RaGA and Tala of Research Productivity: A Study of Leading Business School in India

Research productivity at business schools is of interest to academicians, policy-makers, and other stakeholders. This study attempts to understand stratification in research productivity in a business school and explores the individual (rank, gender) and departmental (area of discipline) characteristics (RaGA), covering a dataset of 4,013 research outputs spanning the research themes (themes) of academic, practice-oriented, and pedagogic and (a la carte) (Tala) from 2011 to 2020. Theme-wise, the quantum and direction of research indicated that academic research > practice-oriented research > pedagogic development during 2010–2015 and 2015–2020. The major findings include: professors had higher per-capita productivity (PCP) across the themes, followed by assistant professors. In terms of a la carte, professors had higher PCP in scientific presentations/invited talks, books, chapters in books, articles in periodicals/dailies, and teaching cases. Assistant professors participated more in working papers and research projects. Associate professors had higher PCP in articles in academic journals and doctoral students advising. Female faculty fared well in academic research and male faculty in pedagogic development. Mixed trend was seen in practice-oriented research. Economic and social sciences outperformed other disciplinary areas in academic (working papers and scientific presentations) and practice-oriented research (research projects, books, chapters in books, and articles in dailies). Marketing, decision sciences, strategy, production, and operations management were better in pedagogic development. The higher production in articles in academic journals came from organization behavior, public policy, and production and operations management. This study has takeaways for policy-makers and emphasizes having a clear research agenda that can combine academic rigor with practice.