Management research and methodology

The view is taken that management researchers will need a somewhat detached attitude to the immediate problems of practitioners. Close cooperation with business practitioners is often a prerequisite for good management research, but this does not mean that the practitioner's criteria for evaluating research should supersede more independent scientific criteria. Some trends in the present methodology and research practice enhance the problem that management research may have little to contribute in terms of integrated theory. In the long run, immediate external validity of research results is an inadequate criterion of progress.