Responsible Research for Better Business : Creating Useful and Credible Knowledge for Business and Society /: Creating Useful and Credible Knowledge for Business and Society. (2020)

• Record Type: Book
• Further Information: Note: László Zsolnai, Mike J. Thompson.
• Editors: Zsolnai, László; Thompson, Mike J
• Contents: Short synopses of the chapters Part 1 Introduction RRBM: A Vision of Responsible Research in Business and Management: Striving for Useful and Credible Knowledge This position paper presents a vision of a future in which business schools and scholars worldwide have successfully transformed their research toward responsible science, producing useful and credible knowledge that addresses problems important to business and society. This vision is based on the belief that business can be a means for a better world if it is informed by responsible research. The paper begins with a set of principles to support responsible research and proposes actions by different stakeholders to help realize this vision. It explains the impetus for the proposal by describing the current business research ecosystem, which encourages research oriented toward scholarly impact much more than societal relevance. Changing the incentives and culture around publications are essential to promoting responsible research. Research is the foundation of business education and practice, yet business research has failed to live up to its promise in promoting better policies and best practices. If nothing is done, business research will lose its legitimacy at best; at worst, it will waste money, talent, and opportunity. Part 2 Methodologies for Responsible Business Research Tilman Bauer (Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland): Standards for Responsible Research – A Literature Review with a Twist What exactly does it mean to conduct 'responsible research'? How do the 'principles' of responsible research relate to generally accepted standards for high-quality business and management research? What are the characteristics of such research that make it 'good, ' 'rigorous, ' 'credible, ' and 'responsible?' This paper shall be a literature review with a twist. First, extant research methods and philosophy of science literature is reviewed for the purpose of identifying standards for high-quality business and management research. The emphasis here is to deduce standards that apply to all kinds of research – whether quantitative or qualitative, empirical or theoretical – and to juxtapose those standards with the principles of responsible research. For example, how do scientific due diligence, rigor, coherence, and construct clarity relate to a study's potential to be of 'service to society?' Are there differences in the value of different types of research? Second, on the basis of the literature review, this paper argues that theoretical research should receive a more prominent position within responsible research/scholarship. All forms of research aim at creating new knowledge based on some (empirical or non-empirical/logical/theoretical) evidence as well as on a deep understanding of reality and extant literature (prior theory). Indeed, the quality of all research depends (among other things) on the credibility and trustworthiness of the evidence. Yet, empirical research alone seems to be the eminent category of research in academia at business schools, as researchers are encouraged to arrive at novel findings through 'collecting' and 'analyzing' empirical 'data.' However, this way of understanding research is prone to limiting the extent to which a study can be revelatory or groundbreaking in terms of solving the world's wicked problems. While empirical research certainly has its place, this paper argues that theoretical research has greater power to come up with groundbreaking ideas because empirical research, by definition, operates within the bounds of ideas that others have already, consciously or unconsciously, undergone in some form. After all, creating a better world through research requires pioneering approaches that transcend the limits of current practices. The paper concludes with a set of standards for such research in the field of business and management scholarship. Benito L. Teehankee (De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines): Critical Realism and Responsible Business and Management Research While the critical role of business and management in society has been increasingly highlighted by frequent business scandals with widening impacts in the past decades, most business and management scholars and researchers continue to prize detached rigor over engaged relevance. A key motivator for the current detached approach to research in business and management is the prevailing, though often implicit, positivist philosophy of science (Bacharach, 1989; Johnson & Duberley, 2001). The chapter argues that critical realism (CR) as a philosophy of science provides an alternative ontology, epistemology, and axiology that can better ground responsible research (Tsang, 2016). Whetten (1989) argued that good management theory must include plausible and convincing explanations for why data should relate to each other in the ways specified and why this should guide practice. To this end, discerning management researchers need to consider issues involving philosophy of science. The kinds of questions researchers ask, the suitability of different methodologies to investigate such questions and the evaluation of resulting research outputs all imply underlying philosophical assumptions (Johnson & Duberley, 2001). CR (at least the variant discussed here) was founded as a philosophy of science in the 1970s by the British philosopher Roy Bhaskar (Bhaskar, 2008; Bhaskar, 1998). It has been relatively underrepresented in mainstream management research (Tsoukas, 1989) but has had some traction among British management researchers (Fleetwood & Ackroyd, 2004; Ackroyd & Fleetwood, 2003; Hesketh & Fleetwood, 2006). Recently, it has been gaining increasing but slow coverage among US scholars through the work of Tsang in philosophy of management research (Tsang, 2016) and entrepreneurship (Ramoglou & Tsang, 2016), Van de Ven (2007) in engaged scholarship and Rousseau (Rousseau, Manning, & Denyer, 2008) in evidence-based management. CR differs most noticeably from the mainstream approach to research by moving beyond Humean event conjunctions as captured in statistical regressions, a central tool in positivist causal analysis, in order to focus instead on explanation: How do we deepen our explanations so that we really understand what is happening in management, organizations, and business in terms of underlying causal mechanisms? CR ontologically presupposes, in scientific alignment with positivism, an objective reality that can exist outside of the observer. In terms of epistemology, the ability of man to know about reality is understood to be fallible due to his limitations for apprehending reality as such and the possibility of false beliefs. CR's axiology supports more socially engaged research (Van de Ven, 2007): How do we look at the role of our values in the research we do? Through the idea of explanatory critique (Bhaskar, 2009), CR favors moving from the status quo towards achieving personal and organizational transformation: How can we be change agents for social and ecological welfare as we do research? Knut Ims (NHH Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Norway) and Laszlo Zsolnai (Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary): Holistic Problem Solving in Responsible Business Research It is a serious failure of business researchers when they solve the wrong problem precisely. This means that their problem formulation is inadequate, which may lead to disastrous consequences for the fate and well-being of the stakeholders. To avoid failures in problem formulation business researchers should reconsider the basic assumptions of the system under study and include as many stakeholders' views as possible. Appropriate solutions should address all the important dimensions of the problem in question (the scientific/technical, the interpersonal/social, the systemic/ecological, and the existential/spiritual), and create an optimal balance among them. Business researchers should also investigate their developed solutions from a deontological point of view (i.e. which ethical norms are violated or satisfied by them?) as well as from a consequentialist point of view (i.e. what are the payoffs for different stakeholders?). The job of responsible business research is to contribute to long-term economic and social transformation by producing knowledge that is substantively relevant and ethically acceptable at the same time. The paper uses the example of executive compensation which has long been a prominent topic in the management literature. A main question that is whether increasing levels of executive compensation can be justified. The paper explores the social, ecological and existential costs of economic incentives, by discussing how relying on increasing levels of executive compensation may have an adverse effect on managerial performance in a broad sense. Specifically, we argue that one-dimensional economic incentives may destroy existential, social, and ecological values that influence the manager's commitment to ensure responsible business conduct, and have negative spillover effects that may reduce the manager's performance. There are well-documented findings that demonstrate that reliance on sources of extrinsic motivation (such as economic incentives) may displace intrinsic motivation. The paper discusses the influence of sources of extrinsic motivation on the manager's intrinsic commitment to different type of values. We will in particular investigate how it may influence the manager's ethical reflection and behavior or lack thereof. Karen Golden-Biddle (Boston University, USA), Jean M. Bartunek (Boston College, USA), and Sara L. Rynes (University of Iowa, USA): Objectivity as Responsibility in Management Research The paper builds on the scholarship of Lisa Heldke (e, g, Heldke 1997; Heldke & Kellert, 1995; Boisvert & Heldke, 2016), a contemporary philosopher. Her work offers a novel and important perspective on responsible manag
• Publisher Details: Cham : Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication Date: 2020
• Copyright Date: 2020
• Extent: 1 online resource (239 pages)
• Subjects: Philosophy; Business ethics; Social responsibility of business; Business & Economics -- Education; Business & Economics -- Business Ethics; Personnel & human resources management; Business ethics & social responsibility; Management--Study and teaching
• Languages: English
• ISBNs: 9783030378103
• Related ISBNs: 9783030378097
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