Collective Impact Virtual Salon

by Jerry Davis In a previous post I described the benefits of using the real world to source research topics, and how seasoned scholars like Mayer Zald had the ability to read the newspaper and have insightful takes that could spark a study – maybe even a dissertation.   The world is an endless source of researchable topics ...Read More

by Jerry Davis In partnership with Phanish Phurnam and the Collective Impact Salon, we are in the second year of our project to help PhD students choose a dissertation topic. We started with a familiar insight: the time after comprehensive exams can be a twilight zone of uncertainty. Doctoral training is very good at helping identify ...Read More

by Abdullah Almaatouq (Guest Author) My PhD journey began with a clear vision: to unravel the interplay between social network structures and their collective outcomes. I was particularly interested in the collective intelligence arising in those structures. With several projects already underway on this topic, I felt prepared. Perhaps optimistically, or some might think naively, I ...Read More

by Rocki-Lee DeWitt (Guest Author) By virtue of my rank and choice of where to work, I am privileged to be an academic the way I think best fits the academic me.  I focus my effort on delivering benefits for business owners. Please do not jump to the conclusion that this type of impact is one more ...Read More

by Tim Simcoe (Guest Author) This post is in response to Olav Sorenson’s Want Your Research To Have Impact? Consider These Three Questions. In an earlier contribution to this salon, Olav Sorenson proposed that “impactful” research provides a basis for believing that a feasible action will produce meaningful change in some individual or organizational objective. I like ...Read More

by Matthew A. Cronin (Guest Author) Peer review is an essential part of the “collective” in creating collective impact. It is what makes management science science. In a time when desirable findings and folk wisdom can be easily dressed up using pseudoscience, unsound tests, confirmatory hypothesis testing, or a host of other specious methods, getting an ...Read More

by Mark Zbaracki (Guest Author) The questions of impact raised here recalled Jim March’s longstanding claim: “I am not now, nor have I ever been, relevant” (March 2006, p. 83). In The Roots, Rituals, and Rhetorics of Change, he and Mie Augier point out that our standard measures of relevance...Read More

by Anita McGahan To answer, “what is collective impact, really?,” first begs the question, “How do we have impact in the field of management and organizations?,” which then raises, “How does that impact emerge collectively?”   Our Collective Impact conversations got me thinking about both. So how do we have impact?  ...Read More

by Phanish Puranam I have no doubt that the hardest part, by far, of the Ph.D. student’s journey is finding a thesis topic, and then a cast of characters who are enthusiastic enough about the topic to serve as a thesis committee. How do you select a suitable dissertation topic?...Read More

by Witold Henisz (Guest Author) For many years, despite increasing globalization of the economy and business education, doctoral students and junior scholars were advised not to study international topics or international samples. Why? Because such studies were perceived to have poor quality or suspect data and reviewers and editors were...Read More

by Gautam Ahuja I thank Myles for providing a very nice starting point for an interesting debate here. Let me present a different perspective. First, a novel theoretical contribution does not imply a complete new theory. Indeed most published papers with a theoretical contribution provide only a nuance or conditioning of a prior idea and empirical ...Read More

by Lori Rosenkopf Determining how and when empirical results are generalizable is critical to increase the impact of academic research. It is also a valuable thinking skill for non-academics. Hence, we need to build this skill into our educational offerings at all levels. Since doctoral students are academics in training,...Read More

by Connie Helfat Murray Davis’ classic 1971 article “That’s Interesting!” asserts that a theory must be interesting to be considered great. He goes on to say that all interesting theories challenge routinely held assumptions. By implication, counterintuitive theories, which by their definition deviate from common assumptions, are far more likely...Read More

by Jerry Davis Is there an audience for academic research? While it may seem an obvious yes who is that audience? Of all the things I neglected to learn in graduate school, this one took the longest to address. Recognizing that someone might read, and better yet make a decision...Read More

by Olav Sorenson Most academics I know want their research to have an impact, to influence the way people think and behave. But few of us succeed. Who's to blame? Usually, the blame gets placed on practitioners, for failing either to read the research or to understand how to put...Read More

by Phanish Puranam Lori and Dan's post "From Quasi-Replication to Generalization: Making 'Basis Variables' Visible" gives us a nice way to think about generalization in terms of “basis variables”.  I’d like to extend their thought with a complementary way of thinking about generalization using machine learning (ML) techniques. Generalization can...Read More

by Myles Shaver I ask this question because the requirement or norm of many of our high-quality journals that all papers must advance a novel theoretical contribution implies the answer is yes. This requirement or norm means the first test of a theory (in the case of an empirical paper...Read More

by Lori Rosenkopf and Dan Levinthal  A persistent challenge in social science research is understanding whether and when empirical results generalize beyond a specific study’s sample or context. In 2016, Rich Bettis, Connie Helfat and Myles Shaver produced a special issue of Strategic Management Journal containing several “quasi-replications” which examined...Read More

by Lori Rosenkopf During the past decade, increasing administrative responsibilities forced me to grapple with how managerial research might be made more impactful for students, practitioners and policy-makers.  My newly-constrained research attention turned toward the idea of redirecting and integrating our field's research trajectories. I found myself questioning not only...Read More