Useful Research

TWENTY-TWOWhat We Have Learned

SUSAN ALBERS MOHRMANAND EDWARD E. LAWLER III

IN THIS BOOK We revisit the key learnings from Lawler and others’ 1985 book, Doing Research That Is Useful to Theory and Practice, and chronicle what has been learned since then about how to conduct research that helps organizations be more effective and advances theoretical understanding. Our intent was not to assess whether useful research has become the standard; indeed, we know that it has not. Still, during the last quarter century, many scholars have conducted research that is useful to both practice and theory, and there is growing interest and knowledge about how to do useful research. There is also a growing concern about why the usefulness of research to practice ...