Finding the evidence
AUTHOR: Chris Sheedy DATE: 06.09.07 ISSUE 1, 2007
The work of research teams at the Australian School of Business is changing the way the corporate world operates.
At the Accelerated Learning Laboratory, the cutting edge research and training centre run by the Australian School of Business, middle managers from various industries take part in intensive training and simulation programs to fast track their careers into senior management and executive ranks.
A number of corporations have helped to fund the research that has gone into this immensely successful program, and results of the training are fed back into continuing academic research.
Here they are collected, documented and analysed so that best practice can be further honed in the light of rigorous evidence.
| Much of the research being undertaken at the Australian School of Business will influence the way businesses operate in the future. |
As an example of academic research working hand-in-hand with industry to benefit business, the Accelerated Learning Laboratory is a standout. But much of the research being undertaken at the Australian School of Business will influence the way businesses operate in the future.
The scope of research taking place spans all of the School's departments, including Economics, Accounting, Banking & Finance, Actuarial Studies, Marketing, Organisation & Management, Strategy & Entrepreneurship, Business Law & Taxation and Information Systems.
And, current world leading research is pushing the boundaries in areas as varied as consumer savvy practices, behavioural finance, human resources and organisational performance, and the outcomes achieved by non-profit pension funds, to name just a few.
Overseeing this enormous and vital research function is Professor John Piggott, Associate Dean, Research. "What strikes me about the Australian School of Business is the breadth of its research programs," Professor Piggott says. "Each disciplinary stream is very research active and can be linked in infinite ways, and that's where things get interesting for application to business."
Academic research has been affecting business processes and practices for decades. Back in the 1970s, Professors Ray Ball and Philip Brown (founding Dean of the AGSM) presented research findings that fundamentally influenced the way in which financial analysis was undertaken around the globe. More than 25 years ago, Professor Piggott says, academic researchers recognised the value of carbon trading, something only now being implemented by governments.
The latest hot topics in the business research world include population and ageing and the implications of these issues for the business environment, and climate change, particularly the implementation of workable carbon trading schemes.
"Around the world there are many things academics do which eventually have a major impact on the way business is conducted," Professor Piggott says.
"There's a filter-down process that goes from the academic paper to regulatory bodies of various kinds and eventually ends up as something that's quite accepted by business and is never questioned.
"At the Australian School of Business we play a part in creating tomorrow's great researchers, particularly in giving an Asia-Pacific focus to some research ideas that might have originated in Europe and North America. I think that's a very important role we play, specialising the knowledge to regional conditions."
But it's not all about regionalising the research results. Individual researchers within the Australian School of Business have valuable partnerships with over 30 leading universities around the world, Professor Piggott says, and the School itself also has partnerships, including a research student exchange program with Fudan University in Shanghai, one of China's top management schools.
"There is an increasing appreciation by business of the opportunities that universities present them with in terms of research," Professor Piggott says. "It's revealed in the way that corporations and government will contract individual academics to carry out research for them. Business is tapping in to the academics' expertise to develop industry research activity."
| The Australian School of Business has 10 research centres that are changing the way business operates. Australian Institute for Population Ageing Research Accelerated Learning Laboratory Centre for Real Estate Research Centre for Accounting and Assurance Research Centre for Applied Economic Research Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets Centre for Pensions and Superannuation Industrial Relations Research Centre Korea-Australasia Research Centre Centre for Research in Finance |