Doing Business Research

On 9 January (Sunday), I will be delivering a full day lecture on 'Doing Business Research, Get it Started, Get it Right' at the Law Auditorium, University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.

The preface of the lecture is an article I wrote for a magazine. Since this article is relevant to academia in general, I'm posting it here.

Research Orientation in Business Schools

Business is the lifeline of Asian Economies. The world is seeing a surge of innovative business practices from pricing to processes. Organizations, including governmental, not-for-profit and even religious bodies are starting to adopt a 'business orientation' in the interest of efficiency and accountability. This surge in the business economy has not gone unnoticed. Aside from the businesses that have benefited from it, the education industry is also a direct beneficiary. Since the early nineties, there has been a surge in global demand for business degrees like never before. From MBAs, BBAs, MSCs to PhDs and DBAs, universities are starting to realise that business programs are cash cows and many have sought to milk it. As with any business, the suppliers range from those with the noble intention of providing the best education, to those whose primary purpose is to exploit for maximum profit while providing minimum value. Similarly, the consumers range from the highly knowledgeable to the most gullible.

Business degrees at postgraduate level are tasked to provide skill sets of a higher level. Consequently, teachers at this level must be research driven, as is the case with top business schools. In Asia however, many executives who sign up for MBAs are under the mistaken notion that the ticket to a higher paying job is a postgraduate certificate such as an MBA and are often not discerning in terms of the skills acquired during the process. Hence, more non-research based institutions are seizing the opportunity to make money by catering to the shallow needs of these uninitiated ones. This is set to change. As companies become more disappointed by the quality of business graduates, many top firms have started skill-based entry screening. It is slowly becoming commonplace to find 2-3 days interviews where applicants need to undergo case studies or essay writing to demonstrate their analytical capabilities and knowledge.

Educational institutions response to this should be positive. It allows good research based institutions to differentiate themselves from their exploitative counterparts. From the perspective of the student who is deciding on which institution to study at, this would separate the wheat from the chaff.

For the industry as a whole, this would be an incentive towards a stronger research orientation. After all, what kind of credibility would lecturers have if they do not have strong research to back their instruction, particularly if they are teaching top CEOs?

Progressive business schools are started to see the need to develop a stronger research focus. The normal training for a researcher usually takes the form of a PhD. Yet, many tend to sign up less for the research training than for the need to be called Dr. so-and-so, thinking that this would be the ticket to credibility. Whilst a PhD may not be the only route to a research led career, having one without a strong research motivation serves no purpose except to mislead others. Without research, new knowledge cannot be abstracted and documented. Without research, a teacher (even those with PhDs) will not be imparting new skills.