Research Relevance

At every research stage process andespecially at the end, some reader might say ‘that is quite interesting, but so what?’ How does this contribute to problem solving? What difference will the researchl make to the organisation? What does this mean for a wider theoretical understanding of the topic? Because the ‘so what’ question is so important, it is necessary to look at the different impacts that the research might make – looking at the ‘so what?’ question at an earlier stage may also help to identify the problem which needs researching. Impact on strategy: The research could look at a problem which could lead to a shift towards strategic thinking within the organisation. This might mean that management uses the findings to look at new products or markets or seek to make changes on the organization’s objectives. It is necessary to be realistic but it is also important to realize that research may not achieve strategic impact directly, but has the potential to contribute to changes on the highest level. Impact on operational change or process development: A second form of impact might be related to how the organisation or the department functions or operates. This might emerge from research which explores how a key management process is working and how to make it more efficient or effective. Usually the main desired impact here is to establish the need for the change to take place or to identify factors which should be considered if the change is taken forward. Impacts from project evaluation: A related impact may emerge from researching a problem seeking to examine the outcomes of a specific project or initiative. For example, the research might focus on the extent a new software has led to identified outcomes, or perhaps the organisation has just implemented a large management development programme and an evaluation can be made to determine the extent managers are using the introduced ideas. The desired impact here is to make recommendations about how the specific types of projects might proceed in the future. Employee Engagement impacts: Another impact one could develop to answer the question of ‘so what’ is by looking at how far employees engage with their work. This can be a broad impact but identifying methods to improve employee experiences could lead to changes in a number of areas. However, one may be working for an organisation that runs an annual staff satisfaction survey and so one may not want to simply duplicate this. But one can use the surveys of this nature to discover specific topics which can be positively might impacted. Theoretical and conceptual impacts: Regardless the impact areas one focuses on, a fundamental part of producing a research is to show that it does more than simply solve an organisational problem – as important as that is. Additionally one has to demonstrate how she/he is drawing on theories and concepts with wider implications and which in some way one can contribute. For a great deal, this is the main research impact because the goal is to gain a better understanding of theories to better explain natural and social phenomenon. A research may not be able to deliver a new theory or re-imagine a way of understanding a feature of organisational practice, but it should still be focused on how findings relate to what is already know about the topic. Finally, these different impacts are not mutually exclusive, a topic might link to more than one or there might be further impacts than what currently makes sense at your position (your current role).