Gardiner Centre Connects management innovation Management vital to successful innovation
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echnology. Research. Innovation. The theme of this issue focuses on three key factors that drive economic and social development. Frequently, these words are combined in ways that reflect prevailing wisdom, such as “research on new technologies that sustain innovation.” While a vital part of the overall picture, focusing exclusively on science and engineering research leading to technological innovation overlooks an equally important contributor to economic development and success – research and innovation in management practice. Too often, failures in business are not (entirely) technological, but occur at least in part as a consequence of inappropriate or inadequate management practices. For example, although we might commonly think of the recent Gulf oil spill as having been a result of technology failure, an internal BP investigation of the accident concluded that decision-making processes by individuals and teams contributed significantly to the spill and its consequences. Similarly, there are many examples of both success and failure in the introduction of technological innovations in the marketplace, where the success or failure of the innovation is driven as much by marketing prowess as by the technology itself. Research on management plays a vital role in driving practices that contribute to business success. Last year, a National Forum on Management was held in Montreal to take stock of management research in Canada and assess its contribution to Canada’s competitiveness (http://expertise.hec.ca/forum2009/). The forum showcased state-of-the-art research in Canadian business schools and its contribution to the practice of management and to Canada’s progress. Our province is fortunate in that the Faculty of Business Administration (FBA) at Memorial University leads Atlantic Canada in high-quality research that contributes to management innovation. In several areas of management, our research 6
Dr. Jeffrey Parsons, Faculty of Business Administration places us in a group of elite universities in Canada in generating knowledge leading to more effective management practices. Research strengths in the FBA are diverse; some of this research has been profiled in previous Gardiner Centre Connects articles. There is significant strength in the areas of supply chain management, where researchers are working on problems such as: coordinating partners in decentralized supply chains by developing appropriate contracting mechanisms; managing risks associated with the transportation of hazardous materials, such as the marine transportation of crude oil; and optimally allocating tasks to resources in production processes. The FBA also has a strong core of research on information management. Some researchers are examining how to combine and share information from diverse, independent sources to support operational management and effective decision making. Others are studying the design and adoption of technologies to support businesses and customers in e-commerce and m-commerce environments. There is also research on techniques used to support communication between clients and developers during the analysis of information systems requirements. In accounting, the FBA is a centre of groundbreaking research on the impacts of auditing practices on various measures of firm performance. November 2010
Researchers in organizational behaviour and human resources management are examining a variety of issues including leadership, workplace aggression and violence, performance appraisal, the changing nature of work (including youth, part-time and post-retirement employment), and the effectiveness of workplace training. These examples highlight some of the areas of research strength in the FBA. There are also growing research strengths in areas such as entrepreneurship and business strategy. We encourage you to broaden your perspective on “technology, research, and innovation.” Keep in mind the management context and the fact that management research contributes knowledge, leading to the successful deployment of technologies, and introduces innovative practices that contribute to our competitiveness. For more information on any of these areas of expertise or to connect with management researchers at Memorial, please contact the Associate Dean (Research), Dr. Jeffrey Parsons (jeffreyp@mun.ca). Dr. Jeffrey Parsons is Professor of Information Systems and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Business Administration at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He holds a PhD in Information Systems from the University of British Columbia. His research has been published or will appear in journals such as Nature, Management Science, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Communications of the ACM, ACM Transactions on Database Systems, and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. As Associate Dean (Research), Dr. Parsons was responsible for the development and implementation of a PhD program in Management at Memorial University, and for initiatives to improve the communication of research results to the broader community.
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