That's important, interesting, and generative: Winners of the AMJ 2021 Best Paper Award and Research Impact Award

• Main Authors: HOWARD-GRENVILLE, Jennifer, VASUDEVA, Gurneeta, YIU, Daphne W.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: Business
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7302; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/8301/viewcontent/amj.2022.4005_pv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Management scholars have long been encouraged to pursue interesting research that causes us to think differently about topics or offers counterintuitive explanations (Colquitt & George, 2011; Davis, 1971). Laszlo Tihanyi, as editor in chief for AMJ, warned of “the potential trade-offs between writing interesting versus important research” in his second FTE (Tihanyi, 2020: 329). He called for “studying problems that are not merely interesting but are relevant to society,” in other words: important. It is fitting, then, that this FTE celebrates and explores our two latest award-winning papers, “The hidden cost of prayer: Religiosity and the gender wage gap” (Sitzmann & Campbell, 2021), winner of the 2021 AMJ Best Paper Award; and “Health care’s grand challenge: Stimulating basic science on diseases that primarily afflict the poor” (Vakili & McGahan, 2016), winner of the 2022 AMJ Research Impact Award. Each is an exemplar of important and interesting research that is also generative of impact and further study. Following an introduction, we share insights from the authors on how they conceived of and developed their studies, ending with advice to authors who wish to follow in their footsteps in advancing important, interesting, and generative management research. As laid out three years ago, our editorial team aspired to undertake new initiatives around two main themes: first, to increase the journal’s relevance and credibility in management and organization research; second, to position the journal as a global and inclusive outlet that publishes original, interesting, and rigorous research by international scholars (Tihanyi, 2020). Such initiatives have been introduced and elaborated in a series of previous editorials on writing important management research (Tihanyi, 2020); publishing original, responsible, impactful, cross-boundary and qualitative research (Cowen, Rink, Cuypers, Grégoire, & Weller, 2022; DeCelles, Howard-Grenville, & Tihanyi, 2021; Hideg, DeCelles, & Tihanyi, 2020; Howard-Grenville, Nelson, Vough, & Zilber, 2021; Umphress, Greer, Muir, & Knight, 2021); enhancing credibility and transparency of research (Tihanyi & DeCelles, 2021); and upholding empathy, respect, and inclusion (Umphress, Rink, Muir, & Hideg, 2022). These editorials have brought important messages and calls for collective and diverse efforts from AMJ’s community (authors, readers, reviewers, and editorial team) to conduct and publish management research that is of the highest standard of rigor and novelty, while also contributing to knowledge that is useful to society. Of course, at the outset of our editorial team’s term, no one foresaw the pandemic that has only made more urgent the need for managerial scholarship relevant to questions important to society.