1 research outputs found
Research impact: an institutional logics perspective of related tensions in higher education.
The UK Higher Education sector’s emphasis on research “impact” (economic,
social, environmental and cultural benefits) leads to tensions which academics
are often ill-equipped to navigate. Our understanding of such tensions is
largely limited by a narrow empirical focus on knowledge commercialisation and
oversimplified conceptualisations of the underlying process of change.
This study employs an exploratory, holistic multiple case design to explore
tensions experienced by 30 business and management scholars and
participants in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF2014), the first
national evaluation of research impact globally. It deploys institutional logics as
a conceptual lens as this is underpinned by a theory of action (embedded
agency) offering greater explanatory power for how macro- and meso-level
factors influence micro level behaviour than alternatives predominantly used in
existing explorations of impact.
Six major findings regarding individual level impact-related tensions are
reported at the ‘individual’ level of analysis. First, three novel tensions were
identified. Second, eight conceptual tensions were empirically observed. Third,
certain tensions are underpinned by forms of embeddedness not currently
associated with the institutional logics perspective. Fourth, most of the
identified tensions are not associated with an often alluded to professional-
market logics dualism, but with various configurations of five logics. Fifth,
certain tensions are associated with a single, professional logic. Sixth, strategic
responses to certain tensions are typically generative of impactful research,
although occasionally defensive responses can also be generative.
Three theoretical contributions are proposed. First, the empirical confirmation
of a typology of individual-level impact-related tensions, within which three novel
tensions are identified. Second, the development of the logics perspective
through revelation of new types of embeddedness as theories of change and
third; the conceptualisation of institutional monism as an alternative source of
conflicting logics to institutional pluralism. Finally, a contribution to professional
research practice is also made in recommending that barriers to research
effectiveness should be responded to strategically rather than defensively in
order to maximise impact generation.PhD in Leadership and Managemen