Getting Too Close to the Fire: The Challenge of Engaging Stories and Saving Lives
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2011.00767.x |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Author | Robin Wensley |
Getting Too Close to the Fire:
The Challenge of Engaging Stories and
Saving Lives
Robin Wensley
Warwick Business School and AIM Office, 4th Floor, Stewart House, 32 Russell Square,
London WC1B 5DN, UK
Email: robin.wensley@wbs.ac.uk
There is a long and troubled history in the relationship between management research
and management practice. Much is often made of the negative impact in terms of
management practice of the two so-called foundation reports both published in 1959 in
the USA. A re-reading of these, however, suggests that the bigger issue is the conflation
of analytical approaches with superior management performance. This remains a basis
for researchers and practitioners to engage, but such engagement also requires a sense
of critical distance and distinct identities between the two groups, which recognizes the
differing nature of practice knowledge alongside research-based knowledge.
Introduction
There is something odd about management: it
may have something to do with its rather prosaic
etymology but somehow or other it seems to
encompass two very different world views. At one
extreme we have the ‘leadership’ (some might say
heroic leadership) school of management with its
emphasis on visionary approaches, stretch targets
and winning against the odds – the ‘who dares
wins’ school, which to be honest rather discounts
most of the historical evidence since it is rarely
clear that ‘who dares’ does actually ‘win’. At the
other extreme we have that expression beloved at
least to those English who delight in under-
statement; ‘just managing’ with its connotations
of just about keeping one’s head (above water?):
sufficers more than heroes.
In rather similar manner the challenges posed
to management research are along a spectrum
from the ‘heroic’ (to produce something which
radically alters our understanding of how to
manage people and achieve outstanding results)
to the prosaic (what you might do to perform a
little better – and perhaps keep a bit more of your
head above water!). A central dilemma when it
comes to management research is the apparent
choice between uninteresting averages – maybe a
bit analogous to the sufficer perspective – and
much more interesting outliers, equally analo-
gous to the hero perspective. If, however, there is
one truism in management research, and for that
matter management itself, it is that context
matters. Hence averaging across different con-
texts often produces relatively trivial generalities,
yet focusing on specific cases raises difficult
questions about key underlying contingencies.
Ever since and indeed probably long before the
(in)famous so-called Foundation Reports on the
teaching of business in US higher education which
came out in 1959, the academic community has
agonized on the relationship – actual and intended –
between management research and management
Support, constructive criticism and helpful advice were
provided by the special issue editors and two anon-
ymous reviewers. The work that forms the basis of this
paper was done as part of ESRC contract RES-331-34-
3004-01 and the support of the ESRC is gratefully
acknowledged.
British Journal of Management, Vol. 22, 370–381 (2011)
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2011.00767.x
r2011 The Author
British Journal of Management r2011 British Academy of Management. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
To continue reading
Request your trial