Is Organization Theory Obvious to Practitioners? A Test of One Established Theory

Abstract

Critics have argued that organization theories which “work” are obvious to practitioners; that is, the theories simply confirm relationships that are already well understood by experienced managers. In our study, four types of respondents—Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) with business school education, CEOs without such education, graduating MBA students, and liberal arts graduate students—were presented with theory-based performance-rating tasks. These tasks identified respondents' beliefs regarding high-performance alignments of businesslevel strategy, structure, and environment for manufacturing firms. The respondents' cause maps were then compared to one another and to the alignment-performance relationships prescribed by business-level contingency theory. The graduating MBAs' cause maps reflected contingency theory most closely. The MBAs' cause maps were much closer to prescriptions of the theory, however, than were those of either the liberal arts graduate students or the experienced CEOs. This suggests that business-level contingency theory is not obvious to educated laypersons, or to highly experienced practitioners; both groups would find that the theory disconfirms aspects of their causal expectations. Further, each of the four respondent types in our study emphasized different contingency factors during the decision-making exercise. We discuss these results and their implications.

“We Don’t Need No Education”—Or Do We? Management Education and Alumni Adoption of Strategy Tools

“…This result elaborates on suggestions that the content of management education shapes management cause maps and mental models (Priem & Rosenstein, 2000). The fact that education content does make a difference may also suggest that business schools and scholars need to think carefully about the consequences of what they are teaching in order to avoid damaging outcomes.…”

“…However, Shipper's (1999) study found no real differences between MBAs and their non-MBAs counterparts in terms of managerial skills, albeit that his findings were developed from a survey of 1000 managers in a single large USA company. By contrast, Priem and Rosenstein (2000) found that MBA graduates hold cause maps that are closer to theory compared with practitioners without postgraduate education or without any management education. Thus, the experience of having formal management education and also the level of education, in terms of undergraduate or postgraduate education appear to be important within the management education concept.…”

Organization Studies as Applied Science: The Generation and Use of Academic Knowledge about Organizations Introduction to the Special Issue

“…The idea that practitioners attend business school for the purposes of getting a value-adding qualification in the job market that they then abandon on the basis that it is too irrelevant to actually use in practice is surely ludicrous. Furthermore, it is not supported by the limited empirical research into uses of theory in practice, which indicates that practitioners do use our theories, albeit not necessarily in the way they were taught in business school (Baruch and Peiper, 2000;Cheng 2000;Hay and Hodgkinson 2008;Ishida 1997;2009;Kretovics 1999;Priem and Rosenstein 2000;Simpson et al 2005;Sturges et al 2003;Wren et al 2007). Rather, it is likely that theories are used because they have technical, cultural and linguistic legitimacy that makes them easily appropriable (Campbell 1997).…”

Instructional Leadership Perceptions and Practices of Elementary School Leaders

“…"Schools are only as good as the quality of faculty, the professional development that supports their learning, and the faculty's capacity to work together to improve instruction" (Bryk, 2010, p. 24). Priem and Rosenstein (2000) suggest that effective leaders align people, support systems, and job design in accordance with the organization's vision to boost performance.…”

“…Effective leaders align staff incentives with the organization's vision and goals (Priem & Rosenstein, 2000).…”