The Three Rs of Science: Relevance, Rigor, and Reach

By François Longin, Professor of Finance and Adrian Zicari, Professor of Accounting and Management Control.

In this article, Prof. François Longin and Prof. Adrian Zicari explain how they deal with the three Rs of science – Relevance, Rigor, and Reach – in their research on corporate social responsibility (CSR).

A perennial tension

Ivory towers. Byzantine discussions. Detachment from reality. How often we have heard (or pronounced ourselves!) such harsh comments about research. This tension between rigor and relevance is not new, and it will most possibly continue in the future. It is part of our lives as researchers, as educators, as citizens. It has also been reflected by the arts. For instance, Jorge Luis Borges, in his short tale “Rigor in Science” presents the story of the rigorous cartographers who wanted to achieve a perfect map of their country. So accurate that map it was, so big it was, that it ended up being the size of the country it intended to represent. Such unserviceable map was rapidly forgotten and destroyed. Thus, cartographer’s fervor for scientific rigor led to the dismissal of cartography.

In this note, we see rigor as the attachment to highest standards in the research design, data collection, analysis and interpretation, much in line with internal validity. Besides, we see relevance as the perennial question of whether we are posing the meaningful questions, much in line with external validity. Both objectives, rigor and relevance, remain different, not necessarily related, and such, they have been frequently perceived to be contradictory, or at least, in permanent tension. This tension transpires in the two complementary, different feedbacks that each paper receives. One comes from the academic community (via conferences, review process), and this feedback contributes to Rigor. The other feedback comes from society (via presentations to citizens, dissemination in the media, among others), and this feedback corresponds to Relevance.

Such tension between rigor and relevance has been largely analyzed. For instance, Chi Vo, Mounoud and Rose (2012) provide a review of classical articles in the management literature dealing with this tension. Aram and Salipante (2003) contend that a rigorous approach emphasizes the general while a relevant approach emphasizes the particular. Jarzabkowski, Mohrman and Scherer (2010) highlight the importance of this tension in management studies, pointing to a chasm between theory and practice. Ghoshal (2005) contends that such situation is unfortunate, as sound management practice needs to be based on rigorous theory. He famously claimed that “bad management theories are destroying good management practices”.  

The role of Reach: the implication of learning participants

We contend that one can only escape from this tension between rigor and relevance by addressing reach, that is, the third “r” of good science. Reach refers to the degree to which results and methods are disseminated to diverse audiences and translated into useful tools for the scientific, business, regulatory, policy and lay arenas. While Relevance relates to the question (how appropriate, meaningful, useful it is), Reach relates instead to the solution, the answer provided by research. For instance, Balazs and Morello-Frosch (2013) present an example where a research study about healthcare involved the participation of a community; the whole process of the study (design, methods, and results) directly benefited from the engagement of the community at different stages. Contrary to an aseptic vision of isolated researchers, detached from the object under study, some leading scholars in management are increasingly acknowledging that researchers can (perhaps, should) focus on those issues that they consider personally relevant (Jones and Bartunek, 2021). Those researchers, knowledgeable and engaged about their field, would be “optimally positioned” for rigorous and relevant research that would reach society at large.

Reach applied to our CSR workshop: Learning and Research

We organized a CSR workshop using a trading simulation platform. We intended to engage participants in a gamification experiment to make them reflect about CSR through their investment decisions. During the simulation, participants make investment decisions (buying or selling shares), thus reflecting their views about the social responsibility of firms and revealing their preferences as individual investors. Specifically, we examine whether investor behavior is more closely related to a monetary objective only (wealth maximization) aligned with the shareholder approach, or both monetary and social objectives (welfare maximization) aligned with the stakeholder approach.

To construct the CSR workshop, we relied on the innovative financial simulation tool – SimTrade – where each participant plays the role of a trader. Both educational and fun, SimTrade allows students to familiarize themselves with the financial markets: placing orders, stock prices, information flow, etc. In the simulation, the participant will have to react – buy or sell shares or do nothing – to events.

Trading simulation platform:

We study the trading reaction of participants following CSR-related events. We consider two events: a corporate donation and a change in the composition of a sustainability index. Their trading decisions becoming a means of expression of their mental models about CSR.

Our 3-hour workshop takes place in two parts:

• In the first part, everyone will participate in a behavioral finance experience: using the SimTrade simulation tool, each participant plays the role of a trader in a trading room.
• In the second part, we debrief the experiment and present its results. This is the starting point for a discussion on the environment and its relationship with business.

Trading room:

The figure below (adapted from Balazs and Morello-Frosch (2013) to our case) illustrates the connections of the components of the 3R principles that we applied to our research.

On the left side of the graph, Reach, which includes Community Feedback (our interaction with participants in the experiment), the Dissemination of Methods (our disclosure of how the experiment is made), and the Dissemination of Results (both to the academic community and to the public at large, with adapted communication to each audience). On the top of the graph, Relevance also includes Community Feedback. During our workshops, we rely on participant’s comments to adapt and improve our research. Relevance also relates to our Research Question, a hot societal topic, and to the Research Design, which intends to capture the behavior of investors in financial markets. Finally, on the right side of the graph, Rigor also includes Research Design, plus Data Collection and Data Analysis, all of them done according to high methodological standards.

Our CSR workshop is an ongoing project. We are running it in several programs, undergraduate, graduate, and Exec Ed. We also propose it for companies and financial institutions. With the data collected, we continue our research project, which casts light on the behavior of individual investors in relation with CSR. Recently, our workshop received the 2024 Science & Society prize from the ESSEC Foundation.

The Three Rs of research: Rigor, Relevance and Reach:

To know more about ESSEC CSR workshop

The video of the ESSEC CSR workshop presentation: progress of the workshop, presentation of the simulation, and testimonials from participants is available here.

Presentation of the workshop:

References

Aram, J., and Salipante, P. (2003) Bridging Scholarship in Management: Epistemological Reflections. British Journal of Management, 14(3), 189–205.

Balazs, C.L. and Morello-Frosch, R. (2013) The Three Rs: How Community-Based Participatory Research Strengthens the Rigor, Relevance, and Reach of Science, Environmental Justice, 6(1): 9-16.

Chi Vo, L., Mounoud, E., Rose, J. (2012) Dealing with the opposition of rigor and relevance from Dewey’s pragmatist perspective, M@n@gement, 4(15): 368-390.

Ghoshal, S. (2006) Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2005, 4 (1): 75–91.

Jarzabkowski, P., Mohrman, S., and Scherer, A. (2010) Organization Studies as Applied Science: The Generation and Use of Academic Knowledge about Organizations Introduction to the Special Issue. Organization Studies, 31(10), 1189-1207.

Jones, E., and Bartunek, J. (2021) Too close or optimally positioned? The value of personally relevant research. Academy of Management Perspectives, 35(3): 335-346.

Longin, F. and Zicari, A. (2024) Individual investors’ preferences for corporate social responsibility: Evidence from a trading experiment, Working Paper, ESSEC Business School.