Business and Management INK

What’s Wrong with Writing and Publishing Interesting Academic Articles?

November 10, 2021 2916
Lemur showing surprised reaction
Interestingness (or counterintuitiveness or novelty), by itself, is not a virtue of a good scientific theory and thus has little value in science argues Eric Tsang. (Photo: (Joenomias) Menno de Jong/Pixabay)

Today, Eric W.K. Tsang at the Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas offers a brief reflection on his article “That’s Interesting! A Flawed Article Has Influenced Generations of Management Researchers” appearing in the Journal of Management Inquiry. He asks if the pursuit of “interestingness” poisons, to an extent, management research.

My answer to the question “What’s wrong with writing and publishing interesting academic articles?” is that there is nothing wrong assuming that interestingness does not trump other more important attributes of an article. Unfortunately this assumption often does not hold in the management discipline given the current interestingness advocacy.

The advocacy originated from Murray Davis’s 1971 article “That’s interesting! Towards a phenomenology of sociology and a sociology of phenomenology” published in Philosophy of the Social Sciences. He promoted the idea that great theories have to be interesting in the sense that they provide counterintuitive arguments: “What seems to be X is in reality non-X,” or “What is accepted as X is actually non-X” (p. 313). His target audience was sociologists. Yet it turned out that management researchers have been most enthusiastic about adopting his idea, as indicated by the fact that among all the disciplines, management is the one that has provided the largest number of citations to his paper. Not only management authors but also journal editors have cited and embraced Davis’s idea. One of my colleagues included Davis’s paper as a required reading in his doctoral seminar.

As a seasoned management researcher, the advocacy caught me by surprise and motivated me to write my article. The problem of the advocacy is that most, if not all, management researchers consider themselves doing science, but interestingness (or counterintuitiveness or novelty) is not a virtue of a good scientific theory and thus has little value in science. There are two main objectives of scientific research, namely explaining and problem solving. Both objectives are only remotely related to interestingness. Regarding the objective of finding an explanation, whether a theory is interesting is simply irrelevant; what is relevant is whether the theory can provide a satisfactory explanation of a phenomenon. As to the other objective concerning problem solving, the current COVID-19 pandemic is a great example. Scientists in various countries are working day and night to deal with the epidemic and don’t have the luxury of thinking about the interestingness of their findings. In fact, in this kind of emergency, does anyone really care about interestingness?

Instead of helping the field of management research to progress, the obsession with interestingness has at least five detrimental consequences—promoting an improper way of doing science, encouraging post hoc hypothesis development, discouraging replication studies, ignoring the proper duties of a researcher, and undermining doctoral education. Although my target audience is management researchers, these consequences will occur in any social science discipline where a strong interestingness advocacy exists. I hope my article will help to highlight the downside of the advocacy and prevent it from spreading.

Eric Tsang is Dallas World Salute Distinguished Professor and Professor, Organizations, Strategy and International Management at the Naveen Jindal School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas.

View all posts by Eric Tsang

Related Articles

Using Intelligent Self-Limitation to Explore the Distinction Between Environment and Umwelt
Business and Management INK
December 6, 2024

Using Intelligent Self-Limitation to Explore the Distinction Between Environment and Umwelt

Read Now
The Authors of ‘Artificial Intelligence and Work’ on Future Risk
Innovation
December 4, 2024

The Authors of ‘Artificial Intelligence and Work’ on Future Risk

Read Now
From Conflict to Peace: Reflecting on the Leadership of John Hume in Northern Ireland
Business and Management INK
December 3, 2024

From Conflict to Peace: Reflecting on the Leadership of John Hume in Northern Ireland

Read Now
The End of Meaningful CSR?
Business and Management INK
November 22, 2024

The End of Meaningful CSR?

Read Now
Canada’s Storytellers Challenge Seeks Compelling Narratives About Student Research

Canada’s Storytellers Challenge Seeks Compelling Narratives About Student Research

“We are, as a species, addicted to story,” says English professor Jonathan Gottschall in his book, The Storytelling Animal. “Even when the […]

Read Now
Boards and Internationalization Speed

Boards and Internationalization Speed

This article aims to explore how the boards of international new ventures (INVs) develop throughout the internationalisation and growth phases of the firm.

Read Now
How Managers Can Enhance Trust

How Managers Can Enhance Trust

How to stimulate interpersonal trust in organizations? How can performance management contribute to trust? And, can other types of management control also […]

Read Now
5 1 vote
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

1 Comment
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Rachel Hale

Your reflection prompts me to compare it to discussions about the difference between blue skies and problem-based research.