77. "Accelerating Advances in Management by Improving the State of the Science"

The management research community is thriving all over the world. This research community is fecund in its productivity and prolific in its own expansion as measured by employment in universities and research institutes and the demand for its graduates. There are now so many journals that groups such as ANBAR Electronic Intelligence monitors and rates what it has classified as the top 400 journals. The outpouring of books and journals is prodigious. There are so many conferences, symposia, seminars, and workshops that a peripatetic scholar could travel year around just attending them. There is no evidence of this growth slacking off.

The problem, today, is not the lack of published information. Rather, it is the value of it. Any manager seeking to find solutions to his or her problems must find a way to take a drink from fire hoses of information. How does one locate the best theory or the best methods for applying the theory amid these vast, often inconsistent, and rapidly flowing outputs? The short answer is one can't. There is too much which is too limited in scope scattered in so many places that even academics cannot keep current except in a limited range of subject areas. The busy manager rarely studies the research literature in order to enhance his expertise or solve a current problem.

One of the hundreds of journals publishing papers in management research, the prestigious Academy of Management Review, has found it necessary to develop a Reviewer Expertise Form, which in 1997 listed 60 theoretical perspective and topic areas. This form did not break out the topic areas for management history, managerial consulting, international management, health care administration, technology and innovation management, and others. If these were fleshed out, the number of pairs would probably exceed 20,000. So, how is the active manager supposed to find sustenance from all of these fire hoses often pointed in different directions? Instead, she must rely on common sense, trade books, the occasional seminar and training session, and informal contacts. Chances are, her reading is limited to trade publications and perhaps, the Harvard Business Review. The manager may also listen to tapes which summarize trade books while driving to an appointment, watching PBS, and scanning the Internet. It is doubtful that she studies the Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, and the Journal of Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory for insights and ideas.

So, what is the purpose of all of this research activity if it fails to develop a useable and coherent body of knowledge? After all, the purpose of theory is to explain phenomena and the purpose of explanation is to allow one to make improvements. It is debatable that the management research community actually even reaches most managers. So, who applies the hard-won knowledge being produced all over the world? To what extent is management research actually advancing the practice of management? The purpose of this paper is to suggest how we might accelerate advances in management by improving the state of our science.

There is an active management research community. But how effective is it in advancing the art and science of management? The proliferation of partial models, theories, and empirical research reminds one of a wild rainforest with an immense diversity of flora and fauna. To provide guidance to a denizen of this chaotic, complex profusion of life, and to assist a weary visitor in finding sustenance within it, this intellectual rainforest could benefit from some active pruning, weeding, and cultivation in order to increase its yield of useful knowledge.

The thesis of this paper is simple: by improving the state of the science of the management research community, we can improve its ability to impact advances in management. To this end, we begin by taking a fresh look at the state of science of the management research community.