This HEPI blog was kindly authored by Adam Lindgreen, Professor of Marketing at the
Copenhagen Business School and Extraordinary Professor with the Gordon
Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria, C. Anthony Di Benedetto, Professor of Marketing at Temple University, Pennsylvania, and Florian Kock, Professor of Management at the Copenhagen Business School.
Over the past numerous years, we—Adam Lindgreen and C. Anthony Di Benedetto—have been editors-in-chief of Industrial Marketing Management. We have also held different managerial positions within academia. This made us reflect on challenges faced by academics: generating original ideas, building a research culture, setting up research groups, applying for grants, undertaking cross-disciplinary research, engaging with industry, ensuring research quality, garnering recognition, supervising PhD students, ensuring teaching quality, delivering research-informed teaching, and ensuring societal value. In a series of blogs, we, together with colleagues, will discuss the above-mentioned topics.
The first topic addresses how academics can generate original ideas. Although academics are under pressure to publish original research, generating truly original ideas is challenging. This difficulty does not stem from external factors hindering creativity, but rather from the fact that original ideas are exceptionally rare. To foster originality, we propose a tripartite model known as the Observing-Bridging-Challenging (OBC) model, which involves three key strategies: observing the world, bridging disciplines, and challenging existing assumptions and theories. These strategies can be applied individually or in combination. Figure 1 illustrates the three primary strategies (I, II, and III) and their possible combinations, which form additional strategies (IV, V, VI, and VII).
In Strategy I, research ideas should stem from engaging and significant real-world observations. For instance, certain phenomena, which are typically observable in the world, might hold relevance within a specific discipline, while others, more intrinsic to a particular field, could also have broader implications. Regardless of the phenomenon and context, it is essential to identify an appropriate theoretical framework for exploring the original idea.
In Strategy II, merging two or more disciplines can provide fresh insights into a particular field. This interdisciplinary approach can uncover original ideas and lead to the development of new theories when existing ones are adapted to fit the newly combined discipline. However, in practice, academics often become deeply entrenched in their own field, rarely exploring beyond its limits, which can obstruct the discovery of original ideas. To counteract this insularity, it is important for academics to read outside their own discipline and seek broader exposure to other areas of research.
In Strategies III to VI, the pursuit of original ideas requires challenging the assumptions and theories that underpin previous research. Academics often uncritically build on established beliefs of their field, thereby reinforcing them. However, hypotheses aligned with existing research may seem too intuitive, leading to the frustrating reviewer ‘so what?’ question. To generate original ideas, academics must step back from conventional theories and identify questionable core assumptions. The most challenging aspect of thinking differently and critically lies in uncovering these underlying assumptions, which necessitates counterfactual reasoning—the ability to envision alternatives to current theoretical assumptions through contrastive questioning.
Ultimately, the combination of Strategies I, II, and III may lead to a ‘golden quadrant’ (Strategy VII), which is likely the most challenging, but also most rewarding, approach. This strategy is achieved when an academic successfully identifies and describes a significant real-world phenomenon (Strategy I), explores it across multiple disciplines (Strategy II), and in doing so, challenges existing ideas and pushes the research field forward (Strategy III).
When following any of the aforementioned strategies, there are important caveats to consider. For instance, since diving into an entirely new area of literature is both risky and challenging, academics should carefully evaluate the potential of identified phenomena before committing to the one that seems most promising or has the highest priority. It’s also crucial to avoid becoming overly focused on a phenomenon that is confined to a narrow or exotic context, as this may result in research with limited relevance and impact. Additionally, while academics should become knowledgeable in multiple disciplines, they must avoid constantly or frivolously shifting between them. Theories should not be borrowed indiscriminately; instead, they need to be specifically adapted or developed for the discipline in question.
To conclude this blog, let’s consider an example that aligns with the golden quadrant strategy. Borland et al. (2016) and Borland and Lindgreen (2013) explored managers’ assumptions about ecological sustainability and examined potential strategies firms might adopt. They focused on ecological sustainability through the lens of various scientific disciplines, such as anthropocentric and ecocentric epistemologies. By doing so, they identified ecocentric transformational marketing strategies that consider not only the business environment but also the natural environment, including ecological and natural sciences. This research challenges traditional marketing strategy assumptions, suggesting that a strategy should not only seek to achieve competitive advantage and influence consumer preferences but also incorporate the physical environment as essential to the well-being of all species and as the source of all products and services. By proposing universal principles for ecocentric transformational marketing strategies, this research advances our understanding of what constitutes a sustainable strategy.
Research is often regarded as the ”currency of the realm,” particularly at research-focused universities. For academics, conducting research is crucial for building a reputation and meeting the requirements for tenure and promotion. For universities, having a core of productive scholars enhances their recognition and rankings among top institutions, which in turn attracts the best students applying to Ph.D. programs. This scholarly prestige also draws Ph.D. graduates seeking to establish their careers in a robust research environment, as well as mid-career academics looking for chaired positions.
These points have significant implications for universities. For instance, the governance structure of universities should facilitate the recruitment, retention, and development of faculty members, while also supporting their personal growth. Universities must allocate resources—such as time and funding—to enable scholars to conduct rigorous, theory-driven, empirical research. This support might involve establishing suitable faculties, departments, and research groups that foster a robust and inclusive research culture. Additionally, universities need to ensure that performance criteria are transparent, so academics clearly understand how their research quality and impact are evaluated and how they are rewarded for their research achievements. We will explore these topics further in upcoming blogs.
Wise words indeed.
And they bring to my mind three quotations, two relatively recent, one rather older:
” The creative act is not an act of creation in the sense of the Old Testament. It does not create something out of nothing; it uncovers, selects, re-shuffles, combines, synthesises already existing facts, ideas, faculties, skills. The more familiar the parts, the more striking the new whole.”
Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (1964)
“The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might expect, by the ignorant mass – which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught – but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition, and in the monopoly of learning.”
Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers (1959)
“It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating change in a state’s constitution. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm partly from fear from adversaries, who have existing laws on their side, and partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience. In consequence, whenever those who oppose changes can do so, they attack vigorously, and the defence made by others is only lukewarm. So both the innovator and his friends are endangered together.”
Machiavelli, The Prince, Book VI, 1513