Reconciling Rigor and Relevance

One of the key issues we've raised so far is the difficulties often experienced among academics in jumping the 'double hurdle' (as Andrew Pettigrew puts it) of rigor and relevance.  Getting close to practice demands a focus on relevance while getting on in an academic career increasingly requires academics to publish in so-called A list journals.  Having just sat on an interview panel for a new member of staff, I have just been reminded, if ever I needed it, of just how much importance is attached to the latter in an 'ancient' university such as my own in Glasgow (established1460) and how surprisingly little is attached to the former. 

This comment on academic careers and how they are built is reflected beautifully in a new essay by Majken Schultz of Copenhagen Business School, herself a member of the Board of Governors of the AOM, entitled 'Reconciling Pragmatism and Scientific Rigor' in the new online edition of the Journal of Management Inquiry.   In this paper, she contrasts her largely positive experience of the AOM. American business schools and American academics, with its concern for rigor and getting published in A list journals with the strengths (and weaknesses) of the European tradition of pragmatism, the world of ideas and of disseminating these through a range of media to influence practice as well as theory. 

The main thrust of her argument, which has been made a number of times before, is that while American scholars have created much that is insightful in business and management, the 'physics envy' of the US business schools and desire for respect by their academic colleagues has had some marked negative effects.  The first is a loss of relevance because of the promotion of many 'big studies of little questions' published in A list journals (see Andy Van de Ven's book for evidence on this point) and reported at AOM conferences.  The accepted 'scientific' form for publication in such journals and the career interests of young academics in American business schools is based on the adoption of logical positivism and research methods which encourage anything but engage with practitioners, i.e., surveys (often of students) and secondary data sets.   A second is the limited dissemination of research in only these journals because they alone count in getting promotion.  A third is the psychic prison that traps academics into a form of self-referential, closed but highly privileged community, which fails to engage with business and management practitioners, politicians and and NGOs. 

Her argument is that the Academy and American business schools have something to learn from the European pragmatic tradition.  My experience of a number of British, European and Australian universities leads me to believe that the institutional strangehold of scientific rigor, promoted with vigor by the British business schools as a consequence of various research assessment exercises, is likely to diminish the contribution of the European tradition to a point that that there will be little to learn from.  Such is the speed of take up of UK style research assessment in countries such as France, Italy, Australia, etc., coupled with the impact of  'coercive comparison' of international benchmarking through league tables, that there will be no real alternatives to scientific rigor.

Majken proposes that the increased globalization of the Academy and of American business schools will restrain this hegemony.  I'm not so sure.  Thoughts?