Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/55878
Relevant, Rewarded by Melody Walker B usiness schools face a perennial dilemma: How can they motivate faculty to pursue research that has scholarly significance, can be applied in the real world, and is easily accessible to the corporate audience? The Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, has found its own distinctive answer. For the past three years, the school has held an annual competition to recognize the best paper produced by Olin faculty that offers both rigor and relevance. The prize comes with an engraved crystal statue and a $10,000 award. The new competition is the brainchild of Dick Mahoney, former chairman and CEO of Monsanto and current executive-in-residence at the Olin School. Mahoney is well aware that much of the research produced by business school faculty has no direct application in the corporate world—and even when it does, it's usually written in an academic style that busy executives simply don't have the time to decode. "There's important, useful information in those research papers, but it's not accessible to the managers and leaders who need it most," Mahoney says. He provides the funding for the annual competition with the hope of achieving two main goals: to showcase Olin research and to "make a statement that business relevance is valued." 34 A research competition at Washington University encourages faculty to think about the practical applications of their scholarly studies. Rigorous, BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2010