community. The
target for RSM is a 1% per annum to 5 or 6% per annum increase in
top tier journal publications to increase visibility for
ERIM.
Marketing professor Stefan Stremersch argued that one paper cannot
have a high impact on both academic and practical fields, but that
scholars themselves can have this impact - using the anecdotal
method. His advice to young scholars was to work in an area not
directly connected to your research - you are not the same expert
in academia as opposed to practice. He went on to advise doing
research on a real business problem not yet solved, grounding
yourself in existing literature. "Be a salesman, incorporate a
company, write popular articles". Discovery, he claimed, is not the
same as excavation. Write books, attend practice conferences, work
with experienced people - this is the way forward according to
Stremersch.
RSM-professor Daan van Knippenberg presented a very lively argument
on understanding diversity - this, he claims, has no managerial
impact yet. He stated that academic impact does have an impact on
business practices and research is what has dual impact, not
people. The old adage "Nothing is as practical as a good theory"
still stands with regard to contemporary research was his opinion.
Knippenberg addressed the question regarding how diversity affects
team performance, considering it as an international resource, but
also a source of bias. Categorization, he stated, requires an
elaboration model.
Group information, elaboration, motivation and ability, task
complexity, intergroup bias all constitute the challenges involved
in managing diversities and managing contingencies.
Prioritizing applicability will, he feels, prevent bias and
stimulate elaboration. His advice is that it is preferable to
highlight rather than downplay difference. What makes team members
engage positively with salient differences, he asks? The answer is
to diversify beliefs, to have organizational openness. The future,
he believes, is to provide leadership training and development,
self-development and to feed back into fundamental theory.
John Child of Birmingham Business School followed up with the topic
'What do the next ten years hold for ERIM?'. His opinion is that
there is a sound foundation of academic rigour, but it is vital to
relate theory to practice and address key issues concerning
management and society. There are two lines of development -
methodological and substantive. Development of good theories
requires exposure to practice, therefore action research is
important - to be in contact with what is happening in the outside
world. This kind of theory-testing is close to consultancy. Child
offers the prototype examples, such as the Hawthorne experiments at
Harvard which he feels are not so feasible nowadays.
The intellectual executive is a new phenomenon - what we are now
seeing emerging is the CEO-researcher, research being close to
action. The new role of business science in management - business
in emerging economies, international business - is a new wave in
the business world. Sustainability, organizational governance and
repair of trust are important issues, Child stated, as we are now
facing an extreme crisis, that of global warming, which is even
worse than the economic crisis. An important task for management,
he feels, is the repair of trust in organizational leadership
that ordinary people have lost. What we are now achieving is
cross-fertilization across disciplines and departments, and this is
healthy.
Joy Kearney, ERIM