The pursuit of organizational impact: hits, misses, and bouncing back (original) (raw)
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Revisiting impact in the context of workplace research: a review and possible directions
Journal of Work-Applied Management, 2017
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to revisit the scholarly impact agenda in the context of work-based and workplace research, and to propose new directions for research and practice. Design/methodology/approach This paper combines a contemporary literature review with case vignettes and reflections from practice to develop more nuanced understandings, and highlights future directions for making sense of impact in the context of work-based learning research approaches. Findings This paper argues that three dimensions to making sense of impact need to be more nuanced in relation to workplace research: interactional elements of workplace research processes have the potential for discursive pathways to impact, presence (and perhaps non-action) can act as a pathway to impact, and the narrative nature of time means that there is instability in making sense of impact over time. Research limitations/implications The paper proposes a number of implications for practitioner-researchers, un...
This paper introduces the special issue focusing on impact. We present the four papers in the special issue and synthesize their key themes, including dialogue, reflexivity and praxis. In addition, we expand on understandings of impact by exploring how, when and for whom management research creates impact and we elaborate four ideal types of impact by articulating both the constituencies for whom impact occurs and the forms it might take. We identify temporality as critical to a more nuanced conceptualization of impact and suggest that some forms of impact are performative in nature. We conclude by suggesting that management as a discipline would benefit from widening the range of comparator disciplines to include disciplines such as art, education and nursing where practice, research and scholarship are more overtly interwoven.
Measuring Societal Impact in Business & Management Research: From Challenges to Change
Sage White Paper, 2023
Usha Haley and Andrew Jack (Financial Times) highlight structures at play within business schools. The White Paper aims to move the dial towards ways in which societal impact could become central to the assessment of business and management research. The White Paper follows lively discussion, encouraging feedback and fertile follow-up questions from a recent webinar of the same title. Here the authors focus more specifically on the challenges relating to how we measure societal impact within business research and what a more responsible research environment might look like within the business school ecosystem. The White Paper includes contributions by two journal editors, Renate E. Meyer of Organization Studies, and Maura Scott of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing; a sobering snapshot of research social metrics within business schools compared to other areas of the university by Altmetric; and, some suggestions for post- pandemic business and management research directions in relation to health and well-being from Professor Sir Cary Cooper.
What constitutes impactful research, and does it matter
2023
Researcher and practitioner orientations: method cynosure, valued outcomes, and view of other Researcher Practitioner Methodological cynosure Theoretical and methodological rigour Timeliness Valued outcomes Academic publications in top journals Actionable results with practice implications View of other Disdain Deprecate of ignore Desire to help/make a difference Can provide relevant abilities and fresh insights Source: Saunders (2011) Emphasises need for engaged scholarship (Boyer, 1990) and Responsible Research in Business and Management 174 reads (Academia.edu) 386 reads (Academia.edu) Research interest 54.3 (RGate) Research interest 225.4 (RGate) Scopus cite score 7.1 Scopus cite score 6.8
The Challenge of Delivering Impact: Making Waves Through the ODC Debate
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 2011
This article articulates the nature of the challenge of the academic-practitioner "divide" as one of delivering impact. While measurable impact of research on organizational practice is a key indicator of the value of academic work, the authors explore possibilities of sustainable impact by exploiting and maintaining similarities and differences that characterize academic and organizational practice. Drawing on a metaphor of making waves, they suggest that possibilities of academic impact emerge from day-to-day engagements between scholars and organizational practitioners whose efficacy depends on the creation of shared understandings and personal relationships. This also emphasizes the maintenance of differences in perspective, which alert managers and researchers alike to different aspects that lay hitherto concealed in everyday practice. The authors draw insights from organizational development and change research to distil lessons about ways in which collaborative research practice could make waves that energize responses that extend both theory and practice.
Building inherently impactful research programs: the role of organizational context
Policy Design and Practice
Much impact research focuses on how individual scholars can influence policy outcomes, leading to recommendations about how individual researchers can be more entrepreneurial and engage with policy cycles in innovative ways. This approach is problematic in that it reinforces assumptions about researchers as "heroic" individuals, obscuring consideration of how organizational contexts support or hinder the prospects for research impact. As a result, the importance of organizational context is frequently absent from universities' impact strategies. This article seeks to address this gap by presenting a case study on the experiences of the Department of Pacific Affairs (DPA) at the Australian National University (ANU) in creating a context that supports research impact. DPA's research approach has long included a strong policy focus, aided in part by long-term financial support from the Australian government to build a globally preeminent center of excellence for policy-relevant research on the Pacific. Concentrating on DPA's organizational context as an impact mechanism, the article considers lessons learned that can inform the development of research contexts that serve as an inherently impactful approach to research.
Evaluating impact from research: A methodological framework
Research Policy, 2021
Background: Interest in impact evaluation has grown rapidly as research funders increasingly demand evidence that their investments lead to public benefits. Aims: This paper analyses literature to provide a new definition of research impact and impact evaluation, develops a typology of research impact evaluation designs, and proposes a methodological framework to guide evaluations of the significance and reach of impact that can be attributed to research. Method: An adapted Grounded Theory Analysis of research impact evaluation frameworks drawn from cross-disciplinary peer-reviewed and grey literature. Results: Recognizing the subjective nature of impacts as they are perceived by different groups in different times, places and cultures, we define research impact evaluation as the process of assessing the significance and reach of both positive and negative effects of research. Five types of impact evaluation design are identified encompassing a range of evaluation methods and approaches: i) experimental and statistical methods; ii) textual, oral and arts-based methods; iii) systems analysis methods; iv) indicator-based approaches; and v) evidence synthesis approaches. Our guidance enables impact evaluation design to be tailored to the aims and context of the evaluation, for example choosing a design to establish a body of research as a necessary (e.g. a significant contributing factor amongst many) or sufficient (e.g. sole, direct) cause of impact, and choosing the most appropriate evaluation design for the type of impact being evaluated. Conclusion: Using the proposed definitions, typology and methodological framework, researchers, funders and other stakeholders working across multiple disciplines can select a suitable evaluation design and methods to evidence the impact of research from any discipline.
Science & public policy, 2022
Societal impact of academic research has been high on both policy and scientific agendas for several decades. Scholars increasingly focus on processes when analyzing societal impact, often inspired by the concept of 'productive interactions'. Building on this concept, we assert that processes do not take place in isolation. Rather, we suggest that productive interactions emerge in environments that offer conditions for these interactions to occur. This special section brings together three papers that focus on 'enabling conditions' that organizations provide to enable societal impact.
Assessing the Societal Impact of Research: The Relational Engagement Approach
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 2016
Marketing and policy researchers aiming to increase the societal impact of their scholarship should engage directly with relevant stakeholders. For maximum societal effect, this engagement needs to occur both within the research process and throughout the complex process of knowledge transfer. The authors propose that a relational engagement approach to research impact complements and builds on traditional approaches. Traditional approaches to impact employ bibliometric measures and focus on the creation and use of journal articles by scholarly audiences, an important but incomplete part of the academic process. The authors recommend expanding the strategies and measures of impact to include process assessments for specific stakeholders across the entire course of impact, from the creation, awareness, and use of knowledge to societal impact. This relational engagement approach involves the cocreation of research with audiences beyond academia. The authors hope to begin a dialogue on...