Can Academic Management Research be Profitable?
Lieutenant Colonel Ronald R. Calkins Many people, over the years, have questioned the value of academic management research conducted by Air Force students in graduate or professional education programs. There has been little rebuttal because, on the whole, it is almost impossible to trace the value of academic research. A stronger challenge, though, has been to question the ultimate value of the research findings to Air Force functioning. Does academic research just carry on traditional educational methodology or can it be both educationally and organizationally valuable? It is my belief that academic research can be both, which is the reason for this article. Unfortunately, academic management research is not as valuable organizationally as it should be. The reason for diminished practical value is that the majority of both academic and field research is incomplete. The “incomplete standard” for management research was caused by inadequate time, inaccessible data, and failure to conc
