Articol Licenta 3 [612961]

DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR ESSAY
Reflections on the so-called
value-free ideal
A call for responsible science in the
business schools
Anne Tsui
Department of Management, Mendoza College of Business,
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
Abstract
Purpose –Value-free science is an ideal that is neither possible nor desirable, especially for social
sciences. The subject of social sciences is individuals and groups; hence social, moral, ethical, orpolitical values are inherent and unavoidable in all steps of the scientific process. Further, the authorityof science requires the scientist to be responsible experts in ensuring the reliability of knowledge and inassessing the risks in applying the research findings in social policies and practices. The purpose ofthis essay is to discuss the role of values in business school research.Design/methodology/approach –The author explains the two primary types of values relevant for
science: epistemic –norms and standards to ensure good science –and social –criteria not relevant for
discovering the truth of knowledge but may influence decisions related to science especially inevaluating the cost of wrongful conclusions from the research evidence. Based on an analysis ofpublished criticisms of business school research and the author ’s own analysis, the author describes
how business school research is infused with social and political values, undermining the objectivity
and quality of science by business scientists.Findings –The author endorses the idea of responsible science –science that recognizes the mutual
dependence between science and society, and that aims to satisfy both epistemic and social values.The author offers a modest proposal to encourage transformation of business school research to meetboth rigor (valid and reliable knowledge ) and relevance (useful for practice) –the hallmark of
responsible science.Research limitations/implications –The ideas in this essay have implications for further work on
identifying the relevant epistemic and social values to guide business school research.Originality/value –The idea of responsible science can potentially transform business school ’s
research to become both scientifically rigorous and societally relevant.
Keywords Good science, Epistemic values, Responsible science, Socially responsible research,
Socially responsible science, Sound science, Value-free ideal
Paper type Viewpoint
One of the central debates in the philosophy of science is the concept of “value-free
ideal ”(Churchman, 1948; Douglas, 2009; Levi, 1960; Reichenbach, 1951). Its basic
premise is that scientific work should be guided only by internal scientific values(e.g. reliability, validity, explanatory power) and should be free from the influence ofsocial values (e.g. justice, ethics) that are not an inherent part of the scientific process.
The scientist ’s role is to discover knowledge with objectivity, unbiased by any
contextual factor. Scientists are accountable only to other scientists and not to peopleoutside the scientific fields (Kaplan, 1964). Therefore, the isolation of scientists from
worries and social ethos is desirable and necessary to maintain scientists ’autonomy ofCross Cultural & Strategic
ManagementVol. 23 No. 1, 2016pp. 4-28
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2059-5794DOI 10.1108/CCSM-08-2015-0101Received 24 August 2015
Revised 24 August 2015Accepted 25 August 2015The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com /2059-5794.htm
4CCSM
23,1

inquiry and independence of thought. This isolation “permits the individual scientist to
concentrate his attention upon problems that he has good reason to believe that he cansolve ”(Kuhn, 1962, p. 164). Kuhn considers this autonomy to be largely responsible for
success in the natural sciences.
Opponents of value-free ideal, on the other hand, view science as a value-laden
activity, since the major purpose of science is to address human needs (Dewey, 1927).Therefore, a full account of scientific knowledge could not exclude values. Merton ’s
(1942) famous “ethos of science ”points out that the proper functioning of the norms
internal to science depends on the values in the broader society. Recognizing theuncertainty inherent in scientific reasoning and inference, Rudner (1953) argues that
social and ethical values are essential in judging the sufficiency of evidence when
looking to accept or reject a hypothesis and to consider the risk of wrongfulconclusions. At a very basic level, there are simple ethical demands on the scientist
such as honesty, openness and integrity. Science “cannot succeed unless result are
honestly reported, unless every reasonable precaution be taken to avoid experimentalerror, unless evidence running counter one ’s own view is fairly handled, and so on ”
(McMullin, 1982, p. 7).
After several decades of debate, the general conclusion today among philosophers of
science (although some still hold out, e.g. La cey, 1999) is that the value-free ideal is not only
impossible; it is also undesirable (Douglas, 2009). Value-free science is not possible because
values show up in every step of the scientific process, from choosing which problem to
study to offering advice to policy makers in government or in business. Further, the value-free ideal is not desirable becau se societies rely on scientists ’theories and research evidence
in developing technology, policies and reg ulations (Douglas, 2009; Hempel, 1965). The
authority of science creates expectations fo r scientists as responsible experts and public
servants who ensure that scienti fic knowledge is reliable to guid e policies. Therefore, value-
free science (i.e. without the influence of social or ethical values) is an illusion inconsistent
with the reality of scientific work, given i ts interdependence with the social world.
What is the relevance of the value-free ideal to science in business schools? This
question is important for two reasons. First, business school research falls within the
domain of social sciences, having earned legitimacy as a scientific discipline after
business schools adopted the natural science model, following the challenge raised inthe Ford and Carnegie reports (Gordon and Howell, 1959; Khurana, 2007). Additionally,
research in business schools draws heavily on ideas in the disciplines of economics,
sociology, psychology, anthropology and mathematics. Second, similar to othersciences, business school research aims to understand and explain empirical puzzles in
the world of management, business, and organizations. The relevance to practice is
central to business school research (Cummings, 2007; Fisher, 2007; Rousseau, 2006;Rynes and Shapiro, 2005). As such, the question of value-free ideal in relation toresearch[1] within business schools is a legitimate and important one to reflect upon.
Hence, the major focus of this essay is the question “What is the nature of values and
science in business schools? ”My analysis of the current state of business school
research in search of an answer to the above question suggests a paradox. Business
school research observes (or at least appears to observe) epistemic values, but it is also
laden with social (or non-epistemic) values. The paradox is that these non-epistemicvalues do not integrate research with the social world (i.e. businesses). Rather, they
serve to isolate the two worlds. This has occurred because of the dominance of two
internal stakeholders ( journal editors and school leadership) in assessing scientificwork. This evaluation process systematically excludes a third group, managers or5Reflections on
the so-called
value-free
ideal

decision makers who are external stakeholders (Aguinis et al., 2012) and who may be
considered the “ultimate constituency ”(Davis, 2015) for organizational research.
Further, even the application of values internal to science is laden with values externalto the research process. I will show that this internal focus and the infusion of
non-epistemic values, especially political values, in the scientific process and reasoning
are detrimental to the integrity of science in business schools. It leads to a proliferationof junk science (Huber, 1991) –science that fails to meet the minimum standard of
competence or integrity –and, concurrently, it leads to the misuse of the intellectual
talents in business schools. This essay will conclude with an appeal for businessschools to adopt the idea of responsible science (Kourany, 2010, 2013; Tsui, 2013b, 2015)
[2] to restore the integrity of science, to improve the usefulness of this science to
external stakeholders, and to provide true autonomy of inquiry to scientists. Withoutthis transformation, both business schools and society might be better served by
transferring the research function from business schools to research institutions
specifically devoted to true science and scholarship.
Two types of values with potential relevance for science
Values relevant for science can be broadly classified into two types (Douglas, 2009).
The first are the epistemic (including cognitive) values –norms or criteria used in
judging the sufficiency of theory and evidence. “Something is an epistemic value when
it contributes to good science. Epistemic values are part of the norms and standards of
good scientific reasoning. ”(Risjord, 2014, p. 18). The second are the values unrelated to
the conduct of scientific activities. McMullin (1982) used the word non-epistemic to refer
to all values that are not directly relevant for discovering the “truth ”of knowledge.
These non-epistemic values, which broadly includes social and ethical, may affectdecisions at many points in the scientific process, especially when evaluating the
practical or policy implications of the knowledge produced and, in judging the
consequences of error in the theory or the evidence. Risjord (2014) refers to these asmoral and political values. Social or moral values are desired conditions that relate to asociety, groups of individuals or individuals. For example, wealth or health is a social
value that would apply to a society, a group, or an individual. Ethical values are beliefs
and standards about what we should do. For example, fairness or honesty is an ethicalvalue in many societies. Social and ethical values are often related, although they are
not identical. For example, the social values of justice or integrity may have an ethical
dimension, but compassion or success may not involve an ethical element, at least notexplicitly. Political values may reflect the preferences of specific groups or individuals,
e.g., the funding agency specifying the type of research it would support an evaluation
committee defining the type of journals it would consider acceptable, or the reviewerpreferring one theory or methodology independent of the problem or the data.
Epistemic values are standards for evaluating the adequacy of the theory or the
evidence in meeting the goal of science, i.e., whether the research study producesreliable and valid knowledge, which would move us closer to truth. Examples ofepistemic values familiar to business school researchers include construct validity,
internal validity, external validity, and predictive validity. Failure to meet these values
reduces the reliability or accuracy of the knowledge inferred from research findings.Epistemic values are essentially the criteria for sound science. In general, the scientific
community has agreed on the relevant epistemic values for evaluating theory or the
reliability of evidence (McMullin, 1982). The value-free ideal says that the researcher ’s
personal values or personal preferences should not enter into this evaluation. However,6CCSM
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it has been argued that scientific work, either theory or methodological choice, involves
value judgments (McMullin, 1982), and that personal values are unavoidable in theapplication of epistemic values in scientific activities or evaluation (Brown, 2013b;Douglas, 2009; Risjord, 2014). Let us take construct validity for a simple illustration.
Usually, we use a level of 0.80 (whether it is internal consistency, inter-rater agreement,
or test-retest reliability) as indicative of an acceptable level of measurement reliability.However, we also agree that for new measures a lower level is acceptable. For some
measures, we do not even need a reliability estimate (e.g. ROA as a measure of
profitability). Since there is uncertainty about the true reliability of a measure, socialvalue is present when a researcher decides whether 0.80, 0.70, or 0.60 indicates an
acceptable level of reliability. We leave it to the scientists (as authors or as reviewers) to
choose the level that they consider appropriate to the study. Thus the scientists ’
personal values play a role in this decision when some are willing to accept a lower α
coefficient and others insist on a higher threshold. Similarly, theories and evidence with
stronger internal validity or greater predictive validity generally are preferred overthose with less. However, non-epistemic or social value also is involved when thejudgment is affected by researchers ’individual differences, such as when the judgment
takes into consideration the importance of the research topics, the difficulty of data
collection, or preference for a particular theory or data collection method.
Cognitive values involve even more uncertain standards than epistemic values, even
though the demarcation between the two can be vague. Some cognitive values used to
evaluate theories include simplicity (vs complexity), scope (narrow or broad), andexplanatory power. Usually, a simple theory, especially if it is elegant (which certainly
reflects the taste of researchers), is preferred over a complex one. Agency theory
( Jensen and Meckling, 1976) is an example of a simple theory, while institution theory(DiMaggio and Powell, 1991; Scott, 1995) may be considered a complex theory. Broad orgeneral theories may be preferred over narrow theories, although in the management
discipline, many consider “midrange ”theories to be most useful in studying
organizations (Merton, 1968; Pinder and Moore, 2012). Theories that have strongexplanatory power are preferred over those with limited explanatory power. However,
some researchers may be willing to accept lower explanatory power if the idea is novel
and elegant, while other researchers may eschew a model that explains only a fewpercentages of the variance in the outcome variable. There is a trade-off between
simplicity, accuracy, and generality (Weick, 1999). A simple theory may not be
accurate, as has been shown of agency theory (Ghoshal, 2005). A general theory may beneither simple nor accurate. Scientists vary in their preference for simple or complex
theories, and this preference may influence the evaluation (i.e. review) of another
scientist ’s theory choice in a research study.
Scientists have generally agreed that epistemic and cognitive values are necessary
to uncover flaws in theories or inadequacies of evidence and to insure against wrongful
inference. However, they also agree that social and ethical values more often than not
influence the research process indirectly (and sometimes even directly) and in fact maybe useful in the interpretation of the adequacy of theory or of evidence in making
claims about the acceptability of scientific work and the potential use of generated
knowledge.
Social values are values that are not internal to the work of science but nonetheless
may enter into the mind of the researcher (either consciously or unconsciously) when
considering the claim of reliable knowledge. Social values important to a society such asjustice, freedom, social stability or human dignity often overlap with ethical values.7Reflections on
the so-called
value-free
ideal

Desire to protect humans from harm when they participate in research, for instance, led
to the creation of institutional review boards (Ippoliti, 2015) that put limits on a scientist ’s
use of humans in a research study. In this way, a social value –protection of human
wellbeing –directly enters into the scientific process. Because of the influence of social
values, the research project may be delayed or the research design may have to be
modified, which sometimes may compromise the research from satisfying epistemicvalues. Choice of a research method can be influenced by a social rather than
epistemic value. For example, Kulik (2011) describes the growing popularity of the
multilevel, multisource, and longitudinal research design in the management researchcommunity, a research design that creates immense challenges for the researcher. These
challenges include the difficulty of meeting the institutional review board ’s approval for
this complex research design, increasing demands on the organization to provide suchcomplex data, and impacting the progress of organizational research. Preferring or using
a complex design can reflect epistemic value (if it is necessary for the problem being
studied), but also can be driven by the personal taste of the scientists (reflecting a value ofsophistication or pride, or a desire to placate the reviewer). Where social or ethical valuescome into play most critically is in considering the consequences of errors in the inference
made from the results, a problem known as inductive risk (Hempel, 1965). Because
evidence is never complete or flawless to support a hypothesis with certainty, there isrisk to either accepting or rejecting a hypothesis based on the available evidence,
producing the classic Type I error (accepting a hypothesis to be true based on the
evidence when in fact it is false) or Type II error (rejecting a hypothesis to be false whenin fact it is true). Social values are needed to weight the consequence of each type of error.
A frequent example in discussions of inductive risk is the use of chemicals in products
for consumer (e.g. food or drugs) or industry (e.g. construction materials or pesticides).A Type I error (false positive, inferring harm when the truth is no harm) would lead tounnecessary regulation by the government that has the good intention of protecting the
public. A Type II error (false negative, inferring no harm when the truth is harm) would
increase the risk to public health because lenient regulation would be implemented as(wrongly) suggested by the research evidence. The scientist has the responsibility of
advising policy makers on the consequences of each type of error. Policy makers in
government and decision makers in companies have to weigh the cost to the consumersand the cost of production, respectively. Consumers may prefer stricter standards of
statistical significance (to reduce Type I error or false positives) while industry may
prefer more lenient standards (to reduce Type II error or false negatives). Increasingsample size will increase the power of the test and will reduce Type II error. However,
increasing sample size will increase the cost of research. Whose values should take
priority in assessing the consequence of the inductive risk in this example: citizens,industries, or scientists? Clearly, this is not a question of epistemic but of social value.
The inductive risk idea is also pertinent in evaluating business research. An
example is the application of insights from the agency theory ( Jensen and Meckling,
1976) to the development of executive compensation in dealing with the agencyproblem. According to agency theory, there is goal conflict between hired managers
and owners (of private firms or shareholders of listed firms). Further, it is difficult to
observe the behavior of managers. Therefore, an incentive system that increases themanagers ’ownership (actual or psychological) of the firm ought to increase goal
alignment. Goal alignment is observed when managers make decisions that are
beneficial to the firm, hence to shareholders. A series of studies indeed show that equityownership of managers relates to strategic and financial decisions consistent with8CCSM
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shareholder interests (Eisenhardt, 1989). Practically, this means that stock-based
executive compensation would increase shareholder returns. Armed with thisknowledge, in the years since 1976, corporate use of stock-based executivecompensation has exploded. However, Martin (2011) has provided a disturbing
report: during the period while CEO compensation ballooned, corporate performance
declined. Specifically, for the 20 years before 1980, CEO compensation per dollar of netincome earned for the 365 biggest publicly traded American companies fell by 33
percent. In the same period, real compound annual return on the S&P 500 was about 7.5
percent. In other words, before 1976, CEOs earned more for their shareholders forsteadily less and less relative compensation. After 1976, CEO compensation per dollar
of corporate net earnings doubled from 1980 to 1990 and quadrupled from 1990 to 2000.
In the same period, the compounded real annual return on the S&P 500 was 6.5 percent.Martin (2011) concludes that the idea of maximizing shareholder wealth and associated
executive compensation is the dumbest idea in the world (Denning, 2011). In other
words, stock-based executive compensation, instead of curing the disease ofmanagerial greed, makes the patient sicker, that is, greedier.
Clearly, both the theory ( Jensen and Meckling, 1976) and early research evidence
(Eisenhardt, 1989) using either cross-sectional design or limited time periods suggest a
positive relationship between ownership-based compensation of managers and corporateperformance. Since there is inherent uncertainty in this hypothesis (both in theory and in
evidence), it is necessary to estimate the inductive risk before applying the knowledge to
practice. A Type I error of this hypothesis would mean that there is no relationship.In fact, experience from actual practice over a long period of time indicates that there is a
negative relationship. The research on agency theory fails to meet both the epistemic
value (estimating the reliability of the knowledge) and social value (evaluating theconsequences of inductive risk). The false positive error in agency theory research wasvery costly to shareholders. While this is only money lost, false positive in scientific
research could have serious consequences for humanity, such as in the development of
the atomic bomb. Scientists had to estimate inductive risk before the Trinity test (the firstdetonation of the atomic bomb). They were concerned about the possibility of an atomic
chain reaction that might create a nuclear holocaust (Rhodes, 1986). Only after a careful
evaluation, arriving at the conclusion that it was scientifically impossible, did thescientists proceed to test the atomic bomb. Similarly, an analysis of the inductive risk
associated with the application of financial instruments might have prevented or at least
reduced the magnitude of the world financial crisis in 2008 (Wolf, 2014). These examplesshow that scientists in both natural and social sciences have a moral responsibility to
consider both positive and negative consequences of their scientific work (Douglas, 2009).
To meet this responsibility, social value is inevitable and desirable in evaluating anytheory (such as organizational design, leadership, strategy, incentive systems) andassociated empirical evidence that may have actionable implications.
In summary, both epistemic and social values are necessary and important in the
responsible pursuit of science and the cautious application of scientific knowledge.Table I summarizes the two types of values and the role of each in the scientific process.
It shows that epistemic values have primarily a direct role. However, research may lead
to revisions of epistemic or cognitive values over time, e.g., development of newstatistical methods to estimate measurement reliability. Social values, however, may
have both a direct role and an indirect role in guiding scientific work, in evaluating the
accuracy of the claims of reliable knowledge, and in considering the consequences ofwrongful inference.9Reflections on
the so-called
value-free
ideal

Values and business school research
The discussion so far is based on the assumption that science is the development and
accumulation of reliable (true) knowledge with potential application to solving
problems in the natural and social worlds. Scientists, due to their status as authoritiesof knowledge, have a moral responsibility to minimize error in their scientific work
(through applying epistemic values rigorously) and to estimate the degree of inductive
risk due to uncertainty associated with scientific reasoning and empirical evidence(through applying social values thoughtfully and responsibly). There is a generalagreement that business schools have a common mission to develop knowledge about
business organizations and to train business leaders and managers using the
knowledge from high quality research. Research in business schools, by necessity, issubject to assessment by both epistemic values (does the research qualify as sound
science) and social values (does the research produce useful knowledge). Below, I will
offer an analysis of how values may appear at the four main phases of research inbusiness schools, first, the choice of topics to study; second, evaluation of theories and
research methods; third, the interpretation of empirical findings; and fourth, the choice
of outlets to publish research results.
Choice of questions to study
From the beginning, the field of business and management has been dedicated to the
study of organizations with the purpose of improving efficiency of production, gaining
cooperation of employees, and contributing to both the industrial and socialdevelopment of society (Barnard, 1938; Khurana, 2007; Dauten, 1958). The Academy ofRole of Value Epistemic/cognitive values Social/ethical values
Direct Serve as criteria to evaluate the
adequacy of scientific reasoningand evidence:
Nature of theory: scope (simple vs
complex), accuracy (weak vs strong),generality (narrow vs broad)Clarity and reasonableness ofbackground assumptions of the theoryChoice of methodology, data collectionprocedure, data interpretationValidity, reliability, samplerepresentativeness, appropriatestatistical procedureStatistical sensitivity and Type Iand II errorsServe as constraints or goals but do not
interfere with the internal scientific reasoning:Choosing which projects to pursue or to fund,
e.g., pressing problems in society, such as
climate change, food insecurity,discrimination, job stress, agingWeighing the costs and benefits of researchon new technologies, e.g., GMOsDeciding on the appropriate method orsample, e.g., use of animals or humans intesting drugs or chemicalsProtecting humans in research studies whenhumans are the objects of the study
Indirect Revision of epistemic and cognitive
values or criteria based on evidence,theory, or values (Brown, 2013a)Serve to fill in the gap of incomplete
information about the inference (inferencegap) and to evaluate the consequences ofwrongful inference (inductive risk):Economic vs social costs (e.g. consequences of
Type I and Type II errors, increasing sample
size to reduce Type I error)Justice, safety, privacy (e.g. cost and benefit ofinductive risk to different affected groups)
Table I.Direct and indirectrole of epistemic andsocial values inscience10CCSM
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Management was founded in 1936 to support and foster the research and educational
mission of business schools. The founding editor of the Academy of Management
Journal (AMJ) , Paul Dauten, Jr, specified the objectives of research in the editorial
statement of the inaugural issue:
[…] the general objective of the Academy shall be therefore to foster a philosophy of
management that will make possible the accomplishment of the economic and social
objectives of an industrial society with increasing efficiency and effectiveness: the public ’s
interests must be paramount in any such philosophy, but adequate consideration must be
given to the legitimate interests of capital and labor [ …] (Editor, 1958, pp. 5-6).
Has research in management since 1958 lived up to this aspiration? Curious about this
question, Walsh et al. (2003) analyzed 1,738 empirical articles published from 1958 to
2000 in the AMJ . They found that more than 70 percent of the articles focus on
performance-oriented outcomes (efficiency, productivity, profitability, market value,innovation, etc.) and less than 30 percent on social outcomes (satisfaction, health, stress,
and social responsibility). They reached this conclusion: “scholarship in our field has
pursued society ’s economic objectives much more than it has its social ones ”(859). Tsui
and Jia (2013) updated and expanded this study by focusing on studies that involveChinese samples in the period 1981-2012. Their reasoning was that management
scholars in China, a socialist country, would be likely to value both social outcomes and
economic outcomes of firms. They analyzed over 300 articles published in six leadingEnglish journals ( AMJ ,ASQ ,JAP,JIBS,OrgScience andSMJ) and almost 3,000 articles
in three leading Chinese language journals[3]. The results from this analysis are even
more dramatic than those from the Walsh et al. (2003) study. Over 80 percent of the
articles in the six English journals and over 90 percent in the Chinese journals focus on
performance or economic outcomes. The trend lines are similar for studies at the
individual, organizational, and societal levels. These results suggest that both Westernand Chinese scientists value economic over social outcomes in their studies of
organizations. This dominance of economic value has persisted over the years and
shows no sign of abating. Management research has failed to achieve the nobleobjectives expressed by the founding editor of the AMJ , that research should address
both economic and social objectives of an industrial society, with paramount attention
to public interest, as well as adequate consideration of the legitimate interests of both
capital and labor.
In recent years, journal editors have tried to shift attention to social outcomes. For
example, in 2012, AMR published a special forum on the topic of care and compassion
in organizations (Rynes et al., 2012), and in 2014 AMJ editors called for research on the
topics of aging and management (Kulik et al., 2014), climate change (Howard-Grenville
et al., 2014), organizations with purpose (Hollensbe et al., 2014), and grand challenges in
management (Academy of Management Journal, 2015). Management and Organization
Review calls for research on humanistic management (Tsui and Jia, 2013) and attention
on Africa as a context for expanding management research (George, 2015). Tsui (2013a)
encourages compassion in organization and management research. The concern for
studying problems important to society is present in many other sciences andprofessions. US President Barak Obama has called on research universities,
foundations, philanthropists, and companies to join him in addressing the grand
challenges in the areas of energy, health, education, environment, national security, andglobal development. The US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has identified
14 grand challenges (National Academy of Engineering, 2013), such as providing11Reflections on
the so-called
value-free
ideal

access to clean water, preventing nuclear terror, and securing the cyberspace. It
encourages engineering research to make the world a better place to live in throughresearch in these challenge areas. In other words, both published work and calls fornew research reveal the social values of the scientific communities as well as policy
makers in government, business, and civil societies. Using these values to guide the
selection of topics to study is permissible so long as the topics meet the needs of society(Kourany, 2010, 2013). Unfortunately, currently most researchers in organizational
science parse the texts of research literature to look for “theoretical gaps ”to fill
(Alvesson and Sandberg, 2011; Davis, 2015; Suddaby, 2014) instead of exploring newresearch areas in the real world. Using the existing literature as the source of ideas for
new research perpetuates the research focus of existing literature, accounting for the
continuing domination of a focus on economic outcomes and contributing toincremental rather than ground-breaking research. However, studying new topics can
be risky for beginning (or even experienced) scientists (Tsui, 2013b). Insecurity and
maintaining the status quo (hence perpetuating the current paradigm) appear to be themain non-epistemic values guiding the decision of what topics to study by scientists inbusiness schools.
Evaluation of theories and research methods
An interesting development in management research is the increasing emphasis on
theory (Hambrick, 2007; Suddaby, 2014) with the purported aim to improve the
contribution of research to knowledge. Contribution to theory becomes an importantepistemic (in reality a social) value in evaluating the acceptability of a research paper.
Curious about whether and how articles in AMJ contribute to theory, Colquitt and
Zapata-Phelan (2007) analyzed a total of 667 articles published in the 45 years from1963 to 2007. They coded these articles on a five-point scale in terms of the article ’s
contribution to theory testing or theory building. They found most articles in the earlier
27 years (1963-1989, before 1990) to be primarily reporters (description of phenomenawith no theory) or theory builders (development of new theories either inductively ordeductively). Articles in the recent 18 years (1990-2007) were mostly testers, expanders,
qualifiers and a small number of builders. There were no reporters. In fact, most of the
articles after 2000 were theory elaboration studies.
This pattern is not surprising since AMJ is a theory-focussed journal. Other
journals, especially those that focus on phenomenon-based research (addressing
empirical puzzles) might not have this strong theory orientation. However, AMJ leads
the field. Most management researchers read AMJ and aspire for their research to
meet the standards of AMJ papers. Most of the AMJ reviewers also review for other
journals. For better or worse, the researchers (either as authors or reviewers) carrythe theory focus to other journals. I sought some evidence on this conjecture. I
analyzed the articles in Cross -Cultural Strategic Management (CCSM )f o ra
comparative analysis. The mission statement of CCSM , from its founding year of
1994 through 2014, emphasizes addressing cr oss-cultural management issues. The
statement does not even mention the word theory[4]. I expected much less theory
focus in CCSM articles in these 21 years, unless, as I speculated, both authors and
reviewers are influenced by the normative (non-epistemic) expectation of theory
contribution.
CCSM published 441 articles from 1994 to 2 014. Two students independently
coded the articles into five categories: descrip tive (without theory), theory application
(use of existing theory to explain the pr oblem being studied), theory building12CCSM
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(propose a new theory), theory extensio n (improving the theory as main goal by
adding mediators or moderators, or testin g boundary conditions), and prescriptive
papers (not scientific papers since these do not contribute to new knowledge). The
inter-coder agreement exceeded 0.80 o n all the categories. I expected few CCSM
papers would be theory building or extension given its mission of focusing on
addressing substantive issues rather than on th eoretical contribution. The results are
in Figure 1.
The results show that in the earlier years (from 1994 to 2002), descriptive and theory
application papers had the lion ’s share, along with so me theory building
and prescriptive papers. This pattern seems consistent with CCSM ’s pre-2015
mission. However, prescriptive papers essentially disappeared after 2001. In the last
decade (2005-2014), there was a sharp increase in the theory extension research, fromaround 20 percent before 2004 to around 50 percent beginning in 2005. In other words,
in recent years, even an applied journal like CCSM values “contribution to theory ”
papers. This emphasis on theory is formalized and highlighted in the revised missionstatement for this journal[5].
Hambrick (2007) discussed the problem of too much emphasis on theory in
management research, relative to the natural sciences or even other disciplines in the
business schools (e.g. accounting, finance, and marketing). In science, theories aredeveloped or used to explain and understand empirical puzzles. Theories in
management, however, have become greatly divorced from empirical puzzles,
contributing to this “research-practice gap ”that has been discussed for many years by
many scholars (Cummings, 2007; Hambrick, 1994; Pfeffer, 2014; Rynes, 2007; Walsh,
2011). Many scholars have tried to understand why management research has reified
theory as the quintessential focus of research and why it is so divorced fromphenomena in the world of business and management. Birkinshaw et al. (2014) and
Suddaby (2014) cautioned us to distinguish good theory from “fetishistic theory ”which
refers to “theory that has become ritualized, mechanical and artificial, or theory that
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%
1994
1995
199619971998
1999
2000
200120022003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
20102011
20122013
2014Percentage
Y earNew Ext App Des PrePercentage of Papers published in CCM (1994 to 2014)
by Type and Y ear
Notes: New, new theory building; Ext, extension of existing theories; App,
application of existing theories; Des, descriptive studies with no theory; Pre,prescriptive studies with or without theoryFigure 1.
Types of papers
published in
Cross-Cultural
Management
1994-201413Reflections on
the so-called
value-free
ideal

has, largely, been drawn from parsing texts rather than experience, ”and that this
ritualization and rationalization of theory is “largely in response to the increasing
career pressures to publish ”(448). Fetishistic theory requires theorists to identify and
fill increasingly narrow gaps in existing theories and thus becomes increasingly distant
from practice. Suddaby continues with the following thought:
As theories become more fetishistic, they also become more “scientistic ”. That is, they adopt
the appearance –the form, language, and presentation of science –without the functional
contribution of new knowledge. Scientism, thus, applies the formal language of theory and
method to explain the obvious or to re-characterize existing knowledge [ …] applying a more
sophisticated method or an embellished theoretical framing to solve an old issue, becomesmore important than the production of new knowledge or a fresh insight (2014, p. 449).
Beyond theory fetishism and scientism, there also are concerns of questionable
research practices, ranging from falsification and fabrication to selective reporting offindings (cherry picking), or post hoc hypothesizing (Bedeian et al., 2010; Tsui, 2013a;
2015). Although there are debates on how serious the problem of misconduct is in
science (Fanelli, 2009), studies have reported occurrences that range from trivial toalarming. A meta-analysis of 18 studies on misconduct in the natural sciences found a
pooled weighted average of 2 percent ( n¼7, 95 percent, CI: 0.86-4.45) of scientists
admitting to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once. Up to33.7 percent admitted other questionable research practices. Because this isself-reported, the results may be an under-estimation of real instances. Bedeian et al.
(2010) surveyed 384 tenured and non-tenured faculty in business schools and asked if
they had observed colleagues engaging in falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism(FFP), as well as a number of other questionable practices. A majority (27-79 percent,
depending on the specific practice in the FFP category) reported that they had
witnessed these misconducts. The percentages reach 92 percent on other questionablepractices. It is possible that researchers might over-report colleagues committing these
practices. However, based on social expectations, scientists should have the motivation
to protect the reputation of their profession and minimize reporting of misconduct(Fanelli, 2009). The truth may lie somewhere between self-report and other report.
There are many ways that authors can write articles full of intriguing results that are
in fact false or misleading, oblivious of the serious conflict of interest between publishableresults and accurate results (Nosek et al. , 2012). Davis (2015) agrees with these
observations, “There is an emerging consensus in some quarters that the system of
journals and academic career incentives often favors novelty over truth in publications,
that individual academic researchers are often rewarded for being interesting rather thangetting it right, leading to systematic biases in the published record ”(181).
Fetish theories have the form of theory, but they are not directly connected to any
empirical phenomenon. Scientism encourages technicality, favoring fashionablemodeling approaches, fancy statistical procedures, or new and clever ideas
regardless of their substantive importance or advancement of understanding
(Birkinshaw et al. , 2014; Pfeffer, 2014). These research practices reflect values of
expediency, instrumentality, faddism, personal preferences, ( job or career) insecurity,or careerism. These values are neither epistemic nor social or ethical but are certainly
dysfunctional by turning potentially good science into junk science.
The problems of theory fetishism and questionable research practices should be
detectable during the review process of the scientific work. Unfortunately, the review
process also is fraught with problems (Bedeian, 2003, 2004; Starbuck, 2003; Tsui and14CCSM
23,1

Hollenbeck, 2009). The most serious and prevalent problem is the domination of
personal preferences (a social value) over scientific criteria (epistemic values) in theevaluation of manuscripts. Bedeian (2003) surveyed 178 authors of the two leadingjournals in management, AMJ and AMR , about their experiences with the review
process. He reports “Among the survey ’s more disturbing findings, more than one third
of the responding authors reported that recommended revisions in their manuscriptswere based on an editor ’s or referee ’s personal preferences, and almost 25% indicated
that in revising their manuscripts they had actually made changes they felt were
incorrect ”(2003: 331). Starbuck (2003) offers evidence to show that “editorial decisions
incorporate bias and randomness ”(344). In essence, non-epistemic values are rampant
in the evaluation of scientific work (during the manuscript review process), leading to
randomness in which papers get published (Starbuck, 2005), threatening the integrityof science and the production of valid knowledge.
Interpretation and presentation of empirical findings
Epistemic values support the detection of flaws in an empirical study and ensure
the degree of uncertainty about the ev idence is within acceptable limits.
Replications and reporting of both positive and negative results are important
epistemic (and social) values. However, in many fields, there is a strong preferencefor hypotheses confirming results. Non-signi ficant results, results inconsistent with
the hypotheses or with prior findings, and, especially, anomalies are consistently
unreported. This confirmation bias is ubiquitous in psychological research(Nickerson, 1998; Nosek, et al., 2012), and it also pervades the management literature
(Davis, 2015; Leung, 2011). This selective rep orting of hypotheses, cherry picking
results, and formulating hypotheses based on the results are inconsistent with boththe scientific principles of falsification and replication, and the social expectations
of honesty and integrity. Reviewers, unf ortunately, instead of detecting such
practices, may even coach or insist authors to remove unsupported hypothesesduring the review process. As a result, publis hed work is potentially infested with
false positive conclusions. This confirmat ion bias in part reflects the domination of
the normal science paradigm (Kuhn, 1996) , which encourages scientists to work “in
the neighborhood of existi ng theories and paradigms ”(Barkema et al. , 2015, p. 465),
with anomalies or surprising results sys tematically suppressed or ignored. While
e p i s t e m i cv a l u e ss e r v et oe n s u r er i g o ri nm ethods and reliability of the evidence,
social values condone the prevalence of Type I errors (associated with confirmationbias, selective reporting, or post hoc hypothesizing). These conditions suggest that
authors may be influenced by non-epistemic values of insecurity and careerism
while reviewers may be influenced by personal preference (for certainty theories ormethods) and power (punishing authors with a rejection recommendation for
non-compliance to their directives for change).
Articles in management or business journals rarely discuss the problem of inductive
risk associated with Type I and II errors. Doctoral students learn about these ideas in theirstatistics or research methods courses. Then, they essentially forget about them because
these terms rarely appear in journal articles. As discussed above, there is no expectation
that research in business schools will be applied to practice. The goal of business schoolresearch is publication. This lack of attentio n to the consequences of research (in terms of
both the quality and the usefulness of knowledge) is both a cause and a result of the inward
focus. According to the value-free ideal, this isolation from the social concerns of society
should free scientists to concentrate their atte ntion on the problems that they want to solve15Reflections on
the so-called
value-free
ideal

(Kuhn, 1962). This independence has led to successes in the natural sciences. Why is
business school research not enjoying this same success? The answer is obvious. Science inbusiness schools is highly value-laden, and scientists do not have independence in their
scientific inquiries.
Paradoxically perhaps, many id eas from business school research do appear in textbooks
and are taught to students in all levels from undergraduates to MBAs to executives.
Textbook authors (most of whom are accomplis hed scholars) select the scientific ideas or
results based on their perceived relevanc e for practice and contribution to a body of
knowledge. But since high quality journals a re not a guarantee of the quality of articles,
textbooks may consist of both good and bad the ories or results with unknown inductive risk.
Two examples will illustrate this problem. First, most business schools to day still teach their
students that managers ’responsibility is to maximize sha reholder values and managers
must be incentivized to focus on this goal. As discussed above, the influence of agency
theory on executive compensation is undeni able, but with dismal results in terms of
increasing return to shareholders (Martin, 2011). Ghoshal (2005) explains in detail why
agency theory in fact is bad for management practice. A second example of a management
idea that appears in most strategy textbooks and that received enthusiastic support from
managers is Porter ’s (1985, 2008) theory of competitive strategy. Porter earned the reputation
that he was to strategy as “Aristotle was to metaphysics ”(Denning, 2012). His consulting
firm The Monitor Group enjoyed exceptional s uccess from its founding in 1983 until it filed
bankruptcy in November 2012. Even before its ba nkruptcy, critics (Stewart, 2009) suggested
that Porter ’s idea was lacking in both fact and logic. In Denning ’s (2012) words “there was no
evidence that sustainable competitive adva ntage could be created in advance by studying
the structure of an industry. ”
A commonality of these two examples is the lack of an evaluation of “inductive risk ”
in both theory and evidence[6]. In fact, most management theories that appear in ourjournals on any topic (e.g. leadership, job design, organizational development, reward
and punishment systems) were not subject to assessments of consequences associated
with inductive risk. A consequence of wrongful inference in business research is a lot ofwasted money and negative spill over on employees and society. The agency theory
and the competitive strategy theory are examples of management theories that would
benefit from a risk assessment informed by social or ethical values. The followingstatement reflects the desirable role of social values in addition to epistemic values in
judging a management theory. Denning said Porter ’s strategy framework:
[…] isn ’t just an epistemological black hole; in its essence, it ’s antisocial, because it preserves
excess profits, and it ’s bad for business, because it doesn ’t work. It accomplishes the unlikely
feat of goading business leaders to do wrong both to their shareholders and to their fellowhuman beings (Denning, 2012).
Clearly, society as a consumer of scientific knowledge has the right to complain about
unproven ideas, and scientists have a moral responsibility to get it right (Davis, 2015;
Douglas, 2009; Kourany, 2013).
Reporting of findings
The role of non-epistemic values is most evident and deterministic at this final stage of
the scientific process –the reporting and dissemination of research findings. The
research is shown in public forums, orally or in writing, and is necessary for knowledge
sharing and accumulation. There are a variety of venues for this dissemination,including conferences, workshops, books, journals articles, and research monographs.16CCSM
23,1

Books and research reports are appropriate venue s for large projects. Journals are suitable
for self-contained ideas or studies that can be d escribed in sufficient details within a limited
number of pages. All works that appear in these public forums have already gone throughscrutiny, and are now available for public de bate and discussion. Published works are
subject to further reviews and commentaries, and this is a healthy exchange that advances
future work on the topic. Normally, individual scientists can choose the venue that is mostappropriate for their ideas to reach the right audience and to maximize exposure of the new
ideas or discoveries. In earlier years in the history of business schools, most research
findings were published in books, possibly due to the lack of journals as well as the large-scale nature of research projects (Barkema et al., 2015; Smith and Hitt, 2005). In the recent
past twenty years, however, journal articles have become most valued (Adler and Harzing,
2009). Business schools even specify the “list”of journals where their faculty should
publish their research. The list usually consis ts of high status (A) journals, ranked by their
impact factors (number of citations to the articles published in the journal in a year by
articles in the other journals over the following two years). Books, book chapters andarticles in lower tier journals are eschewed , scorned or even punished (Tsui, 2013b; Walsh,
2011). What are the values that drive business schools (or other disciplines across the
university) to adopt this publication policy, constraining scientists ’autonomy in choosing
the appropriate venue to share their work, and specifically to shy away from writing booksor more applied outlets?
The answer is the commercialization of the business school mission. An industry of
ratings and rankings of business schools emerged in recent years (Walsh, 2011).The Bloomberg Businessweek MBA ranking started in 1988. The Financial Times global
MBA program ranking began in 1999. Beyond these commercial rankings, scholars are
also eager to measure research productivity as an indicator of scholarly success. There is
an abundance of articles comparing the resea rch productivity of schools and individual
scholars (Azar and Brock, 2008; Certo et al., 2010; Podsakoff et al., 2008). Science in business
schools has become an annual pageant show with multiple judges rating schools on
teaching and research, using criteria that ar e observable and countable to achieve some
degree (or semblance) of objectivity. Prestige or fame of individual scientists and the
reputation of the schools are defined by the number of A level journal publications,
regardless of the actual content of the research or the actual quality of the papers thatappears in these A level journals (Macdonald and Kam, 2007). Nosek et al. observed, “To
the extent that publishing itself is rewarded, then it is in scientists ’personal interests to
publish, regardless of whether the published findings are true ”(2012, p. 616). Rewarding
scientists for “impact ”(citation counts) and “productivity ”(article counts) is a perverse
incentive system leading to many questio nable research pract ices including the
inappropriate manipulation o f peer reviews (Moylan, 2015).
There is a strong assumption that all the articles in the high status A journals are
of high quality. However, many scholars (R ousseeuw, 1991; Starbuck, 2005) point out
that this is a fallacy. Based on the dis agreement between reviewers on their
evaluation of manuscripts (between r¼0.08 and 0.45, Table 2, Starbuck, 2005) and
the low correlation between reviews an d the later citations of the paper ( r¼0.24,
Gottfredson, 1978), the true value of a manuscript is uncertain. This randomness
means that top tier journals publish many low quality papers, and some excellentpapers get published in lower tier journal s. The famous Peters and Ceci study (1982)
proved the point when eight of nine published papers[7]were rejected when they were
resubmitted to the same journals that ha d published them 18-24 months earlier.
The authors used fictitious names and affi liations and made cosmetic changes to the17Reflections on
the so-called
value-free
ideal

title, abstract and opening paragraph. This evidence indicates that there is hardly a
relationship between the quality of the jour nal and the quality of any paper in it. The
focus on top tier journals pervades all sciences, leading to the San Franciscodeclaration (Cagan, 2013) signed by 155 editors and publishers of scholarly journals
in a variety of disciplines representing 82 organizations worldwide at the December
2012 meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology[8]. This declaration decries andcalls for a halt to the practice of using publications in high impact factor journals as a
measure of a scientist ’sc o n t r i b u t i o n s .
Despite these warnings, business schools worldwide are continuing the practice of
using this single criterion in hiring, promotion and tenure decisions. This counting
method of evaluation essentially eliminates the intellectual autonomy of scientists.
Researchers focus on writing for these journals, perusing them for ideas to study,following the dominant theories and research methods, avoiding new topics that might
be risky and focusing on filling the theoretical gaps in the literature. It is a vicious cycle
that begins and ends with the journal list. The values that dominate this final stage ofthe research process are tied primarily to the school ’s aspiration to rise in reputation
and the scientists ’desire for career success. The consequence is damage to the integrity
and usefulness of science since such research fails to meet both the epistemic (reliable
knowledge) and social values (beneficial knowledge) of scholarship.
A call for responsible science
Kourany (2010) introduced the idea of socially responsible science that involves a joint
consideration and satisfaction of both epistemic and social values. Socially responsible
science recognizes the mutual dependence between science and society. Tsui (2013b,
2015) uses the term socially responsible scholarship to encourage transformation ofbusiness school research to meet the criteria of both rigor (valid and reliable
knowledge) and relevance (useful for practice). How should we move forward with
responsible science in the business schools?
One encouraging development is the proliferation of “Code of ethical conducts ”in
many scientific disciplines (Brown, 2013a). These codes are designed to ensure the
application of epistemic values and the appropriate use of social values in every stage of
the scientific process. Many such international codes of ethics already exist in the fields ofbiomedical research, medical sciences, sociology, archaeology, and psychology. In the
management discipline, scholarly associations like the Academy of Management, the
Academy of International Business, and the International Association for ChineseManagement Research have similar codes focusing broadly on professional conduct
of their members. However, these codes tend to be general. We need codes specific to the
scientific process to guide scientific behavior and to support “the autonomy of science,
the accountability of science, and the public ’s trust in science ”(Kourany, 2013, p. 96). To
encourage integrity in scientific conduct, Management and Organization Review devoted
an entire issue to “Research and Publication Ethics ”(Tsui and Galaskiewicz, 2011) with
twelve articles or essays. This is social value of a scientific community at work.
Moving forward with responsible science for business schools, I offer a modest
proposal. I suggest the community of scholars in the business school disciplines jointly
develop a list of epistemic, cognitive, social, and ethical values that are relevant in thepursuit of science. I suggest defining the values appropriate at each stage of the
scientific process, and clarifying the role of each type of values, either directly or
indirectly. Below I share some preliminary thoughts on this value clarification exercisefor each of the main four stages of a research project.18CCSM
23,1

Choosing topics to study
At this first stage, social values should play a direct role. This ensures that scientific
resources and talents are applied to problems that are important to society, as defined bythe external constituency of schools or of disciplines. I have mentioned earlier that the
NAE has identified fourteen grand challenges and that AMJ has called for research on the
topics of aging, climate changes, and purpose. Recently, the Journal of Service Research
developed five categories of research priorities through a multi-stage process of pollingthe opinions of experts in the field of service research, in marketing, operations, and
management (Ostrom et al. , 2015). Learning from these experiences, the professional
association for each discipline (finance, accounting, marketing, operations, andmanagement) can define the ‘grand challenges ’in the world of practice. This could be
a biennial exercise to identify new emerging issues. Each school can further choose a sub
set of these grand challenges that would support the mission of the school or the missionof the university. For example, the Engineering College at the University of Notre Dame is
one of 122 engineering schools in the USA that has pledged to train a minimum of 20
“Grand Challenge Scholar Engineers ”each year to specially prepare them to lead the way
in solving large-scale engineering problems. At the same time, the research program ofthe College also aims to directly contribute to solving some of these grand challenges.
These strategies are designed to support the mission of the College of Engineering with
an aspiration of contributing to the “the greatest good for society ”(https://engineering.nd.
edu/about/visionmission). Likewise, business schools can aspire to contribute to a better
world by solving the grand challenges of the business world globally. I suggest a few
important challenges that I have observed and state them in the form of researchquestions. How are organizations addressing issues such as global warming, resource
depletion, and poverty, social justice, or corporate greed and corruption? How and why
are some corporations contributing to while others are extracting from the common good?How do society (employees, customers, suppliers, government) respond to corporations or
businesses that contribute negatively rather than positively to society? There are many
challenging and important questions that we can and should study in the global context.Many emerging economies, including Africa, China, India, are experiencing excitinggrowth and development. Tsui and Jia (2013) encouraged more research on social
outcomes of management. George (2015) focuses on Africa and encouraged studies on the
interplay between foreign aid and local entrepreneurship, the effect of colonial imprintingon foreign investment patterns and international business development, and the role of
business entrants in stabilizing conflicts in local communities? Other editors have called
for more research on organizational justice, business ethics, and corporate socialresponsibility (Rupp et al., 2015). These are but a few of the many important problems in
both local and international arena that await systematic analysis. The social values of
economic success, social development, and the common good are certainly appropriateand desirable in guiding the choice of research topics by business scientists.
Conducting the research
At this stage, epistemic values play a direct role while some social values (e.g. protection
of research participants) may play an indirect role. The community of scholars canreview and revisit the epistemic and cognitive values currently in use and determineany necessary revision. Existing codes of research ethics should be strengthened,
and the training of doctoral students should include a course or more on the philosophy
of science and values in science. Scientists should be aware of their personal19Reflections on
the so-called
value-free
ideal

preferences at each stage of the research process, and understand how these values
might interfere with epistemic decisions along the way. Researchers should pay greaterattention to the problem of inductive risk, identifying the consequences associated withType I and II errors in the specific study, providing insight on the extent and nature of
the risk in the inference. I suggest the “limitations ”section of a manuscript to include
this risk analysis if appropriate depending on the research problem being studied, aswell as an explicit statement of the evocation of any social values by the researcher
either directly or indirectly through each stage of inquiry. This risk analysis must
precede any discussion of managerial or policy implications. Both competence(epistemic values) and integrity (social values) contribute to sound science and
responsible actions.
Publishing the findings
The best judge of how and where to disseminate the important research findings
should be the scientists themselves. Larger sized projects can be reported in their
totality in the form of books or monographs. Smaller sized projects can be summarized
in journal length articles[9]. Scientists aspire to publish in the most prestigious journalsfor a wide exposure, but the choice should instead be based on the domain of the
journal and its readership. Further, scientists should recognize that scientific
achievements (e.g. the Nobel prize) are based on the importance of the ideas and notwhere the work is published. Aguinis and colleagues (2014) explain how number of
articles and citations of a scientist ’s work in other scholarly journals are extremely
deficient measures of the scientific contribution. As Walsh (2011) states, scholarlycontributions should be based on “a body of work that might be revealed in books,
articles, book chapters, simulations, cases, and, who knows, maybe even movies and
more. The key is to appreciate the import of the questions asked and the quality of theanswers offered ”(227).
Many scholars have identified, as I have attempted to do in this essay, the
unintended and undesirable consequences of forcing scientists to publish their research
in a pre-defined list of journals; the consequences take the form of both unreliableknowledge and limited social utility. I encourage the community of scholars to clarify
scientists ’responsibility in both knowledge production and knowledge application, as
has been done in other fields such as medicine, law, and engineering. Scholars shouldseek to publish their work in the most appropriate format or venue. At this stage on the
dissemination of scientific discoveries, similar to the first stage of topic selection, social
values should appropriately dominate. Which venue would provide the mostappropriate space and audience for the sharing of discoveries on a timely basis?
Evaluating the research
Peer review is an integral part of the scientific process (Merton and Zuckerman,
1971/1973). It is a necessary stage to evaluate the quality of scientific work and thecredibility of findings before the work becomes part of the public record. Peer reviewers
should have similar if not higher research qualifications than the authors whose work
is being assessed (Bedeian et al., 2009). If a reviewer is to assess a specific aspect of the
manuscript due to his or her expertise, the reviewer should disclose this expertise. If a
reviewer is using social values in making a judgment, this should be disclosed, just as
the authors of the manuscript do. Given that reviewers have different expertise to bringto the evaluation and are judging different aspects of the research, disagreement is to20CCSM
23,1

be expected. It is rare for a piece of research to be excellent in both theory and methods,
while at the same time also important in both the research question and the policyimplications. Since all research has some flaws, both epistemic (e.g. validity) andnon-epistemic (e.g. novelty) values might be helpfully applied, to provide an overall
assessment of the research ’s acceptability to be made available in the public domain.
However, there is no clear epistemic criterion for determining overall acceptability.Since reviewers subjectively use different epistemic or social values when assessing
research, it would be desirable for the reviewer to articulate the basis of the overall
evaluation to help guide the editor ’s publication decision, a decision which is also
ultimately driven by a combination of epistemic and non-epistemic values.
Reviewers can make either Type I error or Type II error also. Junior reviewers tend
to be conservative (to prove that they hold high standards) and tend to make a Type IIerror. Some reviewers are not open to perspectives different from their own (Starbuck,
2003), also resulting in a Type II error. Different reviewers may use different
non-epistemic values in their evaluations, leading to potentially random reviews.Editors also have personal preferences; and some like to follow the reviewers ’
recommendations while others do not, contributing more randomness to editorial
decisions (Starbuck, 2005). Therefore, I favor editors also disclosing the values or
criteria that influence the final decision, be they epistemic, social, or both. Suchtransparency will contribute to less randomness in editorial outcomes (Aguinis and
Vaschetto, 2011; Clark and Wright, 2007).
The above observations suggest that reviewer training on the role of epistemic and
social values in the evaluation of scientific work is critically important. Currently, the
focus of reviewer guidelines is on social values primarily, as the reviewer guidelines for
the journal Academy of Management Discoveries (and common in most other journals,
e.g. Lewin, 2014; Hempel, 2014) show: be constructive, focus on the core issues, beconcise and specific, be polite and conversational, do not be two-faced, be sensitive, and
be punctual (Miller and Van de Ven, 2015). I encourage future reviewer training to
include the appropriate use of epistemic and social values in the judgment of anotherscientist ’s work. I also encourage reconsidering the role of doctoral students in formal
reviews. Their training in progress, lack of research experience, and desire to prove
their worth may all result in a high likelihood of both Type I and II error, which detractsfrom a fair evaluation of scientific work. This training along with practice reviewing
should be provided under the guidance of experienced scientists/reviewers (Bedeian,
2004; Tsui and Hollenbeck, 2009).
Conclusion
It is beyond question that science has contributed greatly to progress in civilizationsand to the quality of life for humanity in general. We grow food in greater abundance
and variety, cure many deadly diseases, build more comfortable homes, engineer faster
planes and trains, access information on any subject in an instance and in abundancethrough the Internet, design mobile devices that link us to others in any corner of theearth, and connect people instantly through ever expanding social media. However,
science also has incidentally brought about destructive forces including deteriorating
air and water quality, global warming, toxic wastes, diseases caused by unhealthy foodand harmful chemicals, economic crises, and so on. Science-and-technology-based
economic growth has greatly increased inequality in both developed and developing
regions (Kourany, 2013; Piketty, 2014). These developments mean that it is even moreimportant for science to be guided by social values so that we can benefit from the21Reflections on
the so-called
value-free
ideal

positive contributions of science while avoiding or minimizing its negative
consequences. Social values are both necessary and desirable in ensuring thatscience and scientific communities contribute to the thriving if not the survival ofhumanity.
Science and the seeking of truth is a universal activity. Criteria of sound science, i.e.,
epistemic values, should transcend cultural and national boundaries. Social valuesrelevant for science, such as the protection of humans during the research process,
integrity when conducting the study and honesty in reporting the research finding,
should be universally endorsed as well. Local contexts may suggest differences in whatproblems are considered important and what social values may take priority. However,
the scientific and social responsibility of scientists should remain invariant across
space and time. Responsible science is at the service of society by applying rigorouslyand objectively the relevant epistemic and social values in the choice, execution,
evaluation, and dissemination of results of scientific studies.
The authoritative and privileged status of scientists implies a corresponding moral
responsibility to ensure that their advice is based on sound evidence and that theknowledge they produce is used to advance and not to thwart human progress. All the
problems that we have observed and documented about the misconduct of scientists,
the pursuit of self-interest and the proliferation of useless research will disperse whenthe scientific community embraces and enforces responsible science or socially
responsible scholarship. Science cannot be so-called value free, but it should be free
from the dysfunctional values that this essay has documented. Clarity on the natureand role of both epistemic and social values will restore the integrity of science in
business schools.
Notes
1. I use the words “science ”and “research ”interchangeably. Similarly, the terms “scientists ”
and “researchers ”are inter-changeable.
2. Kourany (2010, 2013) uses the term “socially responsible science ”and Tsui (2013, 2015) uses
the term “socially responsible scholarship ”. The word “social ”implies both social values and
social implications of scientific work and scientific knowledge. However, some may
misunderstand this word “social ”to mean research on “social responsibility topics ”(e.g.,
justice, poverty, environment topics). Hence, I use the term “responsible science ”to avoid this
misunderstanding. Responsible science refers to scientists ’responsibility to ensure both
sound science and positive impact of their work on society. I thank Paul Adler, President of
the Academy of Management, and Jonas Haertle, Head of PRME secretariat, for pointing out
this potential confusion and suggesting the deletion of the word “social ”.
3. The six English journals are the Academy of Management Journal (AMJ), Administrative
Science Quarterly (ASQ), Journal of Applied Psychology ( JAP), Journal of InternationalBusiness Studies ( JIBS), Organization Science (OrgScience), and Strategic Management
Journal (SMJ ). The three Chinese language journals are Management World (管理世界),
Nankai Business Review (南开管理评论 ), and China Industrial Economics (中国工业经济).
4. The mission statement of CCM as stated on the journal website prior to 2015 was this: “Cross
Cultural Management seeks to be the leading source of research on multicultural
management issues. The journal addresses cross cultural management from all managementangles. The journal welcomes contributions addressing intracultural, intercultural and
transcultural management issues. ”Beginning 2016, CCM will change its name to
Cross-Cultural and Strategic Management . The journal
’s mission also has changed to
include theory as an important condition for submission. The revised domain mission as it22CCSM
23,1

appears on the 2015 website begins with this statement: “The goal of CCSM is to publish
discerning, theoretically grounded, evidence-based and cutting edge research on issuesrelevant to all aspects of global management. CCSM is especially interested in theoretical and
empirical papers that investigate new and unique ideas and/or are multilevel (micro-meso-
macro) and/or are multidisciplinary in nature. ”This change is consistent with the overall
trend of emphasis on theory in management research.
5. In a personal communication, the new Editor in Chief of the retitled Cross-Cultural and
Strategic Management journal explained the motivation for emphasizing theory requirement
in the revised mission statement. She said that, “the reward/incentive system is such that
publication in highly ranked journals with high impact factor is valued. The reality is that
atheoretical papers have no room in many high impact journals. ”
6. It is not my intention to be critical of these scholars who have offered innovative ideas to
the field. I use them to illustrate the need for assessing inductive risk before applying the
ideas to practice.
7. They initially sent out 12, but three were detected that they were published papers.8. The location is symbolic as San Francisco was where the United Nations charter was signed
on June 26, 1945 and effective on October 24, 1945.
9. Large and small is defined in terms of scope, not in terms of significance.
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About the author
Dr Anne Tsui is Distinguished Professor at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking
University and Fudan School of Management, Fudan University, and Professor Emerita of theWP Carey School of Management, Arizona State University. Dr Anne Tsui can be contacted at:
Anne.Tsui@asu.edu
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