The role of academic research in sustainable actionable business outcomes: introduction to the special issue

Citation

Rugimbana, R. (2010), "The role of academic research in sustainable actionable business outcomes: introduction to the special issue", Journal of Advances in Management Research, Vol. 7 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jamr.2010.42607baa.001

The role of academic research in sustainable actionable business outcomes: introduction to the special issue

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Advances in Management Research, Volume 7, Issue 2.

Introduction and context

The notion of generating the kind of research that gives rise to actionable outcomes as a means of confronting business challenges is very topical yet illusive. In their editorial of JAMR (Volume 6, Issue 2) Professors Yadav and Shankar point to an important challenge that faces management researchers, that of the proper deployment of management research in the practicing world. Whilst acknowledging the role that business newspapers and magazines play, these editors urge management researchers to find ways through which rigorous academic research papers can add value for practicing managers and in a sense become sustainable to them.

One possibility is encouraging research that is applied, novel and which speaks to sustainable management performances. Presenting different and novel research approaches as a means of accentuating sustainable management performance is an interdisciplinary undertaking, in which inter-alia management disciplines and research methods logically play a role.

In keeping with this thinking, the papers in this special issue of JAMR represent research that address broad as well as specific firm level needs in the context of sustainable empirical solutions. These include first some “best papers” that were selected during the third international business conference held in Zanzibar, Tanzania which revolve around the conference theme of attaining sustainable business outcomes. In addition, this special issue includes a series of well presented research papers that were selected on the basis of their contribution to the same theme and thinking around actionable outcomes.

Hence the development of management solutions that are sustainable and developing an understanding of these via business research is very much at the forefront of sustainable and actionable outcomes oriented research.

Structure

The research in this special issue responds well to the issue of actionable and sustainable research outcomes. The papers themselves represent a spectrum of solutions to the main concerns of sustainable empirical solutions. At one end the focus is firm behaviour, specifically papers that attempt to model business behaviour through simulations to propose means by which practicing managers can visualize marketplace behaviour profitably. At the other end of the spectrum is a focus on the internal or psychological variables that can assist businesses to better achieve actionable outcomes. In all aspects the principle methods employed are designed to capture meaning that underlines good management solutions.

Contributions

“Supply chain modelling using a multi-agent system”

The opening article by Raúl Pino, Isabel Fernández, David de la Fuente, José Parreño and Paolo Priore argues that multi-agent modelling and supply chain simulations are capable of demonstrating how the supply chain can be visualized and analysed through simulations under several stochastic strategies and events. In this work the authors propose a novel agent-distributed structure which tries to completely reproduce the supply chain relational architecture. The authors achieve this by using a multi-agent system in which each element of the supply chain is replaced by a set of “intelligent agents” that are responsible for making planning decisions. The key actionable or sustainable research contribution of this study is in highlighting and linking artificial intelligence to supply chain management so that each supply chain echelon satisfies its own objectives, while at the same time meeting its local and external constraints.

“Towards a social capital theory of resistance to change”

In this second paper of the special issue, Noel J. Pearse applies a Straussian approach to the grounded theory method in order to understand the organizational inertia or resistance to change that characterizes a variety of South African church organizations. Utilizing a sample of incidents gathered from 38 in-depth interviews that were conducted with ministers who were leading churches of various backgrounds, sizes and denominations, in four South African provinces Noel J. Pearse analyses the process of church transition from a programme-based to a cell-based design, and develops a concept of “sense of community”. According to the author this concept underscores the manifestation of organizational inertia in the churches that were engaged in a process of change. Perhaps the most important actionable outcome of this paper is the proposition, to practicing mangers, that social capital theory offers a new theoretical explanation of resistance to change.

“Performance assessment of Indian software professionals”

This third article by H.C. Shiva Prasad and Damodar Suar further investigates the kinds of performance dimensions for individual software professionals that may lead to sustainable performance at the level of the firm. For years firms have been pre-occupied with the idea that there are a bundle of distinct human resources performance evaluation indices which when applied will consistently result in better performance on the part of employees, and by default the firm, the industry and the economy. Using information gained from some 441 junior and senior software engineers in eight Indian software firms and applying a positivistic approach, this study finds that the most significant contributors to sustainable and high performance work practices were:

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  work-efficiency;

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  personal resourcefulness;

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  inter- and intra-personal sensitivity;

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  productivity orientation;

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  timeliness; and

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  business intelligence.

This contribution clearly placates the observations of writers such as Hazel Henderson (2004) who emphasize the role of “soft” or “behavioural” traits in understanding and encouraging sustainable economic behaviours.

“Productivity growth and efficiency change in Indian banking: technology effect vs catch-up effect”

Banks around the world have tended to adopt a technology strategy as a means of differentiating their offerings and becoming more competitive as businesses. However, rarely has this strategy been appropriately evaluated in terms of its effectiveness from an organizational or market perspective.

The fourth paper in this series of the special issue does just that. It seeks to examine both the influence of technology change in the banking sector by employing the data envelopment analysis as well as the corresponding change in total factor productivity (TFP) of the organizations. Lakshmi Kumar, D. Malathy and L.S. Ganesh undertake and present a very useful study into these phenomena in the Indian banking industry. The latter authors find that the TFP growth over the entire period of the study (1995-2006) was driven by technical change as compared to efficiency change. This shows that technology and innovation have a greater impact on productivity than efficiency change, or the catch-up effect. The finding is instructive particularly for large organizations that are seeking to implement long term strategies that involve sustained business performance.

“A model for optimal maintenance interval incorporating the cost of rejections in manufacturing”

Due to the present era of increasing international competition, companies are under pressure to meet customer demand while keeping their operational costs low. Maintenance costs contribute significantly to the total operational costs of a manufacturing organization. In the fifth paper of this special issue Divya Pandey, Makarand S. Kulkarni and Prem Vrat propose a model that seeks to mitigate this problem by obtaining optimal preventive maintenance interval based on block replacement policy to incorporate the effect of rejection cost. The main contribution of this study in as far as the theme of improving and sustaining organizational performance is concerned lies in the fact that the proposed model is found (theoretically) to be more efficient than conventional models in mitigating maintenance cost.

“Strategic inventory allocation for product platform strategy”

In the sixth paper of this special issue journal, supply chain and simulations feature once again. In this contribution, Yohanes Kristianto, Petri Helo and Josu Takala present a novel approach to managing product variety intended for customers by considering product and manufacturing strategy, as well as supply chain benefits. Utilizing a discrete event simulation the authors competently analyse product platform performance in terms of inventory levels and throughput. The authors find that strategic safety stock allocation supports product platform strategy by increasing production output, whilst reducing inventory level and customer order queues at a higher level of product variety. An important contribution to the question of how to sustain business performance, relates to their introduction of an innovative customer order decoupling point as a means of enhancing business decision making.

As far as research approaches and methods apply, the readings herein utilize positivistic approach that employ mainly quasi-experimental or descriptive designs and the application of research via quantitative and mathematical modelling techniques. In this regard the studies are able to provide the perspectives or views of specific audiences as well as that of simulated audiences. However in order for these perspectives to become useful and lead to important changes in research, accommodation of different perspectives becomes paramount. For example changes in the way technology strategies can be monitored by organizations and the reduction of manufacturing costs or making supply chains more responsive to customer needs all point to examples of the necessary learning that must take place to accommodate change in a way that will contribute to achieving more sustained management outcomes.

Concluding remarks

When one looks across the contributions to this special issue, they all without exception have an important focus on actionable outcomes that can be sustained. The outcomes derive from such important fields as economic development, social and psychological well-being and quality of work life. Since these fields also overlap the key concerns of sustainable business performance, the actionable outcomes derived there-from, can be construed as being sufficiently relevant as to address at least in part, some of the key challenges that practicing mangers presented in the various contributions face and the kind of sustainable business solutions that are available. This link between the actionable solutions discussed to sustainable business performance is where this special issue makes its final important point.

Acknowledgements

As guest editor, I first wish to thank the many participants in the studies reported in this special issue journal. I also wish to extend my sincere thanks to the reviewers as well as staff of Emerald publishing for their generosity with their time and for the great effort that has made this issue possible. I also must acknowledge the editors of this journal for making a special issue available for this purpose and for their efforts in ensuring that professional and timely reviews were possible. Last but not least, I wish to congratulate the contributors whose manuscripts were accepted into this special issue.

Robert RugimbanaGuest Editor