What can business and academia learn from each other?
I work. Monday to Wednesday. And then I write. Tuesday to Friday, also in the evenings, during the breaks.
Some people are lucky to find their passion early on — whether you chose to become a musician, or an investment manager — if you hit this right spot from the very first time, my hat is off, the world’s hat is off. As for me — music was a forbidden fruit as I was kindly advised to study business to have stability and my ends met.
As time has passed, I sang in bands and wrote my songs. No longer did I strive to be a superstar, it burned out. Now I only go to music for a treat and cherish it as a hobby. Still, in my office job I felt like a ‘matter out of place’ when I decided to have a break and study a bit more — first Cultural Economics, then Sociology — to realise that academia is my true love. For the ultimate quest of perpetual ‘Why?’, even if it may sound melancholic. For being able to get to the bottom of things, understand how it works by looking at things creatively, but also empirically; while at the same time respecting the people who pre-thought it before you. There also exists the possibility to never stop learning plus the reward of teaching. Contributing to solving societal problems and being able to be yourself — quirky, nerdy, hoody-wearing one day / dress-wearing the other — the lady who often felt a little bit odd but now is able to meet the others — interesting people, intelligent people, the dreamers who find it difficult to conform. Oh, academia!
Oh, well…Although I’ve firmly decided to follow the academic pursuits, I do believe there are certain lessons which academia and business can learn from each other. These lay in the balance of:
Fast and Slow
Academia is too slow. Business is too fast. I would argue that too slow is possibly better than too fast. The business priority of ‘getting things done’ without taking time to analyse the consequences resulted in issues which we are trying to address today. Focus on profitability and staying afloat at the cost of anything else manifested in climate change, obesity epidemic, opioids crisis, rising public debt, personal data privacy violations, work-induced injuries and burnouts, to name a few. According to Graham and colleagues (2005), CFOs of America’s largest public companies prefer to meet quarterly earnings expectations at the expense of long-term value. Such cases as Wells Fargo opening fake customers’ accounts or DuPont’s cost-saving slashing of R&D exemplify that the value of fast must be overrated if it comes at the cost of good.
Academia, on the other hand, is less worried about the business cycles. Quality of thought dominates over quantity of the output — it takes time to review, endless questioning and dwelling on the subject, how not to forget and take into account the colleagues and peers who work on the same subject and so on. This is why by the time an academic article is published the data might be 2 years old. Academics are known to take weeks to answer an email, after all — it is the values of slow and flexible, sometimes at the cost of secure and well-paid, which attract some to academia. Academic slow, however, can also be a necessary evil — when thoughts are open-ended and first ideas are challenged by competing break-throughs, abandonment can be the only possible and moral way to go. In academia it is ok to let go and never finish a 90% ready manuscript, it really is fine. Unless, letting go is just finding excuses for the delays and never ‘getting things done’, to which academia is not immune. Complaining to a prominent Big Four consultant-friend who wanted to be a historian about the time it takes to receive an answer to an email, I receive the reply -
“What do you expect from dusty cupboard academics?”
I argued that those are some of the smartest people I know. Unfortunately, for the fault of slow some people with the brightest ideas invoke this image. Colleagues, let’s not!
Open and Closed
This brings me to the second observation I have about academics. Academics don’t shout! Research often appeals to the introverts, who like to dwell on the ideas in solitude, sometimes possessed by shyness. However, this is not a bad thing when we look at the corporates where extroversion may be preferred even at the cost of intelligence; after all, modesty and a skill of questioning oneself can be considered a virtue. Yet, in the present day, modesty comes at a cost of not being heard. If you are interested in cultural change and discourse, like me, it is easy to see that dominating narratives stick regardless of whether or not those are true — consider fake news, election meddling tricks or anti-vax movements. Why can’t we turn it around and keep repeating our valid empirical observations, the truth? I truly believe that academics have the agency to determine the structure.
Did you, for example, know that money doesn’t make us happy because we always want more, but spending money on others can make you happy consistently, regardless of the income levels? Suppressing emotions can negatively affect one’s wellbeing but suppressing anger might actually be good for you? Gender identity is based on nature, not nurture — so you can dress your child as you please as long as you respect their own opinion! Consider it my ethnographic observation in the field — academics might be somewhat intimidated by the industry. Yet, I believe academia should be less insecure as, usually, it knows better. Academics have done their impact analysis!
Not speaking publicly about the research is one thing. Yet, academia is also known for not willing to work together. While business approaches stakeholders, for better or worse, academics research a subject in-depth without asking the appropriate party or consulting another department which sits two floors up if their research is relevant and makes sense. Of course, sometimes it is better to be impartial, but reading papers about investment analysis by an academic who never worked in asset management can be painful and doesn’t contribute to the image (again!). So — think of stakeholders and do not shy away from interdisciplinary research. That is where businesses get their edge. Have you heard of recent Google AI advances or Elon Musk new baby — Neuralink?
Finally, academic texts are getting harder and harder to read. To be able to use simple language to disseminate the research to the public without dumbing it down can be considered a sign of mastery. I truly enjoy social-science related academic tweets which carry many thought-provoking societally important ideas. Unfortunately and oftentimes it comes across as somewhat exclusive, jargon-heavy and resembling an echo-chamber; but being there and sharing the ideas is already a good start.
Creative and Practical
As you can see, academia is more of an artist — long-term, obscure. It is break-through but less applied. And, whereas academia can learn to be more practical, the business can learn to encourage creativity by allowing for more flexible time-schedules, questioning open-office plans and recognising individuals for their scientific achievements.
Same-same but different
Saying that, the line between the business and academia starts to blur. As public funding diminishes, the population continues to grow and there is a limited number of philanthropists who contribute to academic endowments in place of shareholding, academia becomes a luxury or tends to more precarious work. As such, some corporate ‘dangers’ creep in. We see it in the multi-billion-dollar publishing industry which sets the agenda — either only publishing novel findings or trying to maintain the status quo by not allowing for more uncomfortable replication studies. Academia.Edu could yet be another example of a questionable research-related venture.
We also see it in academia becoming for-profit and working together with the industry more often. For better or worse, promising young academics are often being poached to the industry. And, sometimes this collaboration can be of benefit — especially in life sciences. Other times, however, it is pushing out the independent socially-relevant research and threatening free-thinking. Consider the example of Brazil trying to dismantle sociology and philosophy departments or biomedical focus of care which carries a lot of consequential problems such as the Opioid crisis or over-medicalisation.
With all this happening, academia can truly become overwhelming. Yet, I encourage you to not give in to the tunnel vision and support the positive trends of open access publishing and data-sharing movement, stop concentrating on the journals impact factors (Nobel Prize winners are saying it, not me!), and if you have — chip into a scholarship and be vocal about free education, record a podcast, publish a book, speak up, be a bit more practical! Because we need academia, we truly do.
I’d love to finish this piece with a quote from ‘Captain Fantastic’:
“Power to the people, Stick it to the Man!”
And, let this man be a fellow academic…
