Every year, thousands of business advice books are written, with some selling hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies. Given their popularity, it is important to understand if managers are getting good advice from these books.
Academy of Management Perspectives (AMP) has created a new format to rigorously assess the usefulness of popular business books in addressing important managerial problems: Book Briefs essays. These are not single book reviews, but critical scholarly analysis of three or more books that purport to address an important managerial problem.
You can find out about the format here. Interested authors are encouraged to submit a proposal prior to writing a full essay. The proposal template can be found here.
In addition to Book Briefs, AMP also has a new format called Relevance Reviews. In these invitation-only essays, prominent scholars outline how they have developed successful careers while doing work that matters. More importantly, they provide detailed guidance on how others can do the same. The first such essay, by Herman Aguinis, is now online here. Many more are forthcoming, so please keep an eye out.
One of our established formats is Practitioner Perspectives. In these essays, a senior practitioner teams up with a seasoned scholar to provide direct evidence of managerial concerns that would benefit from more rigorous research. Our first, written by Sylvia Grewatsch and Alex Ryan, is now available online here. If you are interested in writing for this format, you can find a full description here.
The heart of AMP, though, is our standard articles. And, finally, we have several examples to show you! AMP accepts both empirical and conceptual articles. Our first two empirical acceptances, now available online, offer rich qualitative analysis of intriguing managerial problems. Please read:
Beyond the match: What intermediaries should do to effectively orchestrate corporate-startup collaborations, by Medhanie Gaim, Elie Said, and Tomas Blomquist.
Duty to remember: Craft firms as custodians of heritage craft persistence, by Chiara Succi, Maral Muratbekova-Touron, Domitille Bonneton, and Adelina Tordiglione
And our first two conceptual acceptances, now available online, offer rigorous frameworks to guide managerial behavior on important topics. Please read:
Getting to the root causes: An integrative framework for understanding and mitigating unethical workplace behavior, by David T. Welsh, Ryan Fehr, Grace Ching Chi Ho, and Chris M. Barnes.
Improving the credibility of corporate sustainability metrics, by Magali A. Delmas, Kelly Clark, Dylan Minor, and Tyson Timmer
Please note that we also have a format called Constructive Confrontations. These articles are designed to abate debates; that is, to bring resolution to points of disagreement and confusion regarding an important managerial problem, rather than to continue endless and confusing debates. Unfortunately, I have no examples yet to show you, as none have yet completed the review process. But we are eager to get more into the system, so please check out the format here.
Sheesh -- that's a lot of stuff! And we're just getting warmed up! If you want to be a part of the broader community seeking to make management research matter more, join us on AOM Connect, in our Practice-Oriented Scholarship community, available under the Member Affinity Forums.
AMPly yours,
Mike
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Mike Barnett
Professor
Rutgers University
Newark NJ
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