Article A2.1 Welcome to the Research World D. P. Dash, XIMB dpdash[at]ximb.ac.in Research is often expected to answer all our questions and solve all our problems. Obviously, looking at the processes and outcomes of research so far, in different fields, the picture has been somewhat disappointing, barring of course the spectacular results of science and technology in some respects. One such spectacular result of technological research is what I am using now--computer technology to compose text and pass it on to our editorial coordinator, Mr Jacob D Vakkayil, our FPM scholar. While I am already addicted to this miracle of technological research, I am also aware of the effects it has on me. Working at a computer terminal for ten hours everyday leaves me physically numb, socially disconnected from my immediate surrounding, and psychologically intoxicated with a false sense of control. At another level, it also shapes my choices, e.g., of what initiatives I take, what I read and write, and with whom I interact. Are the researchers who developed the computer technology responsible for the effects it has on me? Will the researchers decide to look at their own work through the eyes of the users, especially the dedicated ones like me? They may. But what miracles have been produced in areas closer to this multi-coloured subject of ours, called management? Some have started asking seriously whether business schools around the world are really destroying business (e.g., the Financial Times columnist, Michael Skapinker, who backs his analysis with arguments from several leading management researchers). Of course, one might ask the same of the physical scientists: Are the scientists destroying the physical world? That leads us to the familiar terrain of radioactive pollution, ozone depletion, and the like. Is it possible for research to produce organised destruction? It may be. In some domains, organised destruction can also have a positive overtone where, e.g., one hears of falsification, deconstruction, and even creative destruction. In these domains, the effort of researchers seems to be directed at disconfirming hypotheses, dismantling grand narratives, defeating existing products/services through innovation. Remembering the birth pangs of modern science, some centuries back, research (or scientific inquiry) had something to do with what it was against, i.e., the ideas and viewpoints that did not match up with the experiences of humble but curious people. Research is often a space for struggle. Can we appreciate and advance that struggle in our research and research training processes? We may. There is a world of similarity between research and data processing. Sometimes, I wonder, whether the similarity would be in the neighbourhood of 98-99 per cent, because that is also the similarity between human beings and apes, from a genetic point of view! From my point of view, in research, data must always be treated with vigorous scepticism, the greater the vigour the higher the chance of something interesting happening in research. When we take data as facts, we can become aware of how these got fact-ed (or manu-factured). I really like a statement about facts, attributed to the Canadian poet and author, Bliss Carman: “What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease” (source unknown). When we accord primacy to investigation over facts (and not the other way), would there be a change in the activities we generally label as research? There may be. It is said that when an apple fell on the head of a Lincolnshire youth one day, something interesting happened in the world of research, in the seventeenth century. Similarly, and this may be less known, when a crow (kaaka in Sanskrit) sat on a palmyra palm one day and a palm fruit (taala in Sanskrit) fell from the tree (somewhere in South Asia), something interesting was added to the annals of logic, probably in the sixth century BC. Apples and palm fruits have always fallen and continue to fall, but not every instance of such falling reverberates through the world of research and logic. While the everyday world of fruits, birds, and such other things seems to go on, the research world appears to have an independence of its own, although connections do arise occasionally. A recent connection is becoming visible in Topatoes and Pomatoes, somatic hybrids between tomatoes and potatoes! Can the extent of interdependence between the two worlds be a matter of our choosing? It may be. Among others, these were some of the issues and ideas we brought together to design a new programme of research training at XIMB, which was launched on June 21, 2003. It was labelled Research Training Seminars ( RTS). The basic principle was to create a suitable environment for what may be called border-crossing interactions among research students and more experienced researchers, pursuing different forms of inquiry in their respective fields. This has paid off handsomely, in terms of the rich conversations we have had, significant learning acquired, and the network of research-inclined persons which has grown around this activity. We have made it a practice to write a report on each seminar and share it widely for further learning and review. This publication contains reports on the seminars held in this academic year (2004-2005). These seminars have been led by XIMB faculty-colleagues and invited researchers from other institutions. Welcome to the research world! Mar 4, 2005 Copyleft Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar 751013, India Research World (ISSN 0974-2379) http://www1.ximb.ac.in/RW.nsf/pages/Home |
