Incentives for Developing and Communicating Principles: A Reply

The commentators raised many interesting ideas in response to Armstrong and Pagell (2003), from which one general theme emerges: The commentators claim that management science lacks the incentives to encourage efforts to develop and communicate grounded principles. As a result, academics often conduct their research as an intellectual exercise with little concern as to whether their findings might eventually be of any practical use. The problem extends beyond management science. Smith (1991), an editor of the British Medical Journal, concluded from a review that only about 15 percent of medical interventions are supported by solid scientific evidence. He attributes this disconnect to an estimate that only about one percent of articles in medical journals are scientifically sound. Such results indicate problems with incentives in research.