Search results

This study aims to examine the connection between scholars' research performance and the multidisciplinary nature of their collaborative research. Furthermore, in response to mixed results regarding the effects of multidisciplinarity on research performance, this study explores how human resource management (HRM) practices may moderate this link.

The authors built a model based on the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence found in the review of diversity and HRM literature. The authors also performed a quantitative study based on a sample of scholars in the field of management. Different econometric estimations were used to test the proposed model.

The results of this empirical analysis suggest that multidisciplinary research has a non-linear effect on research performance. Certain HRM practices, such as development and collaboration, moderated the curvilinear relationship between multidisciplinarity and performance, displacing the optimum to allow higher performance at higher levels of multidisciplinary research.

The paper provides advances on previous works studying the curvilinear relationship between multidisciplinarity and the researchers' performance, confirming that multidisciplinarity is beneficial up to a threshold beyond which these benefits are attenuated. In addition, the findings shed light on important issues related to team-oriented HRM practices associated with the outcomes of multidisciplinary research.

The authors examine how performance measurement systems (PMSs) and academic agency influence the meaning of research quality in practice. The worries are that the notion of research quality is becoming too simplistically and narrowly determined by research quality's measurable proxies and that academics, especially manager-academics, do not sufficiently realise this risk. Whilst prior literature has covered the effects of performance measurement in the university sector broadly and how PMSs are mobilised locally, there is only little understanding of whether and how PMSs affect the meaning of research quality in practice.

The study is designed as a comparative case study of two university faculties in Finland. The role of conceptual analysis plays a notable role in the study, too.

The authors find that manager-academics of the two examined faculties have rather similar conceptual understandings of research quality. However, there were differences in the degree of slippage between the “espoused-meaning” of research quality and “meaning-in-practice” of research quality. The authors traced these differences to how the local PMS and manager-academics’ agency relate to one another within the context of increasing global and national performance pressures. The authors developed a tentative framework for the various “styles of agency”. This suggests how the relationship between the local PMS and manager-academics’ exerted agency shapes the “degrees of freedom” of the meaning of research quality in practice.

Given that research quality lies at the heart of academic work, the authors' paper indicates that exploring the three matters – performance measurement, the agency of manager-academics and the meaning of research quality in practice – in combination is crucial for the sustainability of the academe. The authors contribute to the literature by detailing the way in which local PMS and manager-academics' agency have material impacts on what research quality means in practice. The authors conclude by highlighting the pressing need for manager-academics to exercise the agency in efforts to safeguard a broad and pluralistic understanding of research quality in practice.

For many Indigenous nations globally, ethics is a conversation. The purpose of this paper is to share and mobilize knowledge to build relationships and capacities regarding the ethics review and approval of research with Indigenous peoples throughout Atlantic Canada. The authors share key principles that emerged for shifting practices that recognize Indigenous rights holders through ethical research review practice.

The NunatuKavut Inuit hosted and led a two-day gathering on March 2019 in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, to promote a regional dialogue on Indigenous Research Governance. It brought together Indigenous Nations within the Atlantic Region and invited guests from institutional ethics review boards and researchers in the region to address the principles-to-policy-to-practice gap as it relates to the research ethics review process. Called “Naalak”, an Inuktitut word that means “to listen and to pay close attention”, the gathering created a dynamic moment of respect and understanding of how to work better together and support one another in research with Indigenous peoples on Indigenous lands.

Through this process of dialogue and reflection, emergent principles and practices for “good” research ethics were collectively identified. Open dialogue between institutional ethics boards and Indigenous research review committees acknowledged past and current research practices from Indigenous peoples’ perspectives; supported and encouraged community-led research; articulated and exemplified Indigenous ownership and control of data; promoted and practiced ethical and responsible research with Indigenous peoples; and supported and emphasized rights based approaches within the current research regulatory system. Key principles emerged for shifting paradigms to honour Indigenous rights holders through ethical research practice, including: recognizing Indigenous peoples as rights holders with sovereignty over research; accepting collective responsibility for research in a “good” way; enlarging the sphere of ethical consideration to include the land; acknowledging that “The stories are ours” through Indigenous-led (or co-led) research; articulating relationships between Indigenous and Research Ethics Board (REB) approvals; addressing justice and proportionate review of Indigenous research; and, means of identifying the Indigenous governing authority for approving research.

Future steps (including further research) include pursuing collective responsibilities towards empowering Indigenous communities to build their own consensus around research with/in their people and their lands. This entails pursuing further understanding of how to move forward in recognition and respect for Indigenous peoples as rights holders, and disrupting mainstream dialogue around Indigenous peoples as “stakeholders” in research.

The first step in moving forward in a way that embraces Indigenous principles is to deeply embed the respect of Indigenous peoples as rights holders across and within REBs. This shift in perspective changes our collective responsibilities in equitable ways, reflecting and respecting differing impetus and resources between the two parties: “equity” does imply “equality”. Several examples of practical changes to REB procedures and considerations are detailed.

What the authors have discovered is that it is not just about academic or institutional REB decolonization: there are broad systematic issues at play. However, pursuing the collective responsibilities outlined in our paper should work towards empowering communities to build their own consensus around research with/in their people and their lands. Indigenous peoples are rights holders, and have governance over research, including the autonomy to make decisions about themselves, their future, and their past.

The value is in its guidance around how authentic partnerships can develop that promote equity with regard to community and researcher and community/researcher voice and power throughout the research lifecycle, including through research ethics reviews that respect Indigenous rights, world views and ways of knowing. It helps to show how both Indigenous and non-Indigenous institutions can collectively honour Indigenous rights holders through ethical research practice.

The purpose of this article was to provide an outline of the citation practices of “Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing” by Vargo and Lusch (2004) to identify and discuss the most prominent research topics in which citations were used and to suggest future research based on the results of the analysis.

The authors used a comprehensive framework of citation practices based on iterations of previous literature to analyze the relevant literature, which they identified by accessing, systematically and rigorously, every available contribution matching a set of criteria. The authors then categorized these contributions and highlighted the main topics of research interest in each category.

The findings identify some of the factors in the continuous development of SDL, the way this new marketing logic permeated the scientific debate, the infusion of Vargo and Lusch (2004) into several contributions framed in the new logic or justified through it, and a general perception of a default reference. Additionally, the findings highlight the main topics of research interest in each category.

The analysis enabled the detection of the original paper's influence through advances in service studies, pollination into other fields of research and continuous scientific debate. The authors have highlighted several avenues for research and proposed future research directions.

This research analyzed the effects of the spread of the SDL cornerstone article and emphasized the advantage of using an in-depth approach to the analysis of studies through a framework applied to more than 4,600 studies.

Introducing technology at work presents a special challenge as learning is tightly integrated with workplace practices. Current design-based research (DBR) methods are focused on formal learning context and often questioned for a lack of yielding traceable research insights. This paper aims to propose a method that extends DBR by understanding tools as sociocultural artefacts, co-designing affordances and systematically studying their adoption in practice.

The iterative practice-centred method allows the co-design of cognitive tools in DBR, makes assumptions and design decisions traceable and builds convergent evidence by consistently analysing how affordances are appropriated. This is demonstrated in the context of health-care professionals’ informal learning, and how they make sense of their experiences. The authors report an 18-month DBR case study of using various prototypes and testing the designs with practitioners through various data collection means.

By considering the cognitive level in the analysis of appropriation, the authors came to an understanding of how professionals cope with pressure in the health-care domain (domain insight); a prototype with concrete design decisions (design insight); and an understanding of how memory and sensemaking processes interact when cognitive tools are used to elaborate representations of informal learning needs (theory insight).

The method is validated in one long-term and in-depth case study. While this was necessary to gain an understanding of stakeholder concerns, build trust and apply methods over several iterations, it also potentially limits this.

Besides generating traceable research insights, the proposed DBR method allows to design technology-enhanced learning support for working domains and practices. The method is applicable in other domains and in formal learning.

This study aims to investigate how art events can enrich novice visitors by transforming their practices.

This research uses an interpretive case study of the art exhibition “1/1/1/1/1” in the Oppenheim gallery in Wroclaw. It draws on multiple sources of evidence, namely, novice visitors’ interviews, observation including photo studies and content analysis of art-makers’ mediation sources. This study is an example of contextual theorizing from case studies and participatory action research with researchers as change agents.

The evidence highlights that aesthetic values and experiences are contextual to practices and are transformable into other values. The findings illustrate the role of practice theory in studying how art-makers inspire the transformation of practices, including values driving the latter.

The findings provide implications for transformations of co-creating contextual values in contemporary visual art consumption and customer experience management.

Practical implications to arts organizations are also provided regarding cultural mediation conducted by art-makers. Exhibition makers should explain the meanings of the particularly visible artefacts to allow visitors to develop a congruent understanding of the meanings. The explanations should not provide ready answers or solutions to the problem art-makers suggest to rethink.

The social implication of our findings is that stakeholders in artistic ventures may undertake adequate, qualified and convergent actions to maintain or transform the defined interactive practices between them in co-creating contextual aesthetic values.

The study provides new insights into co-creating values in practices in the domain of contemporary art exhibitions by bringing the practice theory together with an audience enrichment category, thus illustrating how novice visitors get enriched by transforming their practices led by contextual values of “liking” and “understanding”.

The study aims to promote the use of qualitative methods in service research by investigating how these methods are reported in service journals, how the level of reporting has evolved and whether methodological reporting influences the downloads or citations received by qualitative articles.

Methodological reporting practices were identified through content analysis of 318 qualitative articles published in three major service research journals and comparison with prior methodological literature. Regression analysis was used to test how the level of methodological reporting influences article downloads and citations.

The study identifies 29 reporting practices related to 9 key methodological reporting areas. The overall level of methodological reporting in published qualitative articles has increased over time. While differences in the level of reporting between service journals persist, they are narrowing. The level of methodological reporting did not influence downloads or citations of qualitative articles.

Service scholars using qualitative methods should pay attention to methodological reporting as it can improve the chances of being published. Factors such as theoretical contributions are likely to have a greater influence on article impact than methodological reporting.

No prior study has explored methodological reporting practices across different qualitative methodologies or how reporting influences article impact. For authors, reviewers and editors, the study provides an inventory of reporting practices relevant for evaluating qualitative articles, which should lower barriers for qualitative methods in service research by providing practical guidelines on what to focus on when reporting and assessing qualitative research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how a methodological coupling of visualisations of trace data and interview methods can be utilised for information practices studies.

Trace data visualisation enquiry is suggested as the coupling of visualising exported data from an information system and using these visualisations as basis for interview guides and elicitation in information practices research. The methodology is illustrated and applied through a small-scale empirical study of a citizen science project.

The study found that trace data visualisation enquiry enabled fine-grained investigations of temporal aspects of information practices and to compare and explore temporal and geographical aspects of practices. Moreover, the methodology made possible inquiries for understanding information practices through trace data that were discussed through elicitation with participants. The study also found that it can aid a researcher of gaining a simultaneous overarching and close picture of information practices, which can lead to theoretical and methodological implications for information practices research.

Trace data visualisation enquiry extends current methods for investigating information practices as it enables focus to be placed on the traces of practices as recorded through interactions with information systems and study participants' accounts of activities.

Although management accounting tools and techniques are developed to solve practical problems in organizations, there is a lot of criticism of management accounting research for not having an impact on practice. In interventionist research, the “shaping” of an intervention to solve a practical problem is an important step. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the findings of management accounting research can be reviewed to make them practically applicable in shaping an intervention.

The paper is based on the author’s experiences with an interventionist research project.

Systematic literature reviews, which are common in engineering and medicine, bring together the academic knowledge that can contribute to solutions for a specific practical problem, including a definition of the ways in which this knowledge can be applied. Inspired by the methodology for conducting such reviews, this paper proposes how interventionist management accounting researchers can use existing theoretical knowledge in shaping interventions that aim to solve a practical problem. After an intervention, the analysis of the intervention’s unforeseen effects can provide a basis for the refinement of the theory identified in the literature review.

Such a literature review can be organized according to four approaches to taking theoretical knowledge into practice. Unforeseen effects of the intervention can guide the selection of additional theory that helps to interpret these effects and refine normative and academic theory.

In management accounting it is uncommon to review the literature with the aim of shaping a solution for a practical problem. This paper explores how literature reviews that focus on a specific practical problem can contribute to bridging the gap between theory and practice.

This paper presents an investigation into the ways the term “practice” is commonly referenced in supply chain management academic papers. Scholars have not yet developed a common understanding of the meaning and do not use practice theories when examining practices related to sustainability management in supply chains. Hence, the authors highlight theoretical gaps and make recommendations for future research.

Grounded in a systematic literature review of 232 peer-reviewed papers published in operations and supply chain management journals, a qualitative content analysis was conducted using both a deductive and an inductive approach.

Results show that supply chain sustainability (SCS) scholars seem barely interested in increasing the understanding of the term “practice,” widely used in the literature to refer to a practical context. Moreover, a clear distinction between being practical and using practice theories to study SCS practices is needed. A descriptive and critical analysis revealed eight key supply chain practices connected to sustainability, with a clear reflection on their meaning. As awareness of practice theories for research on SCS is limited, few recommendations for researchers and practitioners were identified.

Unlike prior literature reviews, the authors reinforce the need to increase the maturity of the SCS field by going beyond superficial theoretical building. Practice theories pathways are provided to enlighten scholars on how to avoid using the term “practice” as taken-for-granted and on how to deal with SCS research and practice.