Organization Management Research Paper Editing Services

Organization Management Research Paper Editing Services

Introduction

Organisation management is compiling together various individuals on a mutual platform to acquire them to work towards communal predefined goal. It enables the optimal utilisation of resources through thorough control and planning at the workplaces. It gives the employees a sense of direction. The employees get a better idea regarding their responsibilities and roles in the organisation. Organisation management is needed in an organisation for various reasons. It gives a sense of oneness and security to the employees; results in better and effective coordination among the different departments; also makes the employees more loyal towards the organisation; the workplace becomes more positive and peaceful. The important features of organisation management includes planning of an effective business plan, organising the judicious utilization of resources, proper recruitment of able employees who have the required talents, have a proper control on all the employees to guide them in the right direction and have an awareness regarding his employees, hold an effective time management for every project and motivate the employees towards their good work and appreciating them for that. Organisation management aims towards binding the employees together that eventually inculcates a sense of responsibility towards the organisation. It helps in extracting the best from every employee such that they accomplish the tasks within the provided and pre-determined time frame.

Even though there has been an increase the number of articles published in relation to organization and management research in the past 30 years, there has been deterioration in the quality of the research (Quinlan, 2015). Management is an important aspect of any business firm, as the manager’s help in guiding the employees and achieving the goals of the organization (Bryman & Bell, 2015). To improve management, research is conducted by various professors of different business schools. Though, due to professional norms and institutional conditions, there has been a shortage of management theories which are more influential (Bryman & Bell, 2015). This paper discusses the scenario of organization and management research in the present time and its relevance to the management world.

'Organization and management research is in danger of becoming irrelevant.'

For a long time, there has been a debate about the relevance of organization and management research, and whether it is worth spending so much time and money on it (Bryman & Bell, 2015). For the past three decades, there has been a drastic increase in the number of articles for organization and management (Birkinshaw et al. 2014). One of the reasons for this increase is the establishment of various new business schools all around the world and expansion of the existing ones (Quinlan, 2015). For this reason, the number of research papers in all the countries has gone up. Furthermore, the ‘publish or perish’ reviews that are prevalent are a major driving force behind the increase the articles published (Birkinshaw et al. 2014). As according to that, to improve the business school’s academic rankings, the professors have to publish regularly in the top journals (Quinlan, 2015). The learner agrees to this context.

This has resulted in an increase in the competition, as increasing number of professors are aiming to get their articles published in top ranking journals (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe, & Jackson, 2012). Due to this, the quality of the articles should be improving with better and new theories being published; however, that is not the case as the same theories are being published repetitively (Quinlan, 2015). Research is all about increasing the knowledge related to a field and finding innovative theories to improve the existing practices (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe, & Jackson, 2012). The existing research lacks interesting and innovative ideologies, and is more quantitative in nature and based on the hypothesis (Birkinshaw et al. 2014). Most of the existing and upcoming managers have stopped reading them because they do not find these research papers relevant. Since these papers are quantitative, they contain figures of previous years which are sometimes not relevant (Quinlan, 2015).

Scarcity of Influential and Interesting Work

With the vast growth in the management field, there has been a massive growth in the number of academic articles being published (Sandberg & Alvesson, 2010). However, there is an increase in the rate of rejection, because the high-end journals have limited space. Since the acceptance rate has been reduced, there is an increase in the competition. Getting an article published in the top-tier journals is difficult, as it is a long process and includes several revisions before the final draft is approved (Sandberg & Alvesson, 2010). Even after this, just the quality of the articles have gone up and not the contribution in work. This concern has been raised by various renowned editors and scholars as well. According to some scholars, the theories that are being developed presently are disappointing; there has hardly been any increase in usable knowledge; and a lot of effort is being spent in conducting research, which is meaningless (Birkinshaw et al. 2014).

Since a lot of research papers are being published that meaningless findings and contributions and are just published to increase the ranking of their business school; because of this, sometimes even the meaningful discoveries are not recognized and remain unnoticed. Furthermore, according to Oswick (2011), most of the theories that are being used in OMT or organization and management theory, have not been initially developed as an OMT theory and have been taken from outside (Oswick, Fleming, & Hanlon, 2011). Some of the editors from the leading journals like ‘Organization Science’ and ‘Journal of Management Studies’ have also noted that even though there has been     a significant increase in the submission of research papers, there has hardly been any increase in the number of papers that add significantly to management(Birkinshaw et al. 2014). However, the editors from ‘Academy of Management Journal’ have argued that the journal has been publishing articles, which are technically competent; contribute a lot to the discipline, and are extremely interesting.

A major issue is that most of the editors of these leading journals do not acknowledge the problem and are not inclined to solve it(Birkinshaw et al. 2014). Instead, they point out the success, strength and progress of their journals; and how their journals have been contributing significantly in the field of organization and management research. Since the problem is not being acknowledged by them and instead the editors are promoting the meaningless articles; there has not been any improvement in the content of these research papers (Sandberg & Alvesson, 2010). Additionally, because of the support of these journals, research papers with similar or meaningless content are being published successively, resulting in minuscule contribution to the discipline. There are hardly any influential and interesting writings coming up, as was seen in the late 1970s, where the institutional theory (Meyer & Rowan, 1977) and the idea of root metaphor (Morgan, 1986).

The Major Problem: Gap Spotting

Most of the scientific inquiries are supposed to involve questioning in some form or the other, there is hardly any attempt to justify or challenge the assumptions present in the existing theories (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013). In fact, gap spotting has become a common and famous way of developing theories in management studies (Birkinshaw et al. 2014). In this, the management researchers construct or identify gaps in the existing studies, which are used by them for making their research questions and theories. Gap spotting has become extremely popular presently, and the researchers use the existing theories and literature, refer to them in a slightly critical or positive manner to develop their own theories (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013). These researchers say that this is done by them so that the literature is extended because they want to address or fill the gap present in these studies or to rectify the slight errors in the literature (Tadajewski & Hewer, 2011). Gap spotting is just an excuse used by several contemporary researchers to publish articles and gain popularity without having to do much (Birkinshaw et al. 2014). As a result of this, there has hardly been any progress in the field of organization and management research and the underlying assumptions in the existing studies also stay unchallenged (Birkinshaw et al. 2014). It is not necessary that gap spotting does not lead to significant contributions in the literature (Birkinshaw et al. 2014). Sometimes extending the established theory or existing literature and identifying significant gaps in them is important, as it can be beneficial for the readers and help them in improving (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013). Some researchers fill the gaps by combining two different kinds of literature to create a new and improved theory (Birkinshaw et al. 2014). However, the increase in gap spotting research has resulted in a decrease in the development of new theories in the organization and management field (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013).

The prevalence of gap spotting in the present scenario is puzzling as it is well known now that a theory becomes influential and interesting if the researchers challenge the assumptions that underlying in the existing theories and not by extending them (Dubois & Gadde, 2014).  However, still the researchers are practicing gap spotting and the major reasons behind this behavior have been identified as professional norms, constructions of researchers’ identity and institutional policies (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). Institutional conditions mean how various institutions like funding bodies, business schools, universities, and government, regulate the way in which research is conducted and how their policies affect it. Research reports are majorly affected because of these norms and policies (Dubois & Gadde, 2014). Several assessment formulas like ERA in Australia and REF/RAE in the UK, have been introduced by the government for governing the universities (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). One of its major performance indicators is the number of articles; a university is able to get published in a top ranking journal from their elected journal list (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). This has resulted in an increase in pressure on the scientists, because of which, instead of making discoveries, they are being forced to publish a high number of articles in the journals (Dubois & Gadde, 2014).

The key professional norms related how should the research be carried out and which ones should be published are determined by the reviewers, editors, and journals. Several high-end management journals encourage gap spotting in research by setting the ‘adding-to-the literature’ norm (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). This has resulted in researchers following the same repetitive trend; as, if they do not follow that, then their articles will not be published in leading journals. As a result of this, many articles that have significant findings and theories do not get published (Okimoto, T. G. (2014). Furthermore, publishing a critical and long process, in which various revisions and additions have to be done. This sometimes results in altering the actual meaning and reduces the significance of the articles (Dubois & Gadde, 2014). Additionally, the researchers have to satisfy the publishers and editors by listening to their incompatible and conflicting demands, cite authors whom they do not want to and stay within the stipulated word limit (Okimoto, T. G. (2014). Most of the authors follow all these rules and go through the tribulations of making innumerable changes, and accept all types of recommendations. This typically results in the whole original article getting completely changed and losing its essence, but the authors have no choice and have to comply with all changes without complaining because otherwise their work will not get published.

These professional norms and institutional conditions have a strong control over researchers and dictate the way research should be conducted and reported (Hällgren, 2012). These conditions and norms are accepted by the researchers and develop the habit of gap spotting, and because of this gap spotting is seen as the right or proper way of conducting research and formulating theories (Hällgren, 2012). The conferences and various other social interactions that take place among the researchers have reinforced this idea seriously (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). In today’s world, identity construction is more related to the number of articles published by an individual rather researching comprehensively and making unique contributions (Donaldson, Qiu, & Luo, 2013). Identity constructions of the researchers’, professional norms and institutional conditions together create a tight system, which is difficult to get away from (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). They dominate the organization and management research and make it difficult to write and innovative and interesting journal (Donaldson, Qiu, & Luo, 2013). Though there have been a lot of conversations and complaints about this system, there have hardly been any protests against this system (Okimoto, T. G. (2014). This system is continuing because several people are voluntarily continuing, and partly because it has many dominators who are unwilling to change it (Hällgren, 2012).

Many people are getting benefitted because of this, thus people are reluctant for a change. The deans are benefitting because their colleges and universities are getting better rankings (Donaldson, Qiu, & Luo, 2013). The journals are getting increased number of submissions, because of which their status is also improving. The researchers are getting a boost in their careers (Hällgren, 2012). This can be changed if the government, journals, publication houses collectively work towards improving the content of the research (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). The focus has to be shifted from consensus seeking theories to consensus challenging theories (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). The governments need to broaden their criteria for evaluating the performance of academic research (Donaldson, Qiu, & Luo, 2013). The journal reviewers and editors need to change their conventional ‘adding-to-the-literature’ norm and encourage novel and innovative ideas (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). The major change has to come from the researchers; they need to conduct their research thoroughly instead of just gap spotting (Hällgren, 2012).

Conclusion

Though at one point of time organizational and management research was highly relevant and had a massive contribution to the management world; presently there has been a lack of influential and interesting work in the field of management studies, which has resulted in widespread disappointment (Quinlan, 2015). Various prominent scholars and journal editors have tried to reverse the situation but were not successful (Birkinshaw et al. 2014). There is a shortage of quality research work as the professors are busier in trying to improve their career and criticize the articles written by other authors (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe, & Jackson, 2012). There has been excessive repetition in the present articles, and no new theories are coming to light; thus, making it irrelevant for the existing and upcoming managers (Birkinshaw et al. 2014).

References

Books
Bryman, A. & Bell, E. (2015). Business research methods. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R., & Jackson, P. R. (2012). Management research. Sage.
Quinlan, C. (2015). Business research methods. 1st ed. Andover: Cengage Learning EMEA.

Journals

Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2011). Generating research questions through problematization. Academy of management review, 36(2), 247-271.

Alvesson, M., & Sandberg, J. (2013). Has management studies lost its way? Ideas for more imaginative and innovative research. Journal of Management Studies, 50(1), 128-152.

Birkinshaw, J., Healey, M. P., Suddaby, R., & Weber, K. (2014). Debating the future of management research. Journal of Management Studies, 51(1), 38-55.

Donaldson, L., Qiu, J., & Luo, B. N. (2013). For rigour in organizational management theory research. Journal of Management Studies, 50(1), 153-172.

Dubois, A., & Gadde, L. E. (2014). “Systematic combining”—A decade later. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), 1277-1284.

Hällgren, M. (2012). The construction of research questions in project management. International Journal of Project Management, 30(7), 804-816.

Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American journal of sociology, 83(2), 340-363.

Morgan, G. (1986). Images of organization (1st ed.). Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Okimoto, T. G. (2014). Toward more interesting research questions: Problematizing theory in social justice. Social Justice Research, 27(3), 395-411.

Oswick, C., Fleming, P. & Hanlon, G., 2011. From borrowing to blending: Rethinking the processes of organizational theory building. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), pp.318-337.

Sandberg, J., & Alvesson, M. (2010). Ways of constructing research questions: gap-spotting or problematization?. Organization.

Tadajewski, M., & Hewer, P. (2011). Intellectual contributions and ‘gap-spotting’.