Revisiting the rigor–relevance relationship: An institutional logics perspective
调查了管理研究中严谨性与相关性是否互斥，发现两者正相关，且管理者对相关性的评价比方法严谨性更能预测学术合法性。
The question of whether academic research should emphasize scientific rigor, practical relevance, or both simultaneously has been hotly debated in HRM research and other related disciplines for much of the past century. That said, empirical investigations of whether these values are mutually exclusive or compatible are surprisingly rare. Moreover, the perspective of the end consumers of research—practitioners—as to what research is relevant has been almost completely ignored. In the present study, we adopt an institutional logics perspective to assess the perceived relevance of common management research findings with two samples of 298 and 143 practicing managers, respectively. Further, we examine whether objective indicators of rigor and manager‐rated relevance impact academic legitimacy. The results indicate a positive relationship between rigor and relevance. Interestingly, practitioner ratings of relevance were stronger predictors of academic legitimacy than methodological rigor. Finally, research findings that deal with leadership topics are rated as most relevant to practitioners, whereas job characteristics, demographics, and human resource practices are seen as the least relevant to managers. The contributions of this study and implications for future research conclude the article.