Improving the relevance of management research by developing tested and grounded technological rules

Academic management research has a serious external relevance problem. In this article it is contended that a major cause of this problem is the very nature of common academic management research. The field could reduce its external relevance problem by complementing common description-oriented research with more prescription-oriented research. This latter type of research will typically produce so-called tested and grounded technological rules. The nature of such technological rules is discussed as well as the differences with the typical research product from description-oriented research, the causal model.