In search of relevance: conventional or critical management inquiry?

Abstract

Purpose

This article provides a critical appraisal of the relevance of conventional management inquiry to management, and a proposal to use the critical management paradigm to develop genuinely relevant management studies.

Design/methodology/approach

Discusses the relevance of conventional management inquiry to management.

Findings

Conventional management inquiry closely mirrors scientific inquiry, with strict adherence to scientific method in pursuit of “objective” and rigorous empirical evidence or “proof” of specific and universal managerial truths. The products of this research are published via a machine bureaucracy that reinforces the hegemony of science. However, some academics have expressed concern that there is little uptake in commerce of “new” management ideas, and that practising managers have little or no interest in academic research. Based on 20 years experience of commerce and academe the author explores the underlying reasons for the failure of management academe to be taken seriously by managers.

Research limitations/implications

The article proposes the need for a more applied and critical direction to management research. Some ideas for research are presented at the end of the piece, but the main message is that all management research should be more timely and relevant to practitioners' issues in the daily task of management.

Practical implications

The article is a commentary on the principles on which management should be studied (and to a lesser degree on how these studies should be published). As such it is difficult to suggest any implications for management practitioners. That said the author would advise management practitioners involved in the funding of research to question the relevance of research themes and conventional responses to them. There guidelines drawn for academic practitioners.

Originality/value

Similar ideas on “relevance lost” have been presented previously. However, the arguments have been lost in an academic hegemony that reinforces the requirements for a strictly scientific approach to the study of management. The original proposition of this article is one of the outliers of this approach, critical management theory, should take centre stage in ensuring relevance.

Citation

Smallman, C. (2006), "In search of relevance: conventional or critical management inquiry?", Management Decision, Vol. 44 No. 6, pp. 771-782. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740610673323