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Webinar - The Theory Crisis in Management Research: Solving the Right Problem

  • 1.  Webinar - The Theory Crisis in Management Research: Solving the Right Problem

    Posted 10-14-2021 18:28

    The Theory Crisis in Management Research: Solving the Right Problem

    Speaker: Matthew A. Cronin (George Mason University)


    Time: Thursday, 21st of October at 10am (Eastern) / 3pm (London). This webinar is scheduled for 90 minutes (including Q&A).

    Registration: Please register here to receive a personalized Zoom link and a reminder.


    "There's nothing so practical as a good theory," yet there is growing concern that management theory is not very useful or usable. Many scholars seek to fix the growing disconnect between theory and managerial realities, as well as the overabundance of weak and untested theory. Our concern is that all this discussion focuses on improving unit theory, which frames empirical work on specific aspects of a phenomenon, rather than programmatic theory, which orients scholars and practitioners toward what the unit theories collectively support as settled science. While programmatic theory must be comprised of solid unit theories, the processes that improve programmatic theory are different from and can be undermined by those that improve unit theory. Our contribution, therefore, is a model for how unit theory becomes programmatic theory that demonstrates how and why programmatic theory needs to drive that process. We conclude by using our model to show why the current suggestions for fixing the crisis of theory are not only insufficient but even draw away from the development of programmatic theory.

    Suggested readings:

    • Cronin, M. A., Stouten, J., Van Knippenberg, D. (Forthcoming). The Theory Crisis in Management Research: Solving the Right Problem. Academy of Management Review https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2019.0294
    • Cronin, M. A. & Homan, A. C. (2020) From the (New) Editors. Organizational Psychology Review 10 (1), 3-5
    • Cronin, M. A. & Bendersky, C. (2012). The supply chain for producing quality organizational knowledge. Organizational Psychology Review, 2, 54-70.
    • Cronin, M. A. & Klimoski, R. (2011) Broadening the View of What Constitutes ''Evidence.'' Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 4, 57–61.

     
    About the speaker

    Matthew A. Cronin (Ph.D. 2004, Carnegie Mellon University) is a Professor of Management at George Mason University. He is an Associate Editor at The Academy of Management Annals, and Co-Editor in Chief of Organizational Psychology Review. His research on making collaboration more creative and effective has appeared in top-tier management publications such as The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Annals, and Management Science. This work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Fortune, and was presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He coauthored two books: The Craft of Creativity (Stanford University Press, 2018), a finalist for AOM's George R. Terry book award, and The Influential Negotiator (Sage Publishing, 2020). He currently serves as Chief Scientific Advisor for Process Metrics, an applied research organization that studies how aspects of team collaboration, as perceived by team members, can be used as lead indicators of schedule slippage, cost overruns, and safety hazards in large scale hospital construction projects.

    For queries, please contact Ibrat Djabbarov i.djabbarov@cranfield.ac.uk.



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    Ibrat Djabbarov
    Cranfield School of Management
    BEDFORD
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