RRBM on Tour Symposium

Prof. dr hab. Marzena Witek-Hajduk, SGH Warsaw School of Economics (Poland)

The History of Responsible Research in Business and Management & Why We Need it Today. 

Prof. Peter McKiernan: University of Strathclyde (Scotland)

This talk will focus on the two main reasons why we need to make our research in business and management more responsible than it has been in the last 30 years. The first reason relates to the quality of the science that has been used to deliver the results of our work. It is clear that corners have been cut in the scientific process across the board, not just in business and management. This makes it difficult to take the results with any confidence. Second, this research work has not been as relevant to society as it could have been. The institutional targets set by Business Schools have rewarded academics for their productivity which has helped them get promotion and tenure rather than rewarded society by helping to solve its grand challenges, either global or local. This ‘double hurdle’ is a constant challenge for business school academics. This talk will show how recent initiatives have formed a global ‘responsibility turn’ in business and management that has begun to tackle the two issues in constructive and cooperative ways. at the heart of this ‘turn’ is the role of external stakeholders and multi and inter disciplinary activity in the research process.

Responsible Research and Impact: Approaches, Opportunities and Challenges
Dr Layla Branicki, Open University (UK) 

Conducting impactful research that is beneficial to those outside of academia is rapidly becoming core business for academics. This interactive session will begin by focussing on the relationship between responsible research and impact, before moving on to explore practical strategies for meeting the ‘responsibility turn’ in business and management. Creating meaningful research projects that seek to tackle pressing societal challenges – such as climate crisis and structural inequalities – can be highly rewarding and highly demanding in equal measures. For example, business and management academics have mobilized their expertise globally to respond to the recent Covid-19 pandemic highlighting issues as diverse as behavioral factors and feminist crisis management to practitioners. At the same time, academics may feel like they don’t have the resources, networks, or even perhaps the skills, to create impacts for non-academic beneficiaries. Impactful research can also seem risky, exposing expertise to critique, or risking misunderstanding or misapplication. Given these opportunities and challenges, we will explore practical strategies for achieving impact, including distinguishing amongst types of grand challenges (i.e. considering geographic scope, and challenge scope), and approaches to building impact into research project design. There will be opportunities to share your own impact journeys throughout the session. 

Understanding Paradigm, Methodology & Methods in Qualitative Research: Why is it relevant? 

Dr. Roberta Aguzzoli, Durham University (UK)

This talk will focus on how different paradigms used in qualitative research can enhance theory development. First, it is contextualized that management literature is embedded in the positivist paradigm and primarily quantitative methods. This limits methodological bandwidth and, consequently, the field’s contributions, as it ignores that phenomena are context-dependent. In addition, the use of a shared paradigm while enhancing the development of techniques imposes methodological challenges such as the lack of understanding of methodological concepts. Therefore, expanding the use of paradigms into management research can help first to understand contemporary issues such as organizational culture, post-colonial relations, ethics on organizations through innovation in terms of research design. In addition, the understanding of methodological concepts can help us with the method rationale and consequently rigor in qualitative research. This seminar seeks, therefore, to disentangling methodology, method and techniques and encourage paradigm diversification.

Research Transparency: What It Means and Why Should We Care?

Prof. Agnieszka Chidlow,  University of Birmingham (UK) 

The so-called ‘replication crisis’ in the social sciences has led to greater pressure to improve data access and research transparency (DART) this is because without data access and transparency, replication of results is problematic, if not impossible. As a result, journals across the social sciences are currently reviewing their DART policies. While the goal of increased transparency may seem uncontroversial, in practice, the introduction of journal policies and community practices to encourage or even enforce it has proved to be fraught with difficulty. This is because of the sheer diversity of methodological approaches and traditions, as well as disciplinary conventions. A ‘one size fits all’ policy is not just difficult, but also potentially undesirable, and may result in jeopardizing methodological pluralism. Another challenge is that the requirement for access and transparency needs to be weighed against other ethical considerations, such as privacy and consent, confidentiality, and intellectual property rights. Therefore, this session aims to explore the issues associated with research transparency, to point out not only why greater research transparency is important and necessary but also to stimulate the potential to reinvigorate methodological norms and practices for social science scholars. During the session, there will be opportunities to share views on data access, transparency and replication.

Discussions Lead & Facilitated by the Local Host: 

Dr Piotr Zaborek, SGH Warsaw School of Economics (Poland)

Responsible Research Agenda: Thoughts and Reflections

Chair: Prof. Agnieszka Chidlow, University of Birmingham (UK)

Panelist 1: Dr Piotr Zaborek, SGH Warsaw School of Economics (Poland)

Panelist 2: Prof. Peter McKiernan, University of Strathclyde (Scotland)

Panelist 3: Dr Roberta Aguzzoli, Durham University (UK)

Panelist 4: Dr Layla Branicki, Open University (UK)