Published in The Academy of Management Journal in October 2007, David E. Guest’s article, “Don’t Shoot the Messenger: A Wake-up Call for Academics,” offers a critical and insightful commentary on the enduring challenge of communicating scientific knowledge from academic research to practicing managers. Guest situates his work within the broader discourse on evidence-based management (EBM), a debate that has significantly influenced fields like medicine and has more recently gained traction in management research through contributions from prominent figures such as Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) and Rousseau (2005). Specifically, Guest’s article serves as a direct response to the “separate worlds” study by Rynes, Giluk, and Brown (2007), which further explored the role of a distinct group of knowledge communicators – intermediary practitioner-oriented publications.
The article’s primary objective is to review the core elements of the Rynes et al. analysis through the lens of the European, and more particularly, the U.K. experience. Guest acknowledges three main claims made by Rynes and colleagues:
- Academic experts agree on the evidence supporting the benefits of specific practices and identify fundamental human resource (HR) findings that all managers should know.
- Intermediate practitioner-oriented publications should effectively communicate this information to practitioners, ensuring both appropriate quantity and accurate quality of coverage.
- Existing evidence suggests that U.S. intermediary publications fail on both counts, meaning they neither provide sufficient coverage nor accurately reflect academic evidence.
However, Guest’s analysis in “Don’t Shoot the Messenger” moves beyond a simple U.K. parallel, presenting a more nuanced and often skeptical view of the feasibility and current state of EBM, particularly within human resource management (HRM). He notes significant parallels between U.S. and U.K. intermediate publications; for example, People Management in the U.K. is akin to HR Magazine in the U.S., and the Human Resource Management Journal was explicitly designed to bridge academics and practitioners. Yet, his cross-check of articles in the Human Resource Management Journal since 2000 found no pieces on goal setting and only one on psychometric testing. Furthermore, the editorial team of People Management confirmed a similar lack of coverage, often focusing on interesting practice cases rather than the latest research evidence. Guest concludes that, by using the same criteria as Rynes et al., the situation in U.K. intermediate publications is “even worse than in the States” regarding the quantity and quality of relevant academic material.
More critically, Guest highlights that the People Management editorial team explicitly denies that its central role is to provide reports on established academic evidence. Instead, they prioritize offering news and information of interest and relevance to their readership, essentially functioning as a news magazine with practice-oriented features. Reader surveys confirm a strong interest in legal updates, organizational case studies, and even job advertisements, rather than academic research. The editorial team also contends that traditional print magazines are outdated for communicating scientific evidence, viewing themselves as a Web-based, desktop publishing organization that leverages various media for timely information dissemination, often in conjunction with the professional body, the CIPD, which offers extensive online resources.
Guest also challenges the very notion of academic consensus on “fundamental findings” in HR. He argues that the sample of editorial board members in Rynes et al.’s study likely represents a “narrow spread of established traditions within the positivist framework” of leading academic journals. He suggests that a sample from Europe-based journals with different perspectives would yield vastly different results. For instance, even within narrower communities like industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists in the U.K. and Europe, topics like the “Big Five” personality dimensions continue to be disputed, and goal setting has been criticized for complex roles. Guest points out that the top three findings endorsed by Rynes et al. (general intelligence, Big Five, goal setting) fall within I/O psychology, a micro-level of analysis suitable for controlled experiments, which are often ethically and practically impossible in many other areas of management research.
Furthermore, Guest questions the strength of the reported consensus itself. If 85 experts were asked for their top five fundamental HR findings, the fact that only five topics were mentioned more than 10 times, with the top three receiving just over 20 mentions, “does not imply an academic consensus about what constitute fundamental findings”. This lack of strong consensus, Guest argues, makes it difficult to blame practitioners for being confused or intermediate publications for failing to publish what is, in fact, a very limited consensus view. He also points out that the validity of evidence in these areas often takes many years to establish, meaning that by the time scholars have confidence in it, it “no longer counts as new” and ceases to be newsworthy for publications catering to practitioners. U.K. research confirms that psychometric testing, for example, has been widely known and practiced for years, signifying it is no longer a “new or newsworthy topic”.
Guest then delves into what information managers truly desire, identifying a distinct preference for several types of content. Managers seek:
- Solutions to their current pressing problems. Traditional print media are unlikely to provide this in a timely manner, and the Web is seen as the best medium.
- “Ways of looking” that offer fresh insights into their jobs. This explains the popularity of authors like Ulrich and topics like the psychological contract, where established practices are re-presented in a fresh language.
- An emotional appeal that reinforces the value of their work and offers solutions or “salvation”. Given the challenging nature of the HR manager’s role, with its limits on power, role ambiguities, and a precarious evidence base, they are receptive to compelling narratives. Management gurus, through good timing, storytelling, and marketing, effectively communicate ideas that are novel, emotionally appealing, and promise pay-offs, making academic topics like psychometric testing seem “hard and cold” by comparison. Managers also highly value “local” sources of information and successful applications from other organizations in their own sectors, preferring insights from “people like themselves in organizations like their own”.
Ultimately, Guest’s article serves as a “wake-up call” for academics to reflect on the complexities of knowledge transfer in a contemporary, multi-channel world. He proposes several steps to improve communication:
- Critically assess the extent of consensus about good practice, exercising caution in claiming knowledge as important and established if agreement is limited.
- Be realistic about the constraints faced by intermediate HR management publications, including material submitted and reader demands.
- Recognize the era of multiple electronic communication channels, advocating for Web pages and virtual media as more appropriate for timely knowledge dissemination.
- Pay stronger attention to the perspective of practitioners, being more responsive to their needs to engage their interest.
- Build a range of bridges between academia and practice, including traditional approaches (e.g., sabbaticals, joint projects) and more strategic activities (e.g., involvement in government commissions, research councils, consultancy contacts).
- Develop “learned resourcefulness” within HR communities, fostering a critical and inquiring capacity for proper diagnosis and an awareness of where to find appropriate evidence. Academics, through education, must equip specialists to evaluate information and seek out relevant evidence.
While acknowledging that initial moves towards EBM and Rynes et al.’s concerns about communication are “steps in the right direction,” Guest cautions that the academic community must utilize a range of channels reflecting the contemporary virtual world. He emphasizes that evidence in the social sciences is inherently contested, and consensus-building among multiple, often competing, interest groups is never easy. Therefore, he concludes that while an increase in “evidence-informed” HR and general management practice would be a positive achievement, pursuing full “evidence-based practice in HR management may be a step too ambitious” for the present time.
Reference: Guest, D. E. (2007). Don’t shoot the messenger: A wake-up call for academics. The Academy of Management Journal, 50(5), 1020–1026.