Formulating the Nature of Management Research

Despite significant successes and numerous exemplars of academic-practitioner collaboration, in recent times management research has been argued to have succumbed to a serious problem of relevance. Addressing this has become an important issue for both the academic and practitioner communities, and extensive debate is occurring on both sides of the Atlantic. Discussions have focused on the nature of management research itself, its key purposes and goals, the scope of the field, its boundaries and relations with other adjacent disciplines. Novel methods for the promotion of management research have also been part of the discussions. The possibility of developing a knowledge production system for management research based on the 'mode 2' ideas of Michael Gibbons et al. [Gibbons, M., Limoges, C. et al. (1994) The New Production of Knowledge: the Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. Sage, London] has attracted considerable attention. This paper outlines the background and current debates as introduction to the main studies in this special issue, which illustrate some of the experimentation being undertaken in creating innovative forms of management research.