Differences between managers and scholar-practitioners in business research

Managers Versus Scholar-Practitioners

Unlike many other academic fields, business is ultimately a practical discipline, dedicated to studying real world problems and data, versus theoretical research. Both academics in the field of business and company managers use evidence-based research to study economic phenomena and seek to construct the best possible solution from all available evidence. Managers, however, must make decisions in real world time and cannot wait for all of the evidence to be assessed to prove a particular hypothesis (as in the case of quantitative research) or to create a new theory about a specific social phenomena (as in the case of qualitative research). Managers are less concerned about why something works versus the fact that a particular technique does work. They are not interested about general theories of firm behavior but what is specific to their organization in the here and now or in the next five years. In business, "you're not trying to be right, necessarily; you're trying to innovate and bring new ideas to the table that will help the business be more successful" (Langer 2014).

Academics are likely to be more interested in the philosophical implications of particular policies such as social ethics. Although the mission statements of many organizations make a commitment to ethics such as sustainability and social justice and treating workers well can result in higher productivity levels (just as social justice concerns can motivate customers to buy the product) ultimately the organization must make a profit to stay in business. Deciding to involve employees in organizational decision-making must be proven to be good for business, not simply something which suits an ethical ideal.

Scholar-practitioners may engage in pure research, or research for research's sake. Applied research is research with a particular purpose, such as to develop a new drug, production method, or marketing tool. Although both academia and business may make use of pure and applied research, in general, research in a business context is much more result-oriented and less time and effort is devoted to research designed to simply advance human knowledge. While some research, particular in technology and medicine, may have a somewhat exploratory nature, ultimately there is usually a hope of producing some kind of a tangible, profitable result, versus simply publishing an interesting paper.

Both scholar-practitioners and managers use qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyze different phenomenon when making decisions. A manager may use a qualitative approach such a focus group to test a new product or observe how customers interact in a store to determine shopping habits as well as assess productivity in a quantitative fashion. A scholar-practitioner might observe the habits of a particular group of workers as a sociological phenomenon. For example, an analysis of how ideas are adopted by customers would be considered pure academic business research. Rogers' (2003) concept of diffusion of innovation breaks down the concept of how new ideas (like shopping online, for example) gradually permeate the culture, spreading from new adopters called innovators to late adopters called laggards. This theory was not specifically created to enable managers to understand how a product might become accepted by consumers or how employees might come to accept a new computer system although it can be used for this purpose. In contrast, a drug company might conduct applied research, supervised in part by managers, to produce a new drug with a highly specific target audience and advertising campaign designed to encourage acceptance.