Free «Journal of Management Studies» Essay Sample

i)Module of Work Accomplished

I have been able to complete all the assignments and reports on the module of knowledge creation. I am confident that the knowledge I acquired on evidence-based management will really help me in my leadership role, especially in dealing with issue of knowledge hoarding that affects my investment team. Although it was difficult for me to identify my position in the real picture, I received assistance from my fellow set members and thus I know how important I am to our investment team.

ii)Learning from Readings and Fellow Set Members

Huff wrote an article in which he described two modes of knowledge production (Huff, 2000). These modes of knowledge production are mode 1 and mode 2. He stated that mode 1 involved the pursuit of scientific truth by scientists. Schools that use this mode emphasize on hiring highly trained professors and they mainly use university-centered mode of learning. Mode 2 mainly concentrates on production of knowledge from practical applications. He suggested that business schools should consider developing mode 1.5 that sought to address the weaknesses of both mode 1 and 2. This will help in ensuring collaboration between academic skills and practices for solving the business problems. Starkey and Tempest wrote an article in which they described how business schools were evolving. They argued that business schools concentrated on commercialization, instead of educating students of important concepts that they would apply in the world of business. Due to this, market forces and political influences control them. They suggested that business schools should introduce social sciences, liberal arts and humanities to improve leadership skills and creativity (Starkey & Tempest, 2008).

According to Rousseau’s article, managers are adopting evidence based management in an attempt of improving their decision making (Rousseau, 2006). This is the reason why it helps managers to make informed decisions based on organizations’ research or social sciences. He gave characteristics of this form of management to include isolating variations that isolate desired outcomes, learning from cause-effect relationships in practice, building strong decision support systems and promoting a culture of evidence based management decision making. Alfred Kieser and Lars Liener’s article enabled us to understand why it is difficult to bridge the gap between rigour and relevance in management research (Kieser & Liener, 2009). They argued that it was almost impossible to identify and assess the relevance research output from science since there is a big difference between management science and practice. However, they stated that this gap could be bridged by agreement and cooperation between researchers and practitioners. Hodgkinson and Rousseau article gave reasons why people felt that it was impossible to bridge the rigor relevance gap. They stated that people felt that science was overused and it had impractical basis for management education. They also stated that science only talked to itself and it could not communicate with practice (Hodgkinson, Rousseau, 2009).

iii)Applications of concepts from classroom.

I will use the concept of evidence-based management to solve several organization problems. Since I am the leader of our investment team, I will always conduct marketing research and financial analysis before adopting any investment activity. This will help in ensuring that I select profitable investment portfolios. Moreover, I will always try to apply practical concepts instead of relying on management theories while solving organization problems. This will help in ensuring that all the decisions I make relate to current market trends and employee’s wants.

iv)Additional Reflection

My position as a scholarly practitioner is that of team leader in investment team. I am seeking to improve the communication among my team members, since it will help in improving the sharing of good investment ideas thus enhancing innovation. This will help in improving teamwork among my team members. My understanding on evidence-based management will provide a resource to leadership since it will help me generate good ideas on how to improve communication. The issue that I identified in my practice is the negative culture of knowledge hoarding and lack of teamwork. These are the key issues, since they will stifle development in our team. The context of this problem arises since every member of our team wants to get credit after suggesting a good investment idea. However, if this problem is not addressed, conflicts among team members will increase contributing to poor investment ideas from our team.