08832323.2014.921592
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Operations Management: Is There a Disconnect
Between Journal Article Content and Employer
Needs?
Marc G. Singer & Cliff A. Welborn
To cite this article: Marc G. Singer & Cliff A. Welborn (2014) Operations Management: Is There
a Disconnect Between Journal Article Content and Employer Needs?, Journal of Education for
Business, 89:8, 396-402, DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2014.921592
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Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 11 January 2016, At: 20:48
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 89: 396–402, 2014
Copyright Ó Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0883-2323 print / 1940-3356 online
DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2014.921592
Operations Management: Is There a Disconnect
Between Journal Article Content and Employer
Needs?
Marc G. Singer and Cliff A. Welborn
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 20:48 11 January 2016
Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA
The authors sought to determine whether topics researched by academicians in the field of
operations management were aligned with the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs)
employers were seeking from potential employees. Twenty-eight research topics were
identified in the operations management literature and were compared to the KSAs derived
from 200 online job postings. Ultimately, six research topics were found to be aligned with
the KSAs employers were seeking, 10 topics were underrepresented, and 12 topics were
overrepresented.
Keywords: abilities, knowledge, operations management, research topics, skills
Prior to the 1950s, research conducted by faculty in traditional academic disciplines (e.g., liberal arts and the sciences) were theoretical in nature, while business discipline
investigations tended toward studies whose findings were
applicable to the real world. In an attempt to become more
accepted as true academicians within the university community and to dispel the criticisms that business schools
were tantamount to trade schools lacking a robust scientific
foundation and producing weak research, business schools
shifted their emphasis from practical based research to large
quantities of theoretical and esoteric research, similar to the
type published by their arts and sciences colleagues (Dulek
& Fielden, 1992; Pfeffer & Fong, 2002; Starkey & Tempest, 2005).
The shift in emphasis by business faculty to traditional
academic research has resulted in a disparity between
scholarly research and practice that has prevailed for decades, with academics emphasizing rigor rather than relevance in their research (Mentzer, 2008). There is scant
evidence that any of the academic research flowing out of
business schools has had any substantial impact on the
actual practice of management (Pfeffer & Fong, 2002; Starkey & Tempest, 2005). Academicians and consultants alike
are being criticized for their failure to adequately research,
and subsequently communicate to practitioners, relevant
Correspondence should be addressed to Cliff A. Welborn, Middle
Tennessee State University, Department of Management & Marketing,
Box 75, Murfreesboro, TN 37132, USA. E-mail: cwelborn@mtsu.edu
processes and conditions for implementation (Beer, 2001;
Pfeffer & Fong, 2002). Business schools have been criticized for failing to prepare students with a meaningful set
of leadership skills and with the tools necessary for the job
(Bennis & O’Toole, 2005). Furthermore, the behavioral
competencies that practitioners indicate as those most crucial for job success appear to be those least represented in
master of business administration curriculums (Rubin &
Dierdoff, 2009). It seems that the focus on research appears
to have resulted in the rise of an academic community that
has become disconnected from the world of the practitioner
(Bailey & Ford, 1996).
Regardless of the numerous calls for business school
faculty to engage in more empirical field-based research
(McCutchen & Meredith, 1993); despite nationwide surveys of high school seniors by online college guidance sites
such as WiseChoice indicating that 80% of respondents cite
better employment opportunities as their primary reason for
attending college (DeVise, 2010); and the statement within
the preamble of the Association to Advance Collegiate
Schools of Business (AACSB, 2010) that “in this environment management education must prepare students to contribute to their organizations” (p. 3), business faculty
persist in conducting research whose findings have little, if
any, positive transference to the real world.
At best, the appeals for business schools to change this
state of affairs and focus on developing the knowledge and
skills that their students need for successful performance in
the business environment appears to have resulted in only
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OR MANAGEMENT DISCONNECT
minor alterations to the education process, primarily
through modest course content revision (Ulrich, 2005). Perhaps one reason for the failure on the part of business
schools to refocus their research efforts to more practically
oriented studies may be, in part, attributable to the unintentional consequences resulting from the desire by business
schools to meet the standards for accreditation established
by the AACSB. The preamble of the standards for the
AACSB (2010) stated “In this environment, management
education must prepare students to contribute to their
organizations” (p. 3). Subsequently, standard 2 indicates
that a key factor in determining whether the school achieves
their goal is by demonstrating that “the school will support
management practice through the production of articles”
(AACSB, 2010, p. 20). Furthermore, the standard maintains
that intellectual contributions should be in written form and
should be subject to scrutiny by academic peers or practitioners prior to publication. These peer reviewed publications serve as verification that faculty are knowledgeable
and current in their respective disciplines and are advancing
both management theory and practice.
While it can certainly be argued that these two aforementioned statements by the AACSB do not conflict with
each other, as research and publication efforts are designed
to maintain and enhance faculty members’ competence in
their disciplines, the type of research faculty engage in,
whether they choose theoretical or empirical studies, determines the research findings’ applicability to the real world.
Because the evaluation of faculty for tenure and promotion
consideration within traditional academic disciplines such
as liberal arts and the sciences has primarily been centered
on scholarship, the intent to be accepted as true academicians has resulted in business faculty and administrators
adopting the same scholarly publication evaluation criteria
employed by the arts and sciences. It appears that regardless
of the rhetoric to the contrary, as long as the reward system
focuses primarily on these research endeavors rather than
teaching, this state of affairs is likely to remain (Dulek &
Fielden, 1992; Elliott, Goodwin, & Goodwin, 1994; Linder
& Smith, 1992; Ulrich, 2005).
Clearly, the primary responsibility of business education
is to prepare students to assume employment in a business
environment. Yet, when asked in a recent survey to rank
the importance of various factors in terms of criteria used
to evaluate the quality and reputation of business education
programs, academicians ranked faculty research contributions as the second highest factor. However, when asked
the same question, practitioners ranked research contributions last among the eight factors under consideration (Rutner & Fawcett, 2005). Moreover, a study by Abraham and
Karns (2009) concluded that “business schools were not
emphasizing in their undergraduate curricula the competencies that are relevant to business” (p. 350). It appears that
the more rigorous, theoretical, and complex the research,
the more scholarly the reputation of the journal in which
397
the article appears, and the more akin the research is to that
valued by arts and science faculty, the more valued the contribution by academics.
There is little debate about the fact that quality research
enhances faculty knowledge. There also appears to be
agreement within the literature that the subject matter of
both business school research and material presented in the
classroom has scant applicability to the real-world environment. Much of the criticism regarding academic research is
aimed at the perceived overreliance on complex mathematical analysis at the expense of focusing on relevant business
issues. Some argue that the quantified models that dominate
academic journals imply a degree of precision that is an
illusion. This overly quantitative focus is damaging the reputation of the business discipline and making it irrelevant
(Tapp, 2007). Business schools are hiring faculty members
with little real-world experience who are too focused on
scientific research. These programs promote the wrong
impression that management is largely about decision making through analysis (Mintzberg, 2004). Consequently, students are not equipped to handle the complex,
nonquantifiable issues they will face in the business community (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005).
The natural question arises as to why in the wake of such
overwhelming criticism, business faculty persist in maintaining a research agenda, the findings of which appear to
be divorced from applicability to the real-world environment? Perhaps the answer to this dilemma resides in the
fact that despite the widespread consensus found in the literature maintaining that the prevailing research is not applicable in the business environment, little, if any, factual
evidence exists to support this supposition. Rather, much of
the criticism appears to be anecdotal in nature. In an effort
to determine whether the degree of alignment between
issues of interest to the operations management (OM) business community and the topics being researched and published by OM academic faculty are at dissonance, this
study was undertaken. By analyzing the text from job postings to identify key knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs)
expected of OM professionals and subsequently comparing
those KSAs to the topics being researched in OM journal
articles we attempted to discern if in fact there is truly a disparity between the topics being researched by academicians
and that which is sought by practitioners in the real world.
METHODOLOGY
The initial phase of the study involved the identification of
job postings seeking operations managers from the online
career search databases Monster.com and CareerBuilder.
com. These particular internet recruiting sites were chosen
because the postings listed are unedited and appear exactly
as submitted by the hiring organization. After winnowing
the positions to eliminate any jobs outside of the United
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398
M. G. SINGER AND C. A. WELBORN
States a total of 200 positions (80 from Monster.com and
120 from CareerBuilder.com) were selected.
Next, each of the chosen postings was searched for any
specific KSAs that the potential employer stated was either
required or desired as criteria for successful job performance. Each time a job advertisement contained a reference
to a KSA, its frequency count was increased by 1. Subsequently, the frequency counts were converted into percentages indicating the percent of job advertisements that
referenced specific operations management KSAs. This
method of determining desired or required KSAs, rather
than having experts rank a predefined set of KSAs created
by the researchers, was employed in order to avoid any
unintentional bias by the investigators in the construction
of the list. In total, 28 KSAs were identified as being either
required or desired applicant characteristics.
In order to allow for statistical equivalency, a total of 200
recent academic articles on operations research, published
between February 2009 and December 2010, were randomly
selected from four journals (50 articles from each) that have
been consistently ranked among the top 20 journals in operations management (Olson, 2005). The journals selected were
Decision Sciences, Interfaces, European Journal of Operational Research, and Management Science (50 from each).
Each article’s title, abstract, and key words were subsequently reviewed to determine the researcher’s primary operations management topical focus. Using a similar process as
described for job postings, the percentage value for each
research topic was derived by determining the percent of
journal articles focusing on that topic.
To evaluate any differences between the percentage of
journal articles focusing on a specific topic and the percentage of job postings referencing that topic, Bonferroni confidence intervals based on the job postings were developed.
The Bonferroni confidence interval limits were computed as:
Pi f C and ¡ gZa=2k
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Pi .1 ¡ Pi /=n;
where Pi is the observed mean percentage of job postings;
Za/2k is the adjusted Z score; and n is the number of
observations.
If the percentage of journal articles referencing a topic
fell within the computed confidence interval, the topic was
determined to be not significantly over or underrepresented
in the literature compared to the job postings. Consequently, any difference in percentage from the job postings
and the journal articles was attributed to chance and indicated that the articles author(s) were researching topics of
relevance to hiring organizations. However, if the percent
of journal articles referencing a topic was greater than the
computed upper limit of the confidence interval, the topic
was deemed as being overrepresented in the literature. Similarly, if the percent of journal articles referencing a topic
was less than the computed lower limit of the confidence
interval, the topic was considered to be underrepresented in
the literature.
RESULTS
Of the 28 KSAs identified in the job postings (see Table 1),
only six were found to be appropriately researched throughout the literature. These six KSAs and their respective frequency of appearance in the job postings and in the selected
research articles included profit (26%, 19%), inventory (22%,
19%), capacity (13%, 11%), transport (12%, 8%), enterprise
resource planning (3%, 0%), and cycle time (2%, 1%).
Table 2 details the frequency of occurrence of the underrepresented KSAs in the selected job postings and their corresponding frequency of appearance in the research
literature. Of the 28 total KSAs identified as necessary or
desired characteristics employers sought in job applicants,
10 were identified as underrepresented in the research
literature. Of the KSAs identified as underrepresented, four
appeared in more than 50% of the job postings, but only
the KSA of quality could be found in more than 10% of the
research articles scanned. These KSAs and their respective
percentages of appearance in the job postings and in the
research included: quality (57%, 14%), project (54%, 9%),
training (52%, 8%), and leadership (54%, 2%). The remaining six KSAs ranged in their frequency of occurrence
within the job postings between 8% and 40%, and their frequency of appearance in the research articles sampled
ranged between 0% and 6%. The frequencies for these
KSAs were budget (40%, 1%), safety (33%, 5%), maintenance (28%, 2%), lean (20%, 2%), outsource (16%, 6%),
and ethics (8%, 0%).
Last, Table 3 lists the frequencies of KSAs that appeared
to be overrepresented, minimized in importance by employers in their job postings but valued highly by researchers.
Of the 11 KSAs given emphasis in the literature, only
three—supply chain, research, and programming—were
mentioned in any job postings. In fact, the other eight
KSAs were not mentioned at all, and the frequency of
appearance of programming was only 2%. The KSAs and
their respective job posting and journal article frequencies
were modeling (15%, 55%), supply chain (14%, 23%),
TABLE 1
Appropriately Represented Knowledge Skills and Abilities
in Academic Research
KSA
Profit
Inventory
Capacity
Transport
ERP
Cycle time
Job posting
Expected (95% CI)
Journal articles
26%
22%
13%
12%
3%
2%
[18%, 33%]
[14%, 29%]
[7%, 19%]
[6%, 18%]
[0%, 5%]
[0%, 4%]
19%
19%
11%
8%
0%
1%
Note: ERP D Enterprise resource planning.
OR MANAGEMENT DISCONNECT
399
TABLE 2
Underrepresented Knowledge Skills and Abilities in Academic Research
KSA
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Quality
Leadership
Project
Training
Budgeting
Safety
Maintenance
Lean
Outsourcing
Ethics
Job posting
Expected (95% CI)
Journal articles
Underrepresented
57%
54%
54%
52%
40%
33%
28%
20%
16%
8%
[47%, 66%]
[44%, 63%]
[44%, 63%]
[43%, 61%]
[31%, 48%]
[24%, 41%]
[19%, 36%]
[12%, 27%]
[9%, 23%]
[3%, 12%]
14%
2%
9%
8%
1%
5%
2%
2%
6%
0%
33%
43%
35%
35%
30%
19%
17%
10%
3%
3%
research (11%, 29%), programming (2%, 13%), stochastic
(0%, 10%), game (0%, 9%), simulation (0%, 9%), algorithm (0%, 9%), equilibrium (0%, 6%), linear program
(0%, 3%), regression (0%, 3%), and ANOVA (0%, 1%).
DISCUSSION
Before discussing the findings of this study it seems prudent
to put the purpose of this research into perspective. This
study was not designed to determine the quality of the
research being conducted by business faculty, the quality of
the journals where the studies are being published, nor the
perceived relevance of the research conducted by academicians and consultants. Rather, the study was designed to
ascertain whether the degree of alignment between issues
of interest to the OM business community and the topics
being researched and published by OM academic faculty
and consultants are similar or at variance with each other.
Last, the research merely sought to identify any disparities
between the research being conducted and the KSAs sought
by practitioners, without regard to why these differences
exist.
As indicated by Tables 1, 2, and 3, significant disconnects between a majority of the operations management
topics researched by academicians and the KSAs sought by
potential employers were found. Of the 28 topics identified
as being researched, 12 topics were overrepresented when
compared with the KSAs sought by potential employers, 10
topics were underrepresented, and only six of the research
topics were found to be actually related to the KSAs as
listed in the job postings. Furthermore, the frequency of the
top seven underrepresented KSAs sought by potential
employers; exceeded any of the percentages of any of the
overrepresented or statistically consistent KSAs. It seems
that those KSAs most valued by practitioners are those
topics deemed least worthy of research endeavors by academicians and consultants.
In some cases, the disparity in topic coverage may be the
result of a subtle difference in emphasis. For example, while
supply chain is overrepresented in the academic literature
compared to job postings, outsourcing is underrepresented.
Arguably, these two topics are so closely related that they
could be combined and their job postings and journal article
counts summed. We represented each term independently
because supply chain is a broad topic consisting of many
TABLE 3
Overrepresented Knowledge Skills and Abilities in Academic Research
KSA
Modeling
Supply chain
Research
Programming
Stochastic
Gaming
Simulation
Algorithm
Equilibrium
Linear program
Regression
ANOVA
Job posting
Expected (95% CI)
Journal articles
Overrepresented
15%
14%
11%
2%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
[8%, 21%]
[8%, 20%]
[5%, 17%]
[–1%, 5%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
55%
23%
29%
13%
10%
9%
9%
9%
6%
3%
3%
1%
34%
2%
12%
8%
10%
9%
9%
9%
6%
3%
3%
1%
Note: ANOVA D analysis of variance.
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400
M. G. SINGER AND C. A. WELBORN
subtopics, while outsourcing is more narrowly focused. Consequently, if researchers are publishing articles related to
supply chain at a higher rate than found in the job postings,
it may be that researchers are viewing the details of supply
chain in a different context than employers.
The finding that many of the overrepresented research
topics are highly quantitative mathematical or modeling
based concepts is in agreement with the propositions made
by authors who indicated that while much of the academic
research focuses on advanced quantitative techniques, practitioners rarely find applicability for these findings (Bennis &
O’Toole, 2005; Mintzberg, 2004; Tapp, 2007). Conversely,
many of the underrepresented researched subjects, such as
project management, budgeting, safety, and maintenance are
application-oriented concepts. Additionally, whereas practitioners tend to view much of the jargon associated with the
overrepresented topics as technical and highly specialized
argot, discernible only to those versed in the mathematical
programming field, they readily understand the vocabulary
associated with the underrepresented topics.
On the surface it would seem problematic that the topics
of leadership, budgeting, safety, training, ethics, quality,
lean, outsourcing, maintenance, and project management
would be underrepresented in the literature. Even more
troubling would be the fact that four of these topics, leadership, training, quality, and project management, appeared
in over 50% of the job postings. However, these findings
are not totally unexpected. Several of these topics are
researched and taught to OM students exclusively by faculty other than those in the OM field. For example, budgeting is usually taught by accounting faculty, leadership is
commonly studied and taught by general management,
organizational behavior, organizational theory, and industrial or organizational psychologists, and safety and maintenance is usually the domain of engineering departments.
Irrespective of the discipline involved, it is apparent
from the results of the current investigation that the
research conducted by OM academicians suffers from the
same criticisms regarding the irrelevancy of their research
for practitioners (Beer, 2001; Bennis & O’Toole, 2005;
McCutchen & Meredith, 1993; Mentzer, 2008; Pfeffer &
Fong, 2002; Rubin & Dierdoff, 2009). Yet, despite being a
discipline that would be naturally associated more with
practitioners than academicians, OM faculty have adopted
the research agendas and methodologies of their business
school colleagues.
The logical question arising is why after over five decades of widespread agreement that a gap between the
research emanating from business schools and its relevance
for practitioners exists, do business school faculty, including those who teach operations management, persist in
research endeavors whose relevance to real-world practice
is questionable? While there are varying opinions espoused
throughout the literature to explain the reasons why the
research-practitioner gap exists, we believe that three are
paramount. These include the plausible denial of the problems existence, the desire for rewards and prestige, and the
lack of uniformity among academicians and practitioners as
to exactly what KSAs are necessary for satisfactory job
performance.
Particularly because there is little, if any, empirical evidence to substantiate the various opinions (Rynes, Bartunek, & Daft, 2001), not all authors necessarily agree that
the research being conducted by business school faculty is
of an esoteric nature or that there is even a problematic gap
between academic research and the needs of practitioners.
Shapiro, Kirkman, and Courtney (2007), asserted that many
members of the Academy of Management either do not perceive that a gap between research and practice exists, or if
they do acknowledge the gap, are at variance with each
other as to the reasons why it exists, and how to solve the
problem. Thus, while Zicklin (2013) writing about his
experience reading academic literature contended, “I’m
lost in a morass of quantitative analysis that is far beyond
not only my abilities but those of almost every business person I’ve ever met” (p. 1), others would agree with Reid’s
(2013) counter that,
[T]he vast majority of business faculty engages in research
that is more practical in focus. Instead of focusing on esoteric research, the majority of research done by AACSB
accredited business school faculty falls into one of three
areas: basic or discovery; applied or integrative/application;
or teaching and learning research. (p. 1)
A widely held explanation for the lack of motivation on
the part of business schools and academicians to change the
existing status quo stems from the fact that colleges and
universities, despite rhetoric to the contrary about the
importance of teaching, have historically provided greater
compensation, and afforded status and prestige to those
academicians who engage in large amounts of scholarly
research (Dulek & Fielden, 1992; Elliott et al., 1994;
Richardson, 2003) that is subsequently evaluated by their
peers, and ultimately published in highly regarded academic journals. The rankings for these journals are usually
derived from surveys of academicians nationwide, and/or
internally by the faculty within the individual’s own academic department and/or school of business. Typically, the
journals with the higher rankings are those whose content
consists of research that is more esoteric and mathematical
or statistical in nature and whose readership primarily consists of academicians.
In addition to financial and status rewards, the quality
and quantity of faculty research productivity is a major
determinant in tenure and promotion decisions. Traditionally, these decisions are based on the evaluation of a faculty
member’s performance in three areas: teaching, scholarship, and service. Despite the rhetoric about the importance
of teaching in the evaluation process, Zicklin (2013)
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OR MANAGEMENT DISCONNECT
indicated that a friend serving on a promotion and tenure
committee at an Ivy League school once told him that the
percentage of scholarship factoring into the tenure equation
was 99%, with the other two criteria sharing the remaining
1%.
Although academicians would likely argue that the
99% figure cited by Zicklin (2013) is extreme, they probably would agree with the assertion that the percentage
based on scholarship at most universities is far greater
than the criteria afforded to the other two factors combined. The reason for this unbalanced weighting is apparent. Traditionally, the overall prestige afforded to
business schools throughout the academic world has been
based on research (Armstrong, 1995), and most business
school deans’ ratings of business schools are based, at
least partly, on the prestige afforded by the school’s
research (Pfeffer & Fong, 2002). Since business faculty
first changed their research agendas they have been
rewarded with substantial financial gains and have garnered increased status among their university colleagues.
It is only natural that academicians and administrations
would be reluctant to make any changes that could potentially jeopardize the benefits they currently enjoy.
Adding to the reward-prestige argument is the desire by
business schools to obtain and retain AACSB International
accreditation thereby garnering the status that accompanies
AACSB membership. Ironically, while two outside agencies, the Carnegie Council and Ford Foundation started
business schools on their current research tract, it appears
that another external agency, the AACSB, may be unintentionally continuing this trajectory. While we acknowledge
and support the flexibility that the AACSB affords business
schools to establish and to be evaluated based upon their
own individual missions we question whether business
schools will actually adopt missions that will encourage
and reward faculty for engaging in applied research. Rather,
because business school missions are typically developed
and adopted with significant input from existing faculty, we
envision the development of mission statements driven by
existing research agendas, rather than the opposite.
CONCLUSION
The results of the present investigation indicated that there
are significant differences in the topics studied by academic
researchers and the knowledge, skills, and abilities that
employers expect from Operations Managers. This finding
appears to be consistent with the plethora of condemnation
espoused throughout the literature indicating that the findings from academic research is lacking in relevance for
real-world practice (Beer, 2001; Bennis & O’Toole, 2005;
McCutchen & Meredith, 1993; Mentzer, 2008; Pfeffer &
Fong, 2002; Rubin & Dierdoff, 2009). Universities encourage faculty members to continually engage in research to
401
ensure that they impart current and useful knowledge to
their students. The measure of whether this endeavor is successful should be based on whether their students obtain
meaningful employment and ultimately succeed in their
chosen professions. Regrettably, it appears from the present
study that while academicians are indeed participating in
research activities, and being handsomely rewarded for
these efforts by universities, the topics chosen for study
appear for the most part to be unrelated to those deemed
necessary for success by potential employers.
Changing this state of affairs is by no means simple.
Published research is a fundamental expectation for most
faculty members. It is one of the cornerstones used to maintain and demonstrate academic currency. Research efforts
and expectations should not be sacrificed, but the direction
of those efforts should be guided in a manner which is of
interest and benefit to the business community it serves. It
needs to be more focused on its relevance to practitioners.
It requires that academicians acknowledge that the
research-practitioner gap exists and are willing to engage in
activities that will foster close working relationships with
corporate partners in their chosen field. Strategies to foster
these relationships include conducting research involving
samples from the business environment, developing business based consulting and outreach initiatives, participating
in professional societies (as differentiated from their professional academic organizations), and placing and monitoring
students in practicum and internships.
Creating the motivation for academicians to engage in
field-based research will initially require the re-evaluation
of the criteria currently used to evaluate and reward faculty
research. Rather than journal ranking being based primarily
on surveys of academicians, or impact factors relating the
number of times an academic journal article is cited in
another academic journal, the ranking methodology should
include recognition for contributions to practice. Practitioner-based journals need to be elevated in the continuum
of journal rankings. Peer-reviewed articles should include
practitioners from the professional business environment.
Traditional academic journals whose review boards consist
solely of academicians should consider adding
practitioners.
Last, we maintain that a key reason why the researchpractitioner gap exists is that there is little, if any, agreement between or among researchers and practitioners
regarding the topics to study, or what KSAs are essential
for satisfactory job performance. There does not appear to
be a comprehensive listing anywhere of the essential functions necessary for satisfactorily performing the job duties
of an operations manager, or of the KSAs necessary to
meet these job responsibilities. Moreover, even if such a
list existed or could be developed, because jobs with the
exact same title vary across organizations, the job characteristics would need to be weighted differently to suit the
needs of the particular enterprise. Consequently, until
402
M. G. SINGER AND C. A. WELBORN
practitioners can articulate a universal set of needs it seems
unlikely that there is any incentive for researchers to change
the emphases of their studies. After all, they are being well
rewarded for their current endeavors.
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ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Operations Management: Is There a Disconnect
Between Journal Article Content and Employer
Needs?
Marc G. Singer & Cliff A. Welborn
To cite this article: Marc G. Singer & Cliff A. Welborn (2014) Operations Management: Is There
a Disconnect Between Journal Article Content and Employer Needs?, Journal of Education for
Business, 89:8, 396-402, DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2014.921592
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2014.921592
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Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 11 January 2016, At: 20:48
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 89: 396–402, 2014
Copyright Ó Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0883-2323 print / 1940-3356 online
DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2014.921592
Operations Management: Is There a Disconnect
Between Journal Article Content and Employer
Needs?
Marc G. Singer and Cliff A. Welborn
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 20:48 11 January 2016
Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA
The authors sought to determine whether topics researched by academicians in the field of
operations management were aligned with the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs)
employers were seeking from potential employees. Twenty-eight research topics were
identified in the operations management literature and were compared to the KSAs derived
from 200 online job postings. Ultimately, six research topics were found to be aligned with
the KSAs employers were seeking, 10 topics were underrepresented, and 12 topics were
overrepresented.
Keywords: abilities, knowledge, operations management, research topics, skills
Prior to the 1950s, research conducted by faculty in traditional academic disciplines (e.g., liberal arts and the sciences) were theoretical in nature, while business discipline
investigations tended toward studies whose findings were
applicable to the real world. In an attempt to become more
accepted as true academicians within the university community and to dispel the criticisms that business schools
were tantamount to trade schools lacking a robust scientific
foundation and producing weak research, business schools
shifted their emphasis from practical based research to large
quantities of theoretical and esoteric research, similar to the
type published by their arts and sciences colleagues (Dulek
& Fielden, 1992; Pfeffer & Fong, 2002; Starkey & Tempest, 2005).
The shift in emphasis by business faculty to traditional
academic research has resulted in a disparity between
scholarly research and practice that has prevailed for decades, with academics emphasizing rigor rather than relevance in their research (Mentzer, 2008). There is scant
evidence that any of the academic research flowing out of
business schools has had any substantial impact on the
actual practice of management (Pfeffer & Fong, 2002; Starkey & Tempest, 2005). Academicians and consultants alike
are being criticized for their failure to adequately research,
and subsequently communicate to practitioners, relevant
Correspondence should be addressed to Cliff A. Welborn, Middle
Tennessee State University, Department of Management & Marketing,
Box 75, Murfreesboro, TN 37132, USA. E-mail: cwelborn@mtsu.edu
processes and conditions for implementation (Beer, 2001;
Pfeffer & Fong, 2002). Business schools have been criticized for failing to prepare students with a meaningful set
of leadership skills and with the tools necessary for the job
(Bennis & O’Toole, 2005). Furthermore, the behavioral
competencies that practitioners indicate as those most crucial for job success appear to be those least represented in
master of business administration curriculums (Rubin &
Dierdoff, 2009). It seems that the focus on research appears
to have resulted in the rise of an academic community that
has become disconnected from the world of the practitioner
(Bailey & Ford, 1996).
Regardless of the numerous calls for business school
faculty to engage in more empirical field-based research
(McCutchen & Meredith, 1993); despite nationwide surveys of high school seniors by online college guidance sites
such as WiseChoice indicating that 80% of respondents cite
better employment opportunities as their primary reason for
attending college (DeVise, 2010); and the statement within
the preamble of the Association to Advance Collegiate
Schools of Business (AACSB, 2010) that “in this environment management education must prepare students to contribute to their organizations” (p. 3), business faculty
persist in conducting research whose findings have little, if
any, positive transference to the real world.
At best, the appeals for business schools to change this
state of affairs and focus on developing the knowledge and
skills that their students need for successful performance in
the business environment appears to have resulted in only
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 20:48 11 January 2016
OR MANAGEMENT DISCONNECT
minor alterations to the education process, primarily
through modest course content revision (Ulrich, 2005). Perhaps one reason for the failure on the part of business
schools to refocus their research efforts to more practically
oriented studies may be, in part, attributable to the unintentional consequences resulting from the desire by business
schools to meet the standards for accreditation established
by the AACSB. The preamble of the standards for the
AACSB (2010) stated “In this environment, management
education must prepare students to contribute to their
organizations” (p. 3). Subsequently, standard 2 indicates
that a key factor in determining whether the school achieves
their goal is by demonstrating that “the school will support
management practice through the production of articles”
(AACSB, 2010, p. 20). Furthermore, the standard maintains
that intellectual contributions should be in written form and
should be subject to scrutiny by academic peers or practitioners prior to publication. These peer reviewed publications serve as verification that faculty are knowledgeable
and current in their respective disciplines and are advancing
both management theory and practice.
While it can certainly be argued that these two aforementioned statements by the AACSB do not conflict with
each other, as research and publication efforts are designed
to maintain and enhance faculty members’ competence in
their disciplines, the type of research faculty engage in,
whether they choose theoretical or empirical studies, determines the research findings’ applicability to the real world.
Because the evaluation of faculty for tenure and promotion
consideration within traditional academic disciplines such
as liberal arts and the sciences has primarily been centered
on scholarship, the intent to be accepted as true academicians has resulted in business faculty and administrators
adopting the same scholarly publication evaluation criteria
employed by the arts and sciences. It appears that regardless
of the rhetoric to the contrary, as long as the reward system
focuses primarily on these research endeavors rather than
teaching, this state of affairs is likely to remain (Dulek &
Fielden, 1992; Elliott, Goodwin, & Goodwin, 1994; Linder
& Smith, 1992; Ulrich, 2005).
Clearly, the primary responsibility of business education
is to prepare students to assume employment in a business
environment. Yet, when asked in a recent survey to rank
the importance of various factors in terms of criteria used
to evaluate the quality and reputation of business education
programs, academicians ranked faculty research contributions as the second highest factor. However, when asked
the same question, practitioners ranked research contributions last among the eight factors under consideration (Rutner & Fawcett, 2005). Moreover, a study by Abraham and
Karns (2009) concluded that “business schools were not
emphasizing in their undergraduate curricula the competencies that are relevant to business” (p. 350). It appears that
the more rigorous, theoretical, and complex the research,
the more scholarly the reputation of the journal in which
397
the article appears, and the more akin the research is to that
valued by arts and science faculty, the more valued the contribution by academics.
There is little debate about the fact that quality research
enhances faculty knowledge. There also appears to be
agreement within the literature that the subject matter of
both business school research and material presented in the
classroom has scant applicability to the real-world environment. Much of the criticism regarding academic research is
aimed at the perceived overreliance on complex mathematical analysis at the expense of focusing on relevant business
issues. Some argue that the quantified models that dominate
academic journals imply a degree of precision that is an
illusion. This overly quantitative focus is damaging the reputation of the business discipline and making it irrelevant
(Tapp, 2007). Business schools are hiring faculty members
with little real-world experience who are too focused on
scientific research. These programs promote the wrong
impression that management is largely about decision making through analysis (Mintzberg, 2004). Consequently, students are not equipped to handle the complex,
nonquantifiable issues they will face in the business community (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005).
The natural question arises as to why in the wake of such
overwhelming criticism, business faculty persist in maintaining a research agenda, the findings of which appear to
be divorced from applicability to the real-world environment? Perhaps the answer to this dilemma resides in the
fact that despite the widespread consensus found in the literature maintaining that the prevailing research is not applicable in the business environment, little, if any, factual
evidence exists to support this supposition. Rather, much of
the criticism appears to be anecdotal in nature. In an effort
to determine whether the degree of alignment between
issues of interest to the operations management (OM) business community and the topics being researched and published by OM academic faculty are at dissonance, this
study was undertaken. By analyzing the text from job postings to identify key knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs)
expected of OM professionals and subsequently comparing
those KSAs to the topics being researched in OM journal
articles we attempted to discern if in fact there is truly a disparity between the topics being researched by academicians
and that which is sought by practitioners in the real world.
METHODOLOGY
The initial phase of the study involved the identification of
job postings seeking operations managers from the online
career search databases Monster.com and CareerBuilder.
com. These particular internet recruiting sites were chosen
because the postings listed are unedited and appear exactly
as submitted by the hiring organization. After winnowing
the positions to eliminate any jobs outside of the United
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398
M. G. SINGER AND C. A. WELBORN
States a total of 200 positions (80 from Monster.com and
120 from CareerBuilder.com) were selected.
Next, each of the chosen postings was searched for any
specific KSAs that the potential employer stated was either
required or desired as criteria for successful job performance. Each time a job advertisement contained a reference
to a KSA, its frequency count was increased by 1. Subsequently, the frequency counts were converted into percentages indicating the percent of job advertisements that
referenced specific operations management KSAs. This
method of determining desired or required KSAs, rather
than having experts rank a predefined set of KSAs created
by the researchers, was employed in order to avoid any
unintentional bias by the investigators in the construction
of the list. In total, 28 KSAs were identified as being either
required or desired applicant characteristics.
In order to allow for statistical equivalency, a total of 200
recent academic articles on operations research, published
between February 2009 and December 2010, were randomly
selected from four journals (50 articles from each) that have
been consistently ranked among the top 20 journals in operations management (Olson, 2005). The journals selected were
Decision Sciences, Interfaces, European Journal of Operational Research, and Management Science (50 from each).
Each article’s title, abstract, and key words were subsequently reviewed to determine the researcher’s primary operations management topical focus. Using a similar process as
described for job postings, the percentage value for each
research topic was derived by determining the percent of
journal articles focusing on that topic.
To evaluate any differences between the percentage of
journal articles focusing on a specific topic and the percentage of job postings referencing that topic, Bonferroni confidence intervals based on the job postings were developed.
The Bonferroni confidence interval limits were computed as:
Pi f C and ¡ gZa=2k
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Pi .1 ¡ Pi /=n;
where Pi is the observed mean percentage of job postings;
Za/2k is the adjusted Z score; and n is the number of
observations.
If the percentage of journal articles referencing a topic
fell within the computed confidence interval, the topic was
determined to be not significantly over or underrepresented
in the literature compared to the job postings. Consequently, any difference in percentage from the job postings
and the journal articles was attributed to chance and indicated that the articles author(s) were researching topics of
relevance to hiring organizations. However, if the percent
of journal articles referencing a topic was greater than the
computed upper limit of the confidence interval, the topic
was deemed as being overrepresented in the literature. Similarly, if the percent of journal articles referencing a topic
was less than the computed lower limit of the confidence
interval, the topic was considered to be underrepresented in
the literature.
RESULTS
Of the 28 KSAs identified in the job postings (see Table 1),
only six were found to be appropriately researched throughout the literature. These six KSAs and their respective frequency of appearance in the job postings and in the selected
research articles included profit (26%, 19%), inventory (22%,
19%), capacity (13%, 11%), transport (12%, 8%), enterprise
resource planning (3%, 0%), and cycle time (2%, 1%).
Table 2 details the frequency of occurrence of the underrepresented KSAs in the selected job postings and their corresponding frequency of appearance in the research
literature. Of the 28 total KSAs identified as necessary or
desired characteristics employers sought in job applicants,
10 were identified as underrepresented in the research
literature. Of the KSAs identified as underrepresented, four
appeared in more than 50% of the job postings, but only
the KSA of quality could be found in more than 10% of the
research articles scanned. These KSAs and their respective
percentages of appearance in the job postings and in the
research included: quality (57%, 14%), project (54%, 9%),
training (52%, 8%), and leadership (54%, 2%). The remaining six KSAs ranged in their frequency of occurrence
within the job postings between 8% and 40%, and their frequency of appearance in the research articles sampled
ranged between 0% and 6%. The frequencies for these
KSAs were budget (40%, 1%), safety (33%, 5%), maintenance (28%, 2%), lean (20%, 2%), outsource (16%, 6%),
and ethics (8%, 0%).
Last, Table 3 lists the frequencies of KSAs that appeared
to be overrepresented, minimized in importance by employers in their job postings but valued highly by researchers.
Of the 11 KSAs given emphasis in the literature, only
three—supply chain, research, and programming—were
mentioned in any job postings. In fact, the other eight
KSAs were not mentioned at all, and the frequency of
appearance of programming was only 2%. The KSAs and
their respective job posting and journal article frequencies
were modeling (15%, 55%), supply chain (14%, 23%),
TABLE 1
Appropriately Represented Knowledge Skills and Abilities
in Academic Research
KSA
Profit
Inventory
Capacity
Transport
ERP
Cycle time
Job posting
Expected (95% CI)
Journal articles
26%
22%
13%
12%
3%
2%
[18%, 33%]
[14%, 29%]
[7%, 19%]
[6%, 18%]
[0%, 5%]
[0%, 4%]
19%
19%
11%
8%
0%
1%
Note: ERP D Enterprise resource planning.
OR MANAGEMENT DISCONNECT
399
TABLE 2
Underrepresented Knowledge Skills and Abilities in Academic Research
KSA
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Quality
Leadership
Project
Training
Budgeting
Safety
Maintenance
Lean
Outsourcing
Ethics
Job posting
Expected (95% CI)
Journal articles
Underrepresented
57%
54%
54%
52%
40%
33%
28%
20%
16%
8%
[47%, 66%]
[44%, 63%]
[44%, 63%]
[43%, 61%]
[31%, 48%]
[24%, 41%]
[19%, 36%]
[12%, 27%]
[9%, 23%]
[3%, 12%]
14%
2%
9%
8%
1%
5%
2%
2%
6%
0%
33%
43%
35%
35%
30%
19%
17%
10%
3%
3%
research (11%, 29%), programming (2%, 13%), stochastic
(0%, 10%), game (0%, 9%), simulation (0%, 9%), algorithm (0%, 9%), equilibrium (0%, 6%), linear program
(0%, 3%), regression (0%, 3%), and ANOVA (0%, 1%).
DISCUSSION
Before discussing the findings of this study it seems prudent
to put the purpose of this research into perspective. This
study was not designed to determine the quality of the
research being conducted by business faculty, the quality of
the journals where the studies are being published, nor the
perceived relevance of the research conducted by academicians and consultants. Rather, the study was designed to
ascertain whether the degree of alignment between issues
of interest to the OM business community and the topics
being researched and published by OM academic faculty
and consultants are similar or at variance with each other.
Last, the research merely sought to identify any disparities
between the research being conducted and the KSAs sought
by practitioners, without regard to why these differences
exist.
As indicated by Tables 1, 2, and 3, significant disconnects between a majority of the operations management
topics researched by academicians and the KSAs sought by
potential employers were found. Of the 28 topics identified
as being researched, 12 topics were overrepresented when
compared with the KSAs sought by potential employers, 10
topics were underrepresented, and only six of the research
topics were found to be actually related to the KSAs as
listed in the job postings. Furthermore, the frequency of the
top seven underrepresented KSAs sought by potential
employers; exceeded any of the percentages of any of the
overrepresented or statistically consistent KSAs. It seems
that those KSAs most valued by practitioners are those
topics deemed least worthy of research endeavors by academicians and consultants.
In some cases, the disparity in topic coverage may be the
result of a subtle difference in emphasis. For example, while
supply chain is overrepresented in the academic literature
compared to job postings, outsourcing is underrepresented.
Arguably, these two topics are so closely related that they
could be combined and their job postings and journal article
counts summed. We represented each term independently
because supply chain is a broad topic consisting of many
TABLE 3
Overrepresented Knowledge Skills and Abilities in Academic Research
KSA
Modeling
Supply chain
Research
Programming
Stochastic
Gaming
Simulation
Algorithm
Equilibrium
Linear program
Regression
ANOVA
Job posting
Expected (95% CI)
Journal articles
Overrepresented
15%
14%
11%
2%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
[8%, 21%]
[8%, 20%]
[5%, 17%]
[–1%, 5%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
[0%, 0%]
55%
23%
29%
13%
10%
9%
9%
9%
6%
3%
3%
1%
34%
2%
12%
8%
10%
9%
9%
9%
6%
3%
3%
1%
Note: ANOVA D analysis of variance.
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400
M. G. SINGER AND C. A. WELBORN
subtopics, while outsourcing is more narrowly focused. Consequently, if researchers are publishing articles related to
supply chain at a higher rate than found in the job postings,
it may be that researchers are viewing the details of supply
chain in a different context than employers.
The finding that many of the overrepresented research
topics are highly quantitative mathematical or modeling
based concepts is in agreement with the propositions made
by authors who indicated that while much of the academic
research focuses on advanced quantitative techniques, practitioners rarely find applicability for these findings (Bennis &
O’Toole, 2005; Mintzberg, 2004; Tapp, 2007). Conversely,
many of the underrepresented researched subjects, such as
project management, budgeting, safety, and maintenance are
application-oriented concepts. Additionally, whereas practitioners tend to view much of the jargon associated with the
overrepresented topics as technical and highly specialized
argot, discernible only to those versed in the mathematical
programming field, they readily understand the vocabulary
associated with the underrepresented topics.
On the surface it would seem problematic that the topics
of leadership, budgeting, safety, training, ethics, quality,
lean, outsourcing, maintenance, and project management
would be underrepresented in the literature. Even more
troubling would be the fact that four of these topics, leadership, training, quality, and project management, appeared
in over 50% of the job postings. However, these findings
are not totally unexpected. Several of these topics are
researched and taught to OM students exclusively by faculty other than those in the OM field. For example, budgeting is usually taught by accounting faculty, leadership is
commonly studied and taught by general management,
organizational behavior, organizational theory, and industrial or organizational psychologists, and safety and maintenance is usually the domain of engineering departments.
Irrespective of the discipline involved, it is apparent
from the results of the current investigation that the
research conducted by OM academicians suffers from the
same criticisms regarding the irrelevancy of their research
for practitioners (Beer, 2001; Bennis & O’Toole, 2005;
McCutchen & Meredith, 1993; Mentzer, 2008; Pfeffer &
Fong, 2002; Rubin & Dierdoff, 2009). Yet, despite being a
discipline that would be naturally associated more with
practitioners than academicians, OM faculty have adopted
the research agendas and methodologies of their business
school colleagues.
The logical question arising is why after over five decades of widespread agreement that a gap between the
research emanating from business schools and its relevance
for practitioners exists, do business school faculty, including those who teach operations management, persist in
research endeavors whose relevance to real-world practice
is questionable? While there are varying opinions espoused
throughout the literature to explain the reasons why the
research-practitioner gap exists, we believe that three are
paramount. These include the plausible denial of the problems existence, the desire for rewards and prestige, and the
lack of uniformity among academicians and practitioners as
to exactly what KSAs are necessary for satisfactory job
performance.
Particularly because there is little, if any, empirical evidence to substantiate the various opinions (Rynes, Bartunek, & Daft, 2001), not all authors necessarily agree that
the research being conducted by business school faculty is
of an esoteric nature or that there is even a problematic gap
between academic research and the needs of practitioners.
Shapiro, Kirkman, and Courtney (2007), asserted that many
members of the Academy of Management either do not perceive that a gap between research and practice exists, or if
they do acknowledge the gap, are at variance with each
other as to the reasons why it exists, and how to solve the
problem. Thus, while Zicklin (2013) writing about his
experience reading academic literature contended, “I’m
lost in a morass of quantitative analysis that is far beyond
not only my abilities but those of almost every business person I’ve ever met” (p. 1), others would agree with Reid’s
(2013) counter that,
[T]he vast majority of business faculty engages in research
that is more practical in focus. Instead of focusing on esoteric research, the majority of research done by AACSB
accredited business school faculty falls into one of three
areas: basic or discovery; applied or integrative/application;
or teaching and learning research. (p. 1)
A widely held explanation for the lack of motivation on
the part of business schools and academicians to change the
existing status quo stems from the fact that colleges and
universities, despite rhetoric to the contrary about the
importance of teaching, have historically provided greater
compensation, and afforded status and prestige to those
academicians who engage in large amounts of scholarly
research (Dulek & Fielden, 1992; Elliott et al., 1994;
Richardson, 2003) that is subsequently evaluated by their
peers, and ultimately published in highly regarded academic journals. The rankings for these journals are usually
derived from surveys of academicians nationwide, and/or
internally by the faculty within the individual’s own academic department and/or school of business. Typically, the
journals with the higher rankings are those whose content
consists of research that is more esoteric and mathematical
or statistical in nature and whose readership primarily consists of academicians.
In addition to financial and status rewards, the quality
and quantity of faculty research productivity is a major
determinant in tenure and promotion decisions. Traditionally, these decisions are based on the evaluation of a faculty
member’s performance in three areas: teaching, scholarship, and service. Despite the rhetoric about the importance
of teaching in the evaluation process, Zicklin (2013)
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OR MANAGEMENT DISCONNECT
indicated that a friend serving on a promotion and tenure
committee at an Ivy League school once told him that the
percentage of scholarship factoring into the tenure equation
was 99%, with the other two criteria sharing the remaining
1%.
Although academicians would likely argue that the
99% figure cited by Zicklin (2013) is extreme, they probably would agree with the assertion that the percentage
based on scholarship at most universities is far greater
than the criteria afforded to the other two factors combined. The reason for this unbalanced weighting is apparent. Traditionally, the overall prestige afforded to
business schools throughout the academic world has been
based on research (Armstrong, 1995), and most business
school deans’ ratings of business schools are based, at
least partly, on the prestige afforded by the school’s
research (Pfeffer & Fong, 2002). Since business faculty
first changed their research agendas they have been
rewarded with substantial financial gains and have garnered increased status among their university colleagues.
It is only natural that academicians and administrations
would be reluctant to make any changes that could potentially jeopardize the benefits they currently enjoy.
Adding to the reward-prestige argument is the desire by
business schools to obtain and retain AACSB International
accreditation thereby garnering the status that accompanies
AACSB membership. Ironically, while two outside agencies, the Carnegie Council and Ford Foundation started
business schools on their current research tract, it appears
that another external agency, the AACSB, may be unintentionally continuing this trajectory. While we acknowledge
and support the flexibility that the AACSB affords business
schools to establish and to be evaluated based upon their
own individual missions we question whether business
schools will actually adopt missions that will encourage
and reward faculty for engaging in applied research. Rather,
because business school missions are typically developed
and adopted with significant input from existing faculty, we
envision the development of mission statements driven by
existing research agendas, rather than the opposite.
CONCLUSION
The results of the present investigation indicated that there
are significant differences in the topics studied by academic
researchers and the knowledge, skills, and abilities that
employers expect from Operations Managers. This finding
appears to be consistent with the plethora of condemnation
espoused throughout the literature indicating that the findings from academic research is lacking in relevance for
real-world practice (Beer, 2001; Bennis & O’Toole, 2005;
McCutchen & Meredith, 1993; Mentzer, 2008; Pfeffer &
Fong, 2002; Rubin & Dierdoff, 2009). Universities encourage faculty members to continually engage in research to
401
ensure that they impart current and useful knowledge to
their students. The measure of whether this endeavor is successful should be based on whether their students obtain
meaningful employment and ultimately succeed in their
chosen professions. Regrettably, it appears from the present
study that while academicians are indeed participating in
research activities, and being handsomely rewarded for
these efforts by universities, the topics chosen for study
appear for the most part to be unrelated to those deemed
necessary for success by potential employers.
Changing this state of affairs is by no means simple.
Published research is a fundamental expectation for most
faculty members. It is one of the cornerstones used to maintain and demonstrate academic currency. Research efforts
and expectations should not be sacrificed, but the direction
of those efforts should be guided in a manner which is of
interest and benefit to the business community it serves. It
needs to be more focused on its relevance to practitioners.
It requires that academicians acknowledge that the
research-practitioner gap exists and are willing to engage in
activities that will foster close working relationships with
corporate partners in their chosen field. Strategies to foster
these relationships include conducting research involving
samples from the business environment, developing business based consulting and outreach initiatives, participating
in professional societies (as differentiated from their professional academic organizations), and placing and monitoring
students in practicum and internships.
Creating the motivation for academicians to engage in
field-based research will initially require the re-evaluation
of the criteria currently used to evaluate and reward faculty
research. Rather than journal ranking being based primarily
on surveys of academicians, or impact factors relating the
number of times an academic journal article is cited in
another academic journal, the ranking methodology should
include recognition for contributions to practice. Practitioner-based journals need to be elevated in the continuum
of journal rankings. Peer-reviewed articles should include
practitioners from the professional business environment.
Traditional academic journals whose review boards consist
solely of academicians should consider adding
practitioners.
Last, we maintain that a key reason why the researchpractitioner gap exists is that there is little, if any, agreement between or among researchers and practitioners
regarding the topics to study, or what KSAs are essential
for satisfactory job performance. There does not appear to
be a comprehensive listing anywhere of the essential functions necessary for satisfactorily performing the job duties
of an operations manager, or of the KSAs necessary to
meet these job responsibilities. Moreover, even if such a
list existed or could be developed, because jobs with the
exact same title vary across organizations, the job characteristics would need to be weighted differently to suit the
needs of the particular enterprise. Consequently, until
402
M. G. SINGER AND C. A. WELBORN
practitioners can articulate a universal set of needs it seems
unlikely that there is any incentive for researchers to change
the emphases of their studies. After all, they are being well
rewarded for their current endeavors.
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