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British Journal of Management, Vol. 12, Special Issue, S33–S39 (2001)
The Two Pillars of New Management
Research
Armand Hatchuel
Ecole des mines de Paris/CGS 60, Bd St Michel, Paris 75006
email: [email protected]
Ken Starkey and Paula Madan’s report, Bridging the Relevance Gap (2001), advocates
the development of collaborative networks between academics and organizations.
Drawing on similar experiences, this article discusses two essential conditions of
such programmes: a clarification of the scientific object of management research, and
the design of research-oriented partnerships. The scientific identity of management
research should be distinguished from other social sciences: management sciences
do not study economic or social facts, but ‘models of collective action’ which are
then perceived and judged conventionally and historically as ‘economic or social
phenomena’. Therefore, the essence and universality of management research is in
understanding, criticizing and inventing ‘models of collective action’. In management
research, as in other design sciences, the classical laboratory and field models of research
are important. However, a third model of research based on partnerships is required,
where knowledge does not transcend action but is integral to it. Yet research is not
simply ‘doing better’ and requires theoretical and empirical control. Hence, the design of
‘research oriented partnerships’ is a crucial key of new management research. Inspired
by existing experiences, the research community could lay down the rules and commitments expected from academics and companies in research-oriented partnerships.
Resting on these two pillars, research could contribute to the invention of new models
of collective action adapted to contemporary issues and values and reduce misleading
mimetic behaviour, blind compliance to gurus or fashion in management practice.
Introduction: experiences in innovative
management research
The report, Bridging the Relevance Gap, by Ken
Starkey and Paula Madan is one of the most
comprehensive overviews of contemporary issues
in management research. Using ‘relevance’ as a
questioning entry, the authors critically revisit
some of the classical views of the field: the socalled ‘word-class’ level, the limits of academic
self-governance, the problems of transdisciplinary
research, and the challenges and difficulties of
partnerships. The report also offers a creative
synthesis, identifying the need for new orientations
in management research and training. Among
other propositions, the authors advocate a shift
towards a model based on collaborative networks
between academics and organizations corresponding to Gibbons et al.’s Mode 2 type of knowledge
© 2001 British Academy of Management
production (Gibbons et al., 1994). However, the
report avoids a naive view on the feasibility and
effectiveness of such a shift. Instead, the authors
recommend an experimental, pragmatic and collective endeavour towards three objectives:
(i)
maintaining the scientific logic and identity
of the management sciences;
(ii) adopting a critical view on ‘relevance’;
(iii) learning from existing innovative research
practice which has combined rigour and
partnerships.
As most of my own research work has been
inspired by similar orientations (Hatchuel and
Molet, 1986), I deeply agree with the diagnosis,
spirit and recommendations of the report. Therefore, drawing on my research experiences in new
forms of management research my comments
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mainly offer complementary views on the central
propositions of the report.
My research experience took place in two
academic institutions, mostly in France (as a
Professor and Deputy Director of the Center for
Management Science of the Ecole des Mines de
Paris) and more recently in Sweden (as Guest
Professor for the FENIX programme). In both
cases, we tried to rethink and redesign the
definition and practice of management research,
anticipating some of the current criticisms
addressed to ‘mainstream’ management research.
The youngest of these institutions, the Swedish
FENIX programme, is significantly mentioned in
Starkey and Madan’s report (pp. 23–24). The older
one is the Center for Management Science at
the Ecole des Mines de Paris, a well-established
research team in France where I had the opportunity with colleagues to elaborate and develop in
several organizations a concept of InterventionResearch (David, 2001; Hatchuel, 2001). It would
be interesting to compare the history of the two
groups, their different cultural or institutional
contexts and the strong links they have with
engineering schools and technical universities.
However, such comparison would be beyond
the scope of this note and I will focus instead on
two key issues which are accurately discussed in
the report, and which also appeared to us as
interrelated basic conditions for a renewed model
of management research:
•
•
the need for a clear scientific identity of management research differentiating it from social
or economic studies;
the necessity for a set of principles and rules
(a collective chart?) for the design of researchoriented partnerships.
A simultaneous treatment of these two issues
could provide the main pillars for the ‘bridging’
efforts advocated by the report.
The identity of management research:
neither applied economics, nor
applied sociology
Management sciences are among the youngest
of all human and social sciences. They still suffer
A. Hatchuel
from being bogged down in recurrent controversies1
on the effectiveness and meaning of management
techniques or their borrowings from a number
of other sciences.2 Too often they are perceived
as a ‘crossroads’ of other more fundamental disciplines. The management sciences are thus condemned to find a better definition of the true
nature of their object and scientific identity.
This difficulty is also experienced by most of
the social sciences. Nonetheless, the crisis takes a
different form for them. It results in the fragmentation and questioning of a conceptual ‘heart’, the
discipline’s scientific core. Although it has been
severely criticized and even sometimes abandoned,
this ‘core’ nonetheless remains as the field’s unifying symbol or a ground for dispute between the
Ancients and the Moderns. This type of model,
common to both sociology (with Durkheim’s
definition of social facts) and economics (with
Walras’s theory of markets), is the reverse of
the one faced by the management sciences. The
latter did not develop from a theoretical reference
project, but from an educational project, with its
foundations in the constantly renewed needs of
firms.
Lacking core theory
The key issue for management sciences can therefore be expressed the other way round from those
of the other social sciences: theoretical unification
is needed to put an end to permanent scepticism
and controversies.
The social sciences (we will mainly refer here to
sociology and economics) were initially created
around academic traditions. Economics was structured mainly by intellectuals like Adam Smith
and Jeremy Bentham. Economics sees itself
primarily as a science for trade or markets. And
although economics has also taken an interest in
production and firms, it normally only interprets
1
There have been countless worried editorials and
special issues of journals devoted to questioning the
status of the management sciences.
2
Even these borrowings can spark off difficulties. By
recently adopting culture-based perspectives (Hofstede,
1986), the management sciences merely imported
additional difficulties: should culture be seen in the
structures, in the tools or in knowledge? Or in all of
these elements at the same time? These notions come
from an interpretative epistemology that does not
provide a theory of collective action.
The Two Pillars of New Management Research
these within its hypothetical framework: that of
distinct individual interests exchanging riches, which
may or may not cooperate in their creation.
Likewise, most of the founding fathers of
sociology belonged to the academic community.
But, sociological research had more difficulties in
specifying its identity (Jonas, 1991). Auguste Comte
thought that sociology would be the ‘science of
sciences’ and would absorb economics as one of
its branches. But this all-encompassing position did
not prevail. Rather, sociology resolved (after
Durkheim) to define itself in a more restrictive
manner, as a science of ‘social facts’. This notion
still remains difficult to delimit, but it refers quite
clearly to the study of things that forge and consolidate human groups. Both of these disciplines
therefore specify their objects by separating and
distinguishing the class of collective action they
study.3
Management sciences sprang from rather
different origins. Taylor and Fayol, recognized
founders, were both company directors and
engineers who, moreover, engaged very little
with the philosophical debates of their time. Why
were they obliged to carry out such an in-depth
reflection on their practices? One reason was that
they were confronting a world where organizational action was more difficult to comprehend.
Business history confirms that management research arises when it is no longer possible to act
by reflex or according to tradition, as if the situation and phenomena to be dealt with were
perceived as ‘natural’, and the adequate response
had been previously ‘naturalized’.4
This remark explains why management sciences
found their nest in a specific form of collective
action, ‘the enterprise’; and why this was their
only possible place of birth. Firms could not be
naturalized as could ‘families’, ‘nations’ or ‘ethnic
3
A sociologist can, of course, decide that he is interested in all the collective phenomena, as he will
be examining them with the eyes of a sociologist. This
position means that the specificities of such a point of
view must be clarified, if only to differentiate it from
that of an economist. Stating these specificities inevitably
reintroduces a form of restriction on the phenomena
studied.
4
Let us define ‘naturalization’ as the attitude which
consists of treating as ‘naturally observable’ a phenomenon whose context and history have been isolated
artificially through the material and conceptual
conditions of observation.
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groups’. Thus a general theory of collective
action, the foundation stone of what an enterprise
really is, should be the major issue and result of
management sciences, and not of sociology or
economics which deal with restricted interpretations of collective action. Moreover, it is mainly
around the development of the enterprise that
the process of ‘denaturalization/artifactualization’
of collective action became important in our
societies.5
The object of management science: models of
collective action
The enterprise as a collective action process is
forced to live with objects whose identities are both
transformed and transformable. This is not an
economic fact, but rather a constitutional element
underlying economic facts. Consequently, the study
of this singular object has given rise to unexpected
epistemological problems. What, after all, is a ‘firm’?
What is the exact nature of these collectives, so
varied in terms of size and activity, which determine such a large part of modern history?
The ‘firm’ constitutes a type of collective action
in which economic and social phenomena are inevitably intermingled. As soon as they appeared,
firms tended to challenge the idea that it was
possible to isolate classes of collective phenomena
just as the animal world had, until recently, been
separated from the vegetable world thereby
neglecting the symbiosis vital to their mutual survival. Thus the ‘firm’ is constituted as an ‘artefactual’
collective action and not as a natural social
phenomenon or an anthropological fact. It is
precisely because it is not in the least bit natural
or traditional that the firm takes part in the
transformation and the production of societies,
for better or for worse. It therefore links things
that were thought to be separate, and reveals by
its action that it is not possible to isolate collective
phenomena in principle and definitely.
Hence, the firm is not a collective that can be
isolated naturally, and the permanent revising of its
boundaries (physical, legal, human, commercial,
etc) is a condition of its existence. In studying
‘firms’, the management sciences could not
5
I consider that the well-known Weberian concept of
‘disenchantment of the world’ or ‘rationalization’ can be
extended and more precisely described as a denaturalization /artefactualization process (see Hatchuel, 2001).
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therefore define themselves by isolating a limited
series of collective phenomena in advance, but
had to examine the actions that create and destroy
collective phenomena. As soon as they are formed,
‘firms’ are confronted with unusual freedom: they
are responsible for defining what they are to do and
the way in which this definition is to be operationalized! No other ‘institution’ has such freedom to
define itself! Consequently, firms can experience
radical changes after which neither a name nor a
brand survives (for instance, after acquisitions).
The ‘artefactual’ nature of firms explains the
invention of management doctrines: they are both
the consequence and the condition of this artefactuality. Management doctrines do not determine actions or success, but they are necessary
for the controlled production of knowledge and
discourse. With these doctrines research becomes
possible and also the discovery of a specific class
of collective learning about action models.
The management sciences are therefore inseparable from a conception of reflexive freedom.
However, they should not accept a metaphysical
view of liberalism. They must contest the illusions
of pure self-foundation or the entrepreneur seen as
a ‘deus ex machina’. Similarly, it is within the
management sciences that the most common concepts of voluntary and planned action (decision,
command, coordination, design) have been critically investigated. The action of a planner can
stimulate collective action but can never replace
it. The management sciences should reject either
totalizing principles of action such as ‘optimization’ and ‘invisible hands’, or totalizing subjects
(the entrepreneur, the boss) capable of ‘planning’
collective action. With these elements in hand,
a new definition of their object appears which is
of crucial importance for their methodology and
relevance.
The management sciences do not study
economic or social facts, but ‘models of collective
actions’ which are then perceived and judged
conventionally and historically as ‘economic or
social phenomena’. They should therefore occupy
a special position in the world of the social
sciences. The social sciences can be thought of as
interpretative or critical anatomies of collective
living, but the management sciences only reach
their true object by referring anatomy back to
embryology, i.e. embedding social and economic
phenomena in a more universal theory of collective action. What would collective life be without
A. Hatchuel
such foundational notions like ‘promise’ or
‘contract’ which are precisely models of action?
The essence of management research is in
understanding, inventing, and criticizing ‘models
of collective action’. Thus, it is not surprising that
the main contributions of management research
to societies, those of historic importance, are small
in number: accounting, company definition, risk
management and Taylorism. The development
and social diffusion of new models of collective
action does not happen every day. Therefore ‘lack
of relevance’ in management research is a
scientific problem and not the mere consequence
of academic isolation. If ‘there is nothing more
practical than a good theory’, then applying this
proposition to management scientists means that
their best methodological support is also a good
theory of what management science is.
Principles and rules for researchoriented partnerships
One often confuses knowledge production methods
and scientific disciplines. There are infinitely more
disciplines than there are methods for producing
knowledge. Such methods are very few in number. It could hardly be otherwise since research
methods define our conditions of representing the
world and the action we can carry out upon it.
Models of knowledge production are transdisciplinary by nature. The famous ‘experimental
method’ does not belong to medicine, to biology,
to statistics or to physics. It is indisputably a transdisciplinary concept. To understand the scarcity
of knowledge production models and their
transdisciplinarity, one should consider that they
are universal models of action and that each field
of research adopts all or part of the same list. Yet
only two universal models of research are usually
mentioned, the ‘laboratory’ and the ‘field’ model,
forgetting that the design of artefacts and models
of action is a third model; a model which is as
necessary in the management sciences as the
other two. Let us briefly remind ourselves of their
main differences.
The laboratory model or the confinement
of action
The laboratory (including the observatory) represents the ideal model of knowledge production
which developed triumphantly during the great
The Two Pillars of New Management Research
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the
laboratory, the researcher attempts to be master,
circumscribing all questions, confining all objects
and tests, constraining all entities manipulated in
a certain manner; even defining their conditions
of existence by, for example, putting them
between microscope slides, chopping them up
or putting them into homogenous groups. Hence,
pure mathematical and conceptual research can
be considered as an extreme form of laboratory
research. Moreover, the researcher can increase
his or her knowledge only insofar as he or she can
limit collective action inside the laboratory. They
must prohibit intervention by any other parties in
the process of knowledge production: the method
demands independence, and independence in
turn is the guarantor of legitimacy.
The ‘field’ model or the ‘naturalizing’
of phenomena and artefacts
The ‘field’ model consists of ‘naturalizing’ an
object that cannot be ‘manipulated’ so as to study
it. Collective action is quite often naturalized
and transformed into a phenomenon. By saying:
‘I observe landscapes’, we immediately naturalize
the notion of landscape and we forget, at least
momentarily, that we are dealing with only an
artefact. The notion of ‘research field’ begins, thus,
with the masking of the artefact that defines the
field. It should also be underlined that this posture
is common to both the natural and the social
sciences. One can, thus, consider as research fields
‘the day-to-day life of a CEO’, ‘animal life’, or
‘the evolution of geography’. In each case, one
must also suppose a separation between the research process and the phenomenon under study.
Nevertheless, this separation is never complete;
the researcher cannot manipulate and control his
‘field’ as in a laboratory. He must take advantage
of a certain amount of ‘interaction’ with the ‘field’
which authorizes his presence.
The intervention-research model: when research
becomes constitutional of the action process
In the preceding models, outcoming knowledge
was a potential help for action. However, knowledge
production and action processes were set apart
as two different historical processes. This distinction no longer holds for the sciences which
create artefacts or collective action processes, like
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management sciences. In these cases, theories are
constitutional of their objects and fields – they
are not simply ‘denotive’ or ‘descriptive’. The distinction between description and prescription
becomes almost impossible. If we say that ‘management should allow autonomy to employees’,
the proposition is of poor value if we do not
explicate how we can define autonomy, recognize
it or discuss it; yet this ‘operationalization’ is not
a ‘description’, it is a ‘prescriptive’ view of autonomy, which has to be submitted to the judgement of concerned people. Hence ‘autonomy’ is
both an input (or an intent) and an output of
the management process (what emerges as ‘autonomy’). Therefore, autonomy is not a ‘control
factor’ but a concept opened to innovation, discovery and dependent on organizational learning.
A theory of ‘autonomy at work’ has to capture the
concept, its contingencies and its possible transformations through research. Sciences accepting
the idea that research is constitutional of action
processes could be called ‘Sciences of Design’
(Simon, 1969; Tranfield and Starkey, 1998).
Management sciences, together with architecture,
engineering and medicine belong to this genealogy
of knowledge.
This does not mean that the laboratory model
and the field model of research are not important
ways of creating knowledge. For sure, they are.
And this is obvious, for example, in surgery. Yet,
due to their specific purpose, these sciences
require a third model of research, a model in
which knowledge does not transcend action but is
integral to it. Management research, as much as
surgery, needs more than laboratory work or
observation. It needs models of action helping to
design and redesign what is good management.
Starkey and Madan clearly remind us that such
a model requires companies’ participation and
understanding. I would add that this participation
requires also adequate principles and rules for the
design of what can be labelled ‘research-oriented
partnerships’. Not all forms of collaboration between
academia and companies are research oriented.
At the Ecoles des Mines, we have defined the
methological principles of what we call ‘interventionresearch’ (David, 2001; Hatchuel, 2000; Hatchuel
and Molet, 1986). The principles of interventionresearch are built on more universal principles
than classical action-research in social psychology
(David, 2001) as they can be adopted by any
science that defines itself as a science of design.
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Similarly, researchers at the FENIX programme
insist on ‘table-tennis research’, a metaphor designating the type of rules and relations which are
settled with companies (Adler and Shani, 2001).
Let us describe briefly the common features of
these intervention approaches and how they
attempt to build research-oriented methodologies.
Research as a model of action. They offer to
companies a research project where the scientific
objectives are clearly defined and where there is
a potential interest for the companies themselves
to adopt a research perspective. This partnership
does not aim only to create reflexivity or improvement: these are not sufficient criteria for
scientific achievement. Its core programme is to
discover hidden properties of existing models
of action, to detect unknown models and whenever possible contribute to inventing new ones.
The role of the research team is to ground this
programme in solid theoretical advances. Our
experience also confirms that consulting and
expertise are not good models for interventionresearch. Moreover, companies experimenting
with intervention-research are more aware of a
universal truth: research is not simply ‘doing
better’; research requires embedding ‘progress’ in
a theoretical framework that allows conceptual
and empirical control.
Methodological commitments concern all
partners. In both experiences, principles for
research-oriented partnerships have been progressively established. They clarify the methodological conditions under which Gibbons et al.’s
Mode 2 is really a research process. It would take
too long to discuss here all these principles but we
can briefly sketch the main ones:
•
•
Intervention-research is possible only in
companies (or organizational contexts) where
some management issues are ‘opened up’ to
internal debate. The results are thus embedded in historical and institutional contexts.
The research team has to clearly ascertain that
in spite of such contingencies the ‘opened’
questions can be linked to a more universal
agenda of research: a favourable case occurs
when the company context offers room for
innovative investigations or innovative management. One can imagine the potential value
of a research programme on new production
systems that would have taken place during
the 1960s at Toyota or at Volvo.
A. Hatchuel
•
•
The research team has to make explicit the
commitments required from companies in
order to fulfill the research goals: project
duration, scope of the investigation, and
authorization to publish the findings.
The research programme has to be monitored
by special committees that will look for
creative compromises between the research
goals and the company’s interests.
Management research as a permanent functional
process. The main impact of research-oriented
partnerships is the progressive assessment of
management research not only as an academic
activity located in universities, but also as a
functional process that could be permanent in
some companies (this is actually the case in some
French and Swedish companies), a function similar
to research departments in chemistry, materials or
electronics. The value of this cultural change
should not be underestimated. It means that managerial choices, endeavours and evaluations can
be progressively designed with increased scientific
awareness. There is no better method to reduce
misleading mimetic behaviour, blind compliance
to gurus or fashion in management practice. Finally,
rigour in management research should tend to
become as natural as it is in any other company
process.
Let us give an example of this evolution in a
company with which we have developed several
research programmes. A new CEO decided to
introduce major structural changes; obviously, the
goals of those changes were ambitious, uncertain
and highly dependent of the implementation process. Recognizing these contingencies, the CEO
offered our team the chance to study the change
process, to analyse its features, to compare it to
already-known models and to provide management with scientific feedback at planned milestones. The CEO accepted also the idea that this
longitudinal research should be published. The research project lasted three years and the research
report was published in its entirety – containing
probably the first attempt to conceptualize a
strategic change inspired both by a ‘republican’
logic, seeking strong assent from the company’s
personnel, and by a ‘biological’ perspective, recognizing spontaneous forces for change (David,
1993). It is important to mention that consultant
teams had been involved in the change process,
but their role was always and naturally perceived
The Two Pillars of New Management Research
as different from the researchers’ one. From an
academic point of view it was one of the rare
situations where we could get close access and
experimental opportunity to explore new action
models for strategic change.
Conclusion
To conclude, let us come back to the main
message of Starkey and Madan’s report. For sure,
management research has to win the ‘relevance’
battle. However, I share with the authors of
the report the idea that this endeavor cannot be
achieved by classic ‘institutional science policy’,
i.e. measures aimed at the better diffusion of
existing academic knowledge or better communication between universities and companies. These
means are perhaps appropriate in the context of
basic chemistry or physics, but not the management sciences.
My experience has convinced me that in our
field, contemporary issues require deeper changes.
Two of them have been discussed in this commentary: i) the identity of management research
must be clarified and distinguished from other
social studies; ii) the cooperation with companies
should not be perceived as a useful consequence
of research but as a prerequisite for the production of actionable knowledge. I have tried to offer
some insights on how these changes could be conducted in research teams. Yet scientific evolutions
have to be assessed by research communities
and there is an urgent need to collectively discuss
these issues with a new pragmatic perspective. The
design of ‘research-oriented partnerships’, a
major challenge, requires collective rules, as it
concerns also organizations and companies. All
stakeholders would find great value if management researchers could establish a kind of chart
describing the rules and commitments expected
from academics and companies in the design of
research-oriented partnerships. These rules should
not be a mere rephrasing of classic qualitative
methodology. The problem is not to assess data
collection and treatment, but to define the rules
of an innovative and cooperative game between
heterogeneous partners. Actually, these rules will
not create the talent needed by any true research
work. Similarly, they are not a panacea to become
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innovative companies. However, they will offer
the methodological and institutional setting for
the invention of new models of management that
have a greater chance to reach universality.
Finally, I have no doubt that the debates
introduced by the report will convince the readers
that ‘bridging the relevance gap’ is a vital and
ambitious project; I also hope that my comments
will convey the idea that, fortunately, we do not
have to build such a project from scratch.
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