Dennis Tourish is Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies at the University of Sussex Business School. He is the editor of the journal Leadership, and the author or co-author of several books, including Management Studies in Crisis: Fraud, Deception and Meaningless Research, published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. His research interests include dysfunctional leadership, (including hubris), research integrity and organizational communication.

Prof. Tourish will be speaking on the topic ‘Management Studies in Crisis: Fraud, Deception and Meaningless Research.’ Below is the summary of the topic.

More management scholars than ever are expressing concern about the state of our field. Complaints include the suggestion that many publications are written purely to further our careers rather than to advance knowledge. Our discipline is in crisis. We neglect really important issues in favour of bite-sized chunks of research that are more likely to find quick publication in leading journals. Given that such journals insist on the primacy of theory development, we also increasingly resort to pretentious and long-winded prose to at least create the illusion of “theory development.” The result is writing that can only be understood by those already on the inside of the debates it references. As opposed to “imposter syndrome,” in which qualified people doubt their suitability for a given job, I suggest that many of us have become “genuine imposters” in that we pretend to be doing more important work, and more competently, than we really are. In addition, there is a growth of questionable research practices, such as p-hacking, plagiarism and even fraud. I propose changes in our mind-sets and journal practices to restore some sense of deeper purpose to what we do.

Profile page -https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p410361-dennis-tourish