Book contents
- Management Studies in Crisis
- Management Studies in Crisis
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the Crisis in Management Studies
- Chapter 1 Flawed from the Get-Go: the Early Misadventures of Management Research
- Chapter 2 How Audit Damages Research and Academic Freedom
- Chapter 3 ‘When the Levee Breaks’: Academic Life on the Brink
- Chapter 4 The Corruption of Academic Integrity
- Chapter 5 Paradise Lost but Not Regained: Retractions and Management Studies
- Chapter 6 The Triumph of Nonsense in Management Studies
- Chapter 7 Flawed Theorising, Dodgy Statistics and (In)Authentic Leadership Theory
- Chapter 8 The Promises, Problems and Paradoxes of Evidence-Based Management
- Chapter 9 Reclaiming Meaningful Research in Management Studies
- Chapter 10 Putting Zest and Purpose Back into Academic Life
- Notes
- Index
Chapter 9 - Reclaiming Meaningful Research in Management Studies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2019
- Management Studies in Crisis
- Management Studies in Crisis
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the Crisis in Management Studies
- Chapter 1 Flawed from the Get-Go: the Early Misadventures of Management Research
- Chapter 2 How Audit Damages Research and Academic Freedom
- Chapter 3 ‘When the Levee Breaks’: Academic Life on the Brink
- Chapter 4 The Corruption of Academic Integrity
- Chapter 5 Paradise Lost but Not Regained: Retractions and Management Studies
- Chapter 6 The Triumph of Nonsense in Management Studies
- Chapter 7 Flawed Theorising, Dodgy Statistics and (In)Authentic Leadership Theory
- Chapter 8 The Promises, Problems and Paradoxes of Evidence-Based Management
- Chapter 9 Reclaiming Meaningful Research in Management Studies
- Chapter 10 Putting Zest and Purpose Back into Academic Life
- Notes
- Index
Summary
As I have argued frequently in this book, management research tends to neglect really important issues. It turns us into experts on trivial issues who explore unimportant relationships between insignificant variables. Researchers focus on either the blindingly obvious or the deservedly obscure. In Chapter 7, I discussed the extent of this problem in leadership studies. ‘Gaps’ that no one has ever noticed and no one cares about are ‘filled’. Much of this research, as I argued in Chapter 6, is written in impenetrable jargon and overloaded with references to the work of philosophers, preferably obscure ones, all to disguise the insignificance of what is going on. The authors of such work seem to revel in their inability to express themselves in the English language. Clarity, simplicity and meaning are mortal foes, to be put to the sword in every sentence.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Management Studies in CrisisFraud, Deception and Meaningless Research, pp. 212 - 233Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019