Re: [MTC Global] Research blues in social sciences

Dear Prof Satish
Timely reminder for all of us to realize how the university structure is influencing our
behaviour.

Note the following in the article!

"with university reward systems driving faculty to publish, much research that is done is
irrelevant, and students end up paying for it through higher tuition fees, since faculty
teaching loads are lowered in research-driven universities to allow their faculty to be engaged
in research.

He comments about a faculty member who is highly regarded for his research in the area of
finance: "I've worked for 50 years and I didn't have a clue as to what his most recent articles
were about… (His research was directed at) the community of scholars who write for one another
but not for their students and certainly not for business executives who are interested in
practical ideas that might actually work."

A particularly tough rhetorical question Zicklin asks is: If business research is useful, why
are corporations so reluctant to pay for it?"

Much of what goes on as research is actually irrelevant!
Regards
Prof LP Rajan PES University
On Wed, 05 Nov 2014 14:04:28 +0530 Satish Kumar wrote
>Dear All,
Came across a interesting read on relevance of research and  publication  happening in Social
Sciences currently.Requesting members to reflect upon the article.

Happy reading
Regards
Satish
----------Dr. Satish Kumar (PhD, IIT Roorkee)Assistant ProfessorDepartment of Management
StudiesMalaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT Jaipur)J.L. N Marg, Jaipur
302017Rajasthan (India)
Link to article: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/c-gopinath/research-blues-
in-social-sciences/article4663507.eceResearch blues in social sciencesC.
GOPINATHCOMMENT   ·   PRINT   ·   T+  inShare65In the drive to publish, the relevance of
research is often overlooked.April 28, 2013:  The world of economics is in a tizzy about
quality of research and the little devils that can ruin the best of intentions. It all started
with a research paper published in 2010 by professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, of
Harvard University who, using published data, found that nations that had a debt to gross
domestic product greater than 90 per cent were in danger of seeing their average growth rate
fall by 0.1 per cent.This finding was of great interest to policy makers, since this was post-
global economic crisis when many countries were thinking of taking on more debt in order to
increase their spending as a stimulation to their economies. The research gave a fillip to the
opposite argument, that what was needed was austerity.Other studies that examined the same
issue of debt also seemed to support the findings and warned highly indebted countries from
taking on even more debt.Now, a paper published earlier this month by three authors, Thomas
Herndon, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin, of the University of Massachusetts Amherst (my alma
mater, I may proudly add) has cast a doubt on the Reinhart-Rogoff findings. This study grew out
of the efforts of the first author, a graduate student, who tried to replicate the Reinhart-
Rogoff study as assignment for a course.FINDINGS QUESTIONEDFinding that the results were not
the same, he then sought and obtained the original data sheet from Reinhart-Rogoff, and found
simple miscalculations and data exclusions in their study. Correcting these errors, Herndon et
al found that the average growth for the high debt countries would be 2.2 per cent, and not
negative as the original study claimed. A major reversal of the conclusions.This 'incident'
allows us to draw some lessons. One is the importance of being able to replicate research,
using the same or similar data to study the same questions and to see if the same results are
obtained. The other is being able to access the data set of other scholars.This is quite often
impossible, for researchers will hide behind confidentiality and various other excuses and not
share their data. This is especially so if the data are not publicly available but have been
collected as primary data through surveys, and so on.Gate keepers such as journal editors and
reviewers ask for a lot of details about the research methodology and analysis from those who
submit a manuscript to get a sense of the reliability and validity of the data, analysis and
the conclusions, but even they rarely have the time or the inclination to ask for the raw data
and run the analysis themselves.REPLICABILITY ISSUESIn general, research in the sciences
differentiates itself from the social sciences in the matter of replicability. If chemical A
mixed with chemical B and heated to C results in D, and it is published, anyone can try it out
and see if it is true. In most social sciences, this is difficult to do, and even when
possible, is often not attempted.The other problem that complicates social science research is
the difficulty of establishing cause and effect relationships between variables due to the many
variables that can affect the situation, and the inability to keep all the other intervening
variables constant, or trying to control them. Thus, conclusions are provided with various
caveats about the weaknesses of the study and the limitations on generalisability.In the
business/management field, there is an ongoing debate on the issue of relevance of research.
When primary data are collected through surveys, replicability becomes almost impossible.In
short, research conclusions rarely contribute to cumulative knowledge. Can't blame the business
folks for ignoring much academic business research!RESEARCH VS EDUCATIONIn an article published
online at the Knowledge@Wharton Web site in February this year, Larry Zicklin, a former
chairman of a FINANCIAL services firm and a finance professor, argued that with university
reward systems driving faculty to publish, much research that is done is irrelevant, and
students end up paying for it through higher tuition fees, since faculty teaching loads are
lowered in research-driven universities to allow their faculty to be engaged in research.He
comments about a faculty member who is highly regarded for his research in the area of finance:
"I've worked for 50 years and I didn't have a clue as to what his most recent articles were
about… (His research was directed at) the community of scholars who write for one another but
not for their students and certainly not for business executives who are interested in
practical ideas that might actually work."A particularly tough rhetorical question Zicklin asks
is: If business research is useful, why are corporations so reluctant to pay for it?The message
from all this is that all educational institutions should not join the game of pursuing
research just because it helps the reputation or ranking of the institution.The majority of
institutions should realise that they may make a better contribution to society focused on
education, which is not the same as research, and which involves paying attention to teaching
and making education affordable to those who need it.Those institutions that wish to pursue the
research route should also be careful that what they encourage in their scholars is relevant
and applicable.(The author is professor of International Business and Strategic Management at
Suffolk University, Boston, US.)(This article was published on April 28, 2013)






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