Some proposals for impactful management control research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how management control researchers can improve their practical impact through research designs that recognise the many dimensions of organizational reality. Design/methodology/approach – Managerial knowledge in the academy and managerial practice may become detached from one another as practitioners and academic discourses are influenced by different sources of texts and modes of legitimisation. Although this can be a problem in accounting research, management accounting researchers have developed the necessary elements for critical engagement with practice. Identifying a common ontological basis for researchers and practitioners, it is argued that pragmatic constructivism explains how managers construct their reality through integrating logic, facts, values and communication. It is also argued that management consultants have implicitly understood this view of reality in the way that they package their solutions. Academic researchers can replicate the pragmatic constructivist ontology whilst adopting more explicitly theoretical and critical approaches. Findings – The paper proposes the academy can productively imitate some of the knowledge creation of the consultant yet still retain both theoretical rigour and academic values. Originality/value – The paper presents a research design that can improve the impact of business school research whilst maintaining academic integrity.