Societal Impacts of Higher Education Research: From ‘Publish or Perish’ to ‘Publish and Prosper’ in Business School Scholarship

Abstract

This paper introduces a transformative systems-level framework for understanding the interplay of institutional, cultural, and systemic dynamics influencing the societal impacts of academic research. We introduce and apply the Societal Impacts of Research Institutional Ecosystem (SIRIE) framework to business school scholarship and academic research in higher education. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) serve as SIRIE’s normative ethical framework to benchmark: institutional mission; accreditation bodies’ compliance requirements; faculty tenure and promotion research expectations; the influence of rankings and ratings; and journal quality metrics. Our framework acknowledges the role the Anthropocene Epoch plays in contributing to contemporary social and environmental problems. We argue that recalcitrant institutional forces in academia neutralize the promise of academic scholarship to galvanize meaningful societal impacts. We assert that the contemporary state of higher education research is unfortunately dominated by a “publish or perish” mentality. This narrative produces academic research that is decontextualized from today’s exigent “grand challenges” related to poverty, climate, equity, health, peace, environment, etc., as well as transformative solutions for a sustainable future. By exploring an alternative paradigm for academic research through SIRIE and the SDGs—“publish and prosper”—we detail how academic research can meaningfully contribute to change the world for the better.

Developing and Validating Sustainability Indicators for Measuring Social Impact of University–Community Engagement Programs

“…The growing body of research in academia and practice regarding the influence of community engagement programs by universities on SD is shown in the increasing number of papers published after 2014 [15]. A review indicates that case studies concentrating on particular universities and their impacts on social issues [40,41] and local economic growth [20,42] have been the primary means of investigating the impact of universities on SD. These case studies shed light on how universities promote SD from various perspectives.…”