It is not always practical, but always would help managers to improve the results, by updating the latest development and theories.

I would say yes, the more researches you read, the latest techniques you can use and the better results you may achieve.

It depends on the theories. If it is simply pure research done by academicians without practical experience, it will not be of much use. If the research is tempered and tested with practical situations then it will be useful. So the managers will have to carefully look at the research and identify the ones that will be meaningful to them to succeed.

Although they have lost a few years ago, organizations have a management control department.

I think there may be the key, if these departments engaged in benchmarking, can know at what point they are more efficient than the average. And so, look what knowledge achieved in the particular matter and try to apply them.

A good leader knows how and when to act. However, as human beings it's impossible for us to possess all the knowledge in the world. On a business perspective, situations are always different and it is not always easy to predict what will happen if you choose a specific path. So, in a way, theoretical issues and academic publications would help leaders in specific situations but there is still a lot to be explored. Leadership is a vast "science" and the more we know about it the more gaps we find. In other words, a leader should also be a learner because everyday there are new techniques and visions, some of which may be indeed useful to solve everyday's problems.

Managers continuously need new inputs to hone their competencies at work. Knowledge Management for sure is one support to help them in their thinking process....The same input gets transformed as learning's and practices as it comes out form different people/ situations/ environments..... new theories again starts to evolve from there.

Actually, I don't think that READING management science articles will better the performance of managers. UNDERSTANDING them might help, but this might also imply to not believe the author's conclusion.

I think most resarch is largely overrated, especially when it is statistically "proven", as there is no field of academic research where correlation and cause and effect are as often misinterpreted as in business science.

Why? I think it is because we have two major sources of informationen:

a) Gurus: They want to sell their latest book or enhace the price of their consulting hours. So, they have to advertise everything as new, even if it is just what you should have known before reading. In many cases the articles / books are so well-written that you're quite tempted to embrace them as new insights, but they probably aren't.

b) Real scienctists: In a way they all have to prove their worth by what they publish. There are many bright guys (and gals) using very elegant techniques to prove what in most cases you would have guessed anyway if asked the underlying question.

Oh, and really ... keep watching for cause and effect misinterpretations and meaningless correlations. Even the best journals are full of them.

I think that a manager's work performance will benefit from really thinking about the problems ahead. And articles may help you get some input for your own thinking process. But you won't find answers there. Most answers will come from applying common sense. Sounds easy, but it really is not.

Some may say that there is no contradiction between applying common sense and reading articles, and I do agree, as I read a lot of them, too. But faced with a decision to either hire one manager who is just a bright person knowing only the basic truths about management (like what a balance sheet looks like and lower costs for the same effect is better than higher cost and such) and a manager who knows all of the latest management articles and MAYBE tends to sometimes forgetting to think for himself and instead applying his latest article knowledge, I'd prefer the first one.

Dear Andreas Höfer, I agree with you on the pitfalls of Knowledge led sources which haunt the Management world. However, form a practicing manager point of you, like me... friends of mine will always ask me... hi, whats new.... so that they can learn.... the newly coined jargon are up for sale, then...

We cannot brush out everything that is becoming negative in management study... Like an artist learning a SKILL... Management is an art it varies with different strokes as you apply depending on various factors.

Management practices tend to evolve over time, hence it is useful to have some understanding of the various management theories and what may be looming on the horizon. There is often a gap between the theory (or the ideal management practice) and the reality in everyday life within organizations. However it is useful to have an understanding of these gaps as it can be translated into actions that lead to postive outcomes for the organisation.

My answer here is yes. Management involves the functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling. In the aspects of planning, and controlling a great proportion of quantitative and research-based data would be very helpful. In organizing and leading, actual knowledge of real people is, I believe more important, but a know;ledge of research-based theories on human behavior also helps a lot.

Interesting answers. Thank you all.

We have yes and No for the answer, which I respect for the reasons you have given.

But I may just pose one question: "What kind kind of treatment can we expect from a doctor if s/he is not aware of the latest developments in medical theory in her/his field."

Likewise, in management, someone has commented that we are in the midst of the "Heathrow Management Theory." This means that today's top management and senior executives are traveling fast, and the enlightened amongst them when waiting in transit for their flights, buy the books at the airport book stalls written by management experts and read them and apply the new ideas learned.

All new ideas of management are not necessarily fads. Balanced Score Card, servant leadership, the intangibles theory, the resource-based view of the firm, psychological contract, etc. have a large number of followers and have learned and used these concepts for promoting competitive advantage.

Hope we get responses on both sides of the debate.

Sorry, I have to disagree. Your example of a doctor is misleading, as I would expect from a doctor to be aware of the latest developments in his field, as long as he gets those new developments from clinical studies where the effectiveness of therapies is measured against placebo groups and so on. You can't compare that to management science at all. I would actually prohibit him from incorporating every viewpoint of obscure experts into my therapy.

The examples you mentioned in order to show that not all new ideas are fads, in my opionion just strengthen my point.

Balanced Scorecard: It is quite easy to list hundreds of examples where the optimization of a small set of indicators lead to deterioration of many of the indicators that were NOT measured. It is a tool that, if incorporated as one tool of many, sure has some value. If applied as the central planning tool it probably produces more damage than most other tools. Its appeal derives mostly from the reduced complexity of business management it promises. But, reality is never as simplistic as our models may suggest.

Servant Leadership: Friedrich the Great (Leader of Prussia, 18th century): "The leader is the first servant of the state". New idea? I do not think so. It is an interesting suggestion in times where one may come to the conclusion that this idea was swept away by blind materialism and egoism. And there is a lot of truth in that idea as a viewpoint because it may lead us to building more trust by being trustworthy (common sense at its best). But as a general therory? No, it was probably never meant like that. Just a reminder, a good one.

Intangibles theory and resource-based view: I like those concepts, and, again, they have their value because these are ideas mentioned in times where the simple truths may have been forgotton. But they are not scientifical theories.

Actually, most management theories cannot be addressed as scientific theories, because they cannot be falsified. The problem is not that they are not true. They are true. But they are too true to be falsified. They are self-evident. And in that sense they are common sense. And there is great value in restating common sense from time to time, because people (and managers) tend to forget common sense all of the time, because they have taken the last "theory" too serious. And they all follow an idea that, at the time it was created, probably also had its value, because at that time the management horde was actually forgetting common sense too - but in the other direction of now.

But, and at that point we may come to a common viewpoint: They have their value because they reinstate what should have been known beforehand, but may have been forgotten. And therefore: Yes, managers should read "scientific" articles, but they should form their own opinion. In most cases, there is some truth in articles, and this could lead you to fresh ideas. But do not take them too serious.

Andreas: I partly agree with you, to the extent that managers should form their own opinion. The idea is to know what is happening and what is its cause; that is what theory does. It can surely interest a manager if he has an open attitude, and not ignorant or prejudiced. BSC has been highly beneficial to a large number of companies; and so are many other concepts. They have implemented them and got results.

Nobody says that any one who reads a concept must follow it as well. The cultural context is very critical and a concept may not work in that milieu. The management is the best to decide; but if it knows what has worked well in some context it could b tried by those who are in a similar context.

It is not important whether an idea is new or old. What is crucial is whether it can help me face the challenges of my business more effectively.

About the management theory you mentioned, as you know, social science is not like natural science, but is an inexact science. Here, apple may not always fall on the ground (the law of gravitation), but sometimes it whirls upward in the sky. The thing is that a good researcher must be able to explain as to why it so happened. The same is true of other social sciences like economics, sociology, political science and others.

k. Lewin has said and I totally endorse that point: "There is nothing more practical than a good theory."

Thanks so much Andreas for your dissenting note, and for adding to the debate. Much appreciated.

Warm regards

Debi

Dear All, Lijo Francis, Patrick Low and others that you know are not able any longer to log in their RG account from yesterday. RG suspended their accounts without any reason. I don't know why, but I find this an outstanding abuse. Please help them and inform all other participants as this is a signal that things are not going in the right way in RG before it happens to you!

Regards

Gianni

Hi Giovanni. The problems that some users of RG may have experienced may have alot more to do with stability of the RG platform, possible hacking of RG, as well as stability of IT access portals via which members are accessing RG. Suggest individuals contact RG directly and outline their issues.

Dear Debi, the problem with management science is that it sometimes forgets to ask the right questions, probably also because it wouldn't be able to gather the data needed to answer the questions.

Let's take BSC as an example, because we obviously disagree on that theory. You say it's been highly beneficial to a large number companies. I would say the opposite, it's been highly dangerous to a lot of companies. Let's assume nobody of us is interested in a certain result. Our personal perception is based on anecdotal evidence.

Let's assume we would start a research project to objectively settle our disagreement. The normal approach in management science would be to design some kind of questionnaire. We would send this to a sample of companies.

Problems I see: Who answers the questions? We will probably ask those people (or their assistants) who actually decided to start a BSC initiative. They will be very biased to say that what they did turned out to be a success story.

Even if they decided to answer to the best of their knowledge: How will they know if their initiative produced more bad than good? Through the normal company hierarchy? I doubt that. It's in the personal interest of middle managers to signal to their superiors "No problems in my territory", even if problems are massive. If we assume that they would pass on 80% of all problems (and I highly doubt that number), after 3 layers of managers, only 50% will actually reach level 4, and so on. Information about problems will in most cases be answered somewhere in middle management with a phrase like "You got problems? Solve them!".

Let's say that they answer by the numbers: They will then rate the success of their BSC intiative by the numbers it produces. My objection was not that BSC initiatives fail to produce the numbers they measure. It was that it leads to tradeoffs. Measured numbers will get better, non-measured numbers will get worse. So, top management will certainly not rate the success of their initiative based on numbers they do not actively measure.

---

What's the point in all of this? My point is that management science is deeply biased. Its theories, because of model-like assumptions, portray complex tasks as rather simple decisions, because that is the level that is quite easy to discuss. We can easily discuss market-based strategies versus ressources-based strategies. In reality, both viewpoints have their truths. In reality, it's all about having the right people at the right places, having the right informations to form the right decisions, making sure they have the power to enact their right decisions and have all the employees support these decisions because they feel that the right people made the right decisions. Knowledge forms right people, and knowledge is a part of the right informations. So, management science does have its value, but I sometimes miss the modesty that should come from looking at the big picture.

We derive our concepts mainly from looking into success stories. Some of them are just normal highs and lows in a company development. There were researches where companies portrayed in groundbreaking management books (I think it was TQM) were analyzed some years after they were portrayed. Most of them actually performed than at the time they were portrayed. Why? Probably regression to the middle. They never were that excellent, they hust had their good moments. And whenever we derive a success concept from a success story, we may pick the wrong concept. Perhaps other concepts form that excellence we see from the outside.

I think management science should view itself as a social arena, where concepts are thrown into the ring. All of them are true. Maybe, sometimes one concept is more beneficial than another concept, because times are changing. Then, the job of theorists is to take the good ideas of the beaten concepts and repackage them and throw them into the arena once again.

And, as there will never be the one concept beating all of the others, it will remain interesting to watch, and knowing the concepts currently fighting in the arena (by reading the theories) is a good thing, because it helps you form your own ideas, as long as you never start to believe that other concepts are less important.

Dear Gianni

Thanks bringing this issue of grave import for all of us. I Think, Debra is right. Hope Lijo and Patrick have reported the issue with RG. Yesterday, I have also reported this issue to RG as follows:

Dear Editor On behalf of 15 other members and my own behalf, I wish to bring an issue of grave concern to your kind notice. The RG accounts of two members Lijo and Patrick Low have been deleted without any notice or reasons to them. We are all concerned at it. We shall be grateful if the same are restored immediately, and the reasons are made known for the same.

With best regards Debi saini

It is possible some others have also reported the matter. Let us hope that their accounts are restored the soonest, and we get to know the reasons as well. Somehow, it appears to be a mistake to me.

My answer is a "Yes"  answer on this. To manage effectively, one needs to be adequately informed about industry best practices, technological breakthroughs, reasons for failures or successes of other organisations, and other state of the art knowledge. all these are possible mostly by being abreast of research evidences. Surely, any manager who discards this sort of knowledge and thinks that practice has nothing to draw from theory is only standing on a gun powder that would explode in no time.

Hello Debi,

My answer to your question is Yes, if 'reading for results' is the manager's aim/objective/goal vis-a-vis enhancing their performance. Otherwise, there are  a number of interrelated factors (including knowledge acquisition through reading as a form of learning) that influence their performance, and are worth considering. 

As for managers that "have the impression that research by academics is of no use for them as their problems and the real world is very different from that envisaged in research," they ought to be careful of ignorance (that is, if ignorance is the problem here, otherwise the problem could be that they are reading articles that are weak or simply not suitable for the purpose).

Even if what is read by the manager does not apply to his/her particular situation, serious Academic Research (AR) should not be underestimated or viewed as a simple 'fairy-tale'.  If carried out with integrity,  AR reflects what goes on in the real world and is therefore based on facts. In other word, the recommendations or suggestions put forward are based on careful analysis of the factual data obtained. There are of course issues relating to the research approach (qualitative or quantitative), the research process (inductive or deductive), and the philosophical underpinning of the research, as well as the limitations of the research. Unfortunately, not all managers understand research methodology. Managers must be able to grasp how the conclusions were reached, as well as how the researcher came up with the recommendations/suggestions. To this effect, care should be taken when managers select, and read journal articles, as well as attempt to apply recommendations etc in practice. However, in practical terms, what does this mean for the manager? Have managers reached a point where they all have to learn about research methodology? Or is it simply down to the author of the article to make 'clearer' the limitations of the investigation etc, so that managers are well informed when reading articles. 

To test my thinking, I also put the same question to a CEO of a top International firm. In a nutshell his thoughts were similar. He also emphasized the importance of getting a good degree... 

For knowledge acquisition and impact learning, a good Management Development degree is second to none. Otherwise, for the avid reader of text books there are some good research methods text books for managers e.g.:

Research Methods for Managers, Gill and Johnson, 4th Edition

Business Research Methods: A Practical Approach, Cameron and Price

A highly Recommended Journal for management practitioners is 'Management Decision' which is a highly rated peer reviewed Journal for practitioners. 

However many Managers do not read Research articles, but a few have a pride in going through HBR.

Different types of documents (Magazines, Newspaper, Research Articles etc., ) hold information in different places and in different ways, and they have different depths and breadths of coverage. Magazines tend to give a fragmented coverage of an area, concentrating on the most interesting and glamorous topic which boosts their circulation. At times it may include low value content to "pad out" advertising. The most effective way of getting information from magazines is to scan the contents tables or indexes and turn directly to interesting articles. These will build up sets of related articles that may begin to explain the subject whenever required.