娀 Academy of Management Journal
2007, Vol. 50, No. 5, 1027–1032.
A SPECULATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON THE TRANSFER OF
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE FINDINGS TO THE WORKPLACE:
“THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’”
GARY P. LATHAM
University of Toronto
the existence of these two worlds and to suggest
solutions for welding them together.
The issue of transfer of learning bedeviled the
behavioral sciences throughout the 20th century. In
light of laboratory experiments, Thorndike and
Woodworth (1901) advocated transfer of learning
based on identical elements, McGehee and Thayer
(1961) proposed transfer on the basis of principles,
and Ellis (1965) emphasized the importance of
stimulus variability. In their review of this literature, Tannenbaum and Yukl (1992) concluded that
solutions based primarily on findings from experimental psychology have slowed rather than advanced transfer of training in work settings because
they focus only on the period of knowledge and
skill acquisition that occurs during the training
process itself. In the final decade of the 20th century, Latham and Seijts (1997a) proposed the value
of focusing on posttraining interventions to increase the probability of employees applying what
they learned during training to their jobs, especially interventions adopted from clinical psychology (e.g., Latham & Heslin, 2003; Morin & Latham,
2000).
At the dawn of the 21st century, the issue of
transfer of knowledge has captured the attention of
several behavioral scientists. This issue is more
complex than the transfer of learning in a laboratory or the transfer of training to a job. The problem
of transfer of knowledge involves two populations
of employees rather than one, namely, scientists
and practitioners. Specifically, the issue of concern
to a growing number of behavioral scientists is the
transfer of research knowledge by scholars to work
settings where it can be applied by managers.
Hence, in the lead essay of this forum (Rynes, Giluk, & Brown, 2007), the editor of the Academy of
Management Journal and her colleagues have
pointed to the necessity of finding ways to weld
two worlds, that of the HRM scientist and that of
the HRM practitioner. The purpose of the present
essay is to offer a perspective on the root cause of
ROOT CAUSE: TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS
The Human Resource Management (HRM) Division of the Academy of Management was not
formed until 1971. Hence, it is a relatively new
source of knowledge for organizational decision
makers. The scholars who joined this new division
were, as their name implies, interested primarily in
proving their scholarship. Thus, they pursued
scholarly research with scholarly colleagues. They
published the results of their research predominantly, if not solely, in scholarly journals. They
sought scholarly positions housed in academic settings for their newly minted Ph.D. protégés. The
extent to which their research findings were subsequently used in the workplace was of little or no
concern to them.
To argue for the reciprocal transfer of learning
between journals and practice (Latham, 2001a)—in
which published research influences what people
do in organizations, and what people do in organizations influences what is studied by scientists in
the applied sciences—is likely to lead to a spirited
rejoinder, as evidenced by Hulin (2001). Hulin argued that the utility of research is not diminished if
practitioners do not read it. He eschewed people’s
embracing the scientist-practitioner model in favor
of their choosing one vocation versus the other.
Solutions to potential problems, he said, should
not be a requirement of research. Good research, he
argued, may take up to 100 years before its applicability, if any, is known. A belief that research
should inform practice, he stated, is misguided at
best. It is up to the practitioner, not the researcher,
to translate findings into programs and interventions that can solve organizational problems. In
short, Hulin concluded that research in the behavioral sciences should be unencumbered by a requirement that it inform practice.
Hulin is hardly alone in his belief in research for
its own sake (e.g., Weiss, 2007). Thus, many HRM
scholars seldom if ever listen to HRM practitioners,
Preparation of the article was supported in part by a
grant to the author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada.
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Academy of Management Journal
and HRM practitioners for the most part have not
known that the scholars in HRM even exist. Dissatisfaction with this current state of affairs on the part
of Rynes and other leading academics suggests that
change is “blowing in the wind.”
THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’
Kurt Lewin (quoted in Adelman [1997]), a social
psychologist, argued against what he perceived to
be artificial borders between research and practice
with the dictum, “No action without research, no
research without action.” Argryis (1991), an admirer of Lewin’s, was among the first in the organizational sciences to call for a change in which
science is practiced. He asserted that theory building would become more rather than less rigorous
and robust if a theory were judged in terms of
providing usable knowledge: “To produce such
knowledge, I believe that usability will have to be
designed into every research project. Articles will
begin with descriptions of how issues of implementation guided research instead of ending with the
usual few paragraphs dealing with usability. . . . To
use applicable knowledge means ultimately to put
it into practice; to reproduce in the real world,
consistent with the claim made of high external
validity; and to do so diligently and persistently”
(Argyris, 1991: 338 –339).
The necessity for following Argyris’ advice has
been underscored by Beer (2001). Few management
scholars specify the conditions and processes that
managers might use to implement theories, concepts, and methods. Fewer still, Beer noted, consider issues of implementation when choosing a
research method. Unless researchers want to be
dismissed as irrelevant by organization decision
makers, they must take responsibility for specifying
how the knowledge they produce and disseminate
can be implemented. Beer cited Churchman and
Mitroff’s (1995) contention that the distinction between pure and applied science should be ignored
because we scientists have an obligation to put
science in the service of humanity’s most pressing
problems.
Similarly, Bandura too argued that among the
criteria for evaluating a theory is social utility. Theories, he said, are operative tools: “In the final
analysis, the evaluation of a scientific enterprise in
the social sciences will rest heavily on its social
utility” (2005: 31).
Rousseau explained that her “great hope” is that
through research and evaluation we as scholars can
promote effective organizations where managers
make well-informed, less arbitrary, and more reflective decisions. “My great disappointment how-
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ever, has been that research findings don’t appear
to have transferred well to the workplace” (2006:
257). The result is a research-practice gap. To close
this gap, she advocated initiating “evidence-based
practice,” a paradigm for making decisions that
integrate the best available research evidence with
decision maker expertise and client/customer preferences to guide practice in a way similar to what is
currently being done with regard to evidence-based
medicine.
POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS
To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, some people see things as they are, and ask, Why? I dream of
things that never were and say, Why not? As noted
earlier, the genesis of the present paper was to
comment on the alarm bells Rynes and her colleagues rang regarding the necessity of merging two
solitudes, the science and the practice of human
resource management. Because I share their concern (Latham, 2001b; Latham & Latham, 2003), I
offer the following speculative solutions for debate:
(1) Lead with Our Strength
Arguably the key strength of our field is our
ability to conduct empirical research. Therefore,
let’s conduct research on the adoption and diffusion of human resource research findings in the
workplace. For example, Teo, Lim, and Fedric
(2007) did just that with regard to human resources
information systems (HRIS) in Singapore. Among
their findings was that the adopters perceived
greater benefits from HRIS for HR departments than
did nonadopters, even though both adopters and
nonadopters perceived the benefits of HRIS to their
organizations in the same manner as a whole. The
complexity of HRIS was not found to be a significant factor discriminating between adopters and
nonadopters. Compatibility with other systems in
an organization did influence the decision to
adopt HRIS.
Through myriad laboratory experiments (stimulus variability), simulations (transfer of principles),
and field studies (identical elements), ways to
transfer HRM knowledge to HRM practice are likely
to be discovered. This recommendation is consistent with Lewin’s dictum about research that leads
to action.
(2) Develop a Theory of Diffusion
Through induction, based on studies similar to
the one described above, we researchers need to
develop a framework that will guide us in taking
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the steps necessary for increasing the probability
that organizational decision makers will implement our findings. Steps 1 and 2 will enable us to
understand where transfer of knowledge occurs
and why. As Lewin (1951) emphasized years ago,
there is nothing so practical as a good theory.
(3) Include Operational Validity as a Criterion
for Evaluating HRM Theory
This recommendation is based on the arguments
of Argyris (1991) and Bandura (2005). This step
will increase the salience for the research community of the necessity of transferring scientific findings to the world of practice.
(4) Educate Managers and MBA Students by
Involving Them in Our Research
As part of their education, I invite managers in
our business school’s executive programs and
EMBA program, and the other MBA students, to
become participants in my research. I present a
question to them in the classroom (e.g., Do you
think bias can be minimized, if not eliminated, in
a performance appraisal?). I encourage strong debate among them regarding the questions I pose.
Then I immediately involve them in an experiment to obtain the answer. As I have noted elsewhere (Latham, 2007), the participants love the
suspense as much as I do in seeking the answers.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the research
results are subsequently applied by the managers
in their respective work settings. Of further benefit is the participants’ newfound appreciation of
how the answers were obtained—through systematic empirical research. Through this process
they also see how findings from laboratory experiments generalize to field settings (Locke, 1986).
And the result for me and my doctoral students is
a journal publication (e.g., Latham & Seijts,
1997b).
In keeping with Rynes et al.’s (2007) finding, few
managers or MBA students, if any, are impressed
when I introduce the topic of goal setting. At the
outset they believe that everyone constantly sets
goals. It is not until after I present them with the
results of field experiments that I am deluged with
questions as to how something so straightforward
can increase productivity so quickly and dramatically. This is followed by even more questions as
to how they might transfer the principles (recall
McGehee & Thayer, 1961) taught in class, extrapolated from the scientific findings, to their
workplaces.
Latham
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I asked the MBA students, Which type of goal
setting do you think will lead to a meaningful
MBA education for you: a specific high performance goal, a learning goal, or an overall philosophy of do your best? Again, the question led to
strong debate, instructions on how to do an experiment to get the answer, suspense before obtaining the results, animated discussion upon obtaining the results, another publication with a
doctoral student (Latham & Brown, 2006), followed by a presentation to the Dean’s Annual
Alumni Meeting at my university, where there
were 800 plus attendees, followed by many many
questions that led, so I am told, to transfer of that
knowledge to the workplace regarding the application of learning goals.
(5) Become Bilingual
In addition to learning the language of science,
we must master the art of communicating with
managers (Latham & Latham, 2003). As the staff
psychologist at the American Pulpwood Association and at the Weyerhaeuser Company, and now
as a consultant to clients, I don’t “do research”—I
do get involved in projects and interventions. Included in the projects and interventions is a
“framework” or “strategy” rather than a method or
procedure for seeking answers to questions of importance to the clients, not only to me. Ideas are
presented to them, rather than hypotheses, along
with a rationale that can be assessed rather than
tested that, I explain, will likely prove to be worthwhile. I show how we can document the effectiveness of the steps that we will take rather than discussing the proposed procedure and data analysis.
Rather than point to the need for a control group, I
point to the necessity of being able to show senior
management what happened in cases in which we
did versus did not implement our proposal. To
minimize perceptions of favoritism among employees, I emphasize the advantage of randomly picking
who should get training before another group of
individuals. I stress and restress the advantage of
comparing the performance of the employees who
received the benefit of an intervention with the
performance of those employees who will receive
the intervention at a later date. After analyzing the
results, rather than discussing an F-test, let alone
structural equation modeling, I show managers one
or more graphs that make explicit what happened
where we did, versus where we did not, implement
our ideas.
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(6) Enter the World of Practitioners
Supporting both Tannenbaum and Yukl’s (1992)
and Latham and Seijts’s (1997) arguments for focusing on the posttraining period for fostering transfer
of training, a related argument can be made to focus
on both the pre- and postresearch periods in order
to increase the probability that HRM practitioners
will implement HRM research findings. I seldom
pass up the chance to teach in EMBA or executive
education programs. Doing so enables me to hear
and respond to the concerns of organizational decision makers as well as to gain opportunities to
communicate to them the relevance of extant HRM
scholarly articles. Doing so can even lead to a coauthored article of interest to both HRM scientists
and practitioners (e.g., Jarnagin & Slocum, 2007).
At the organizational level, scholarly societies
such as the Academy of Management (AOM) and
the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) should consider establishing formal
relationships with practitioner societies such as the
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
It would not take long to articulate reasons for
doing so that are mutually beneficial for both parties. It would be a giant step forward in making
evidence-based management a reality, and hence
the welding of two worlds, science and practice. To
accelerate transfer of knowledge, the HRM division
and the OB (organizational behavior) division of
the Academy, together with SIOP, should hold annual conferences on subject matter of direct interest
to practitioners. If we created a category of membership within the Academy and/or SIOP for managers, we could add a day to a scholarly conference
that is devoted to the transfer of scientific knowledge to managers. It is highly likely that reporters
from HR Management and other similar publications would cover the knowledge presented on this
day, furthering the dissemination of scientific
knowledge to work settings.
(7) Influence Practitioner Journals
Fred Luthans and John Slocum exemplify the
value and relevance of this suggestion in their roles
as editors of Organizational Dynamics, a journal
not included in Rynes et al.’s (2007) survey. This
journal is devoted to informing the community of
practitioners about scientific results; it does so using a writing style that is not alien to them. In doing
so, this journal communicates to managers that we
scientists do exist and that we have useful information for them. Strong support should be given to
framing the Academy of Management Perspectives
as a source of evidence-based management for busi-
October
ness school students and their subsequent employees. We scholars should seek opportunities to serve
on the editorial boards of these types of journals
and to publish in them.
(8) Reward One’s Influence on Practice
As Mason Haire was fond of saying, that which
gets measured gets done. We can fault ourselves for
not knowing what is of paramount concern to practitioners, but we cannot fault them for not knowing
the usefulness of our research if we do not
inform them.
It is unlikely that many of us will present our
findings at practitioner conferences, let alone take
time away from our research to write articles for
their journals, if we are not rewarded for doing so
in the academic settings where the majority of us
are employed. Deans ignore the recommendations
of full professors at their peril. It is we senior faculty who must change our reward structure.
(9) Conduct Research with Practitioners
Research questions become important, as do results, when research is conducted with organization members (e.g., Latham & Latham, 2000, 2003;
Wiersma & Latham, 1986). Yet an oxymoron of the
Academy of Management is that few of the members are managers and few are behavioral scientists
who are employed in government or industry. As
noted in step 6, we should look at practitioner
organizations, such as SHRM with its 225,000 plus
members, as a way to correct this problem.
(10) Encourage Our Protégés to Seek Employment
in the Private and Public Sectors
Again, as I have noted elsewhere (Latham, 2007;
Latham & Latham, 2003), it is difficult to hear the
questions or concerns of managers, see the contextual conditions, offer suggestions, and subsequently receive an invitation to join teams seeking
to solve important organizational problems unless
you are a member of the organization where the
issues arise. It was far easier for me to conduct
research that was adopted and applied by an organization when I was employed by the American
Pulpwood Association (e.g., Latham & Kinne, 1974)
and subsequently the Weyerhaeuser Company (e.g.,
Latham, Mitchell, & Dossett, 1978) than it is for me
to do so as an employee of a university.
DISCUSSION
Through research, Rynes and her colleagues
(2007) documented what many HRM academics
2007
Latham
have long suspected: We, as applied scientists, exist
largely for the purpose of communicating knowledge
to one another. One might shudder if this were also
true of another applied science, medicine.
The science-practitioner gap is a vexing one. The
fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves. HRM
practitioners do not apply the research findings
obtained by HRM researchers because most HRM
researchers do not communicate with them. Many
of us who have the desire to do so have yet to
acquire the necessary communication skills. We
don’t have the opportunity to practice the use of the
necessary verbal and written communication skills
because we rarely interact with HRM managers. We
don’t interact with them because most of us are not
rewarded for doing so, and some of us are penalized by our deans for devoting time to doing so.1 A
change in the reward structure might lead to research that in turn leads to the development of a
theory of diffusion based on empirical research, the
bedrock of HRM. In the absence of HRM research,
HRM practice is susceptible to what Dunnette
(1966) labeled “fads, fashions, and folderol.” Those
of us who, as Rousseau (2006) vividly described,
have family members who work in organizations
where HRM practice is uninformed by HRM science, should shudder.
To paraphrase Robert F. Kennedy, some people
see a person staring out a window and say, there is
a great thinker. I see the person merely staring out
a window. The time has come for HRM scientists to
more than shudder while staring at the transfer of
knowledge problem. It is time for HRM scientists to
work with HRM practitioners to take the steps necessary to solve it.
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Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman Faculty of Management, at the University of Toronto, strongly encourages full professors to publish in practitioner outlets.
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Gary P. Latham (latham@rotman.utoronto.ca) is a past
president of the Canadian Psychological Association
(CPA) and president-elect of the Society of Industrial and
Organizational Psychology (SIOP). He is also a fellow of
the Academy of Management, American Psychological
Association, Association for Psychological Science, CPA,
and the Royal Society of Canada, and has received the
AOM Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner Award, the Human Resource Division’s Heneman Career Achievement
Award, and the Organizational Behavior Division’s Lifetime Achievement Award. As SIOP’s president-elect, he
is working with the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) on initiatives to reduce the researchpractice gap. Subsequent to writing this article, he was
elected to SHRM’s board of directors.