Introduction
This paper is an article review of the scholarly journal “Strategic Management: Is it an Academic Discipline?” Strategic Management is a necessary facet of modern day administration. It is a discipline that is used by managers to conduct business with a certain foresight. It is comparatively a new field of research and therefore has a lot of potential in terms of academic research as well as innovative amendments. However, critics believe that Strategic Management is not exactly an academic discipline and therefore can be learnt easily on the job based upon the theories and extensive literature. There is also a danger to the academic researchers of this field as stagnation may force the disintegration of this discipline and absorption of this subject into other side disciplines like micro-economics etc. This risk the discipline to be disintegrated and its concepts absorbed into parallel streams of discipline. This article ascertains the credibility of the belief the Strategic Management is an academic discipline.
Discussion
Strategic Management is a discipline in business arts and is used to run businesses with foresight. It is, like many other fields in business arts, a theorized as well as a practical subject. However, strategizing business requires certain amount of knowledge and skill of the field it is being applied to. It has a high potential for research because of it has been into existence as separate subject for relatively less amount of time as compared to other business arts subjects. This gives promise as a lot research can be carried out on the theories and concepts of Strategic Management. However, its newness comes with the shortcoming of criticism. Critics have taken to question the credibility of the subject siting it either too theoretical, or too practical, or based upon loosely formed theories that lack credibility in the realm of business arts The question arises as to whether Strategic Management needs to be treated as an academic discipline or not. This is may seem problematic to ascertain because there is a wide spectrum of disciplines, with many of them interrelated and co-existing to be sufficiently addressed under a single label. However, Strategic Management is an old concept and needs to be classified as a discipline or a mere concept.
The article discusses whether strategic management can be considered as an academic discipline unto itself. An academic discipline is one which is To ascertain a discipline’s academic credibility it must be tested through reliable models and frameworks that define the basic necessities of a discipline to be categorized as an Academic Discipline. The authors have applied a two dimensional framework suggested by Biglan. The two specified dimensions in this framework demarcates that a discipline may be called an academic discipline only when it has firstly identifiable paradigms that regulate the research and secondly having practical applications to its proposed end-users. Each has its own significance as one relates to development and refinement while the other is based upon application. The article explains the various roles in which the two paradigms are satisfied by Strategic Management.
Strategic Management is a discipline that requires a lot of research, testing and calculation, and therefore must be regarded as an independent discipline. Reading this article gave an insight into the intricacies of the field of Strategic Management and how it can be used in day to business and even other life activities and providing evidence of its effectiveness in bringing out solutions for business strategists..
What was unique about this article was its simplified approach towards the problem and the clarity of the methods defined and complicated through references. The article makes one understand that with proper methodology it is possible to ascertain the true nature of any subject under scrutiny. Since it was required to find the credibility of Strategic Management in the field of research as a separate Academic Discipline, the article dealt with it from the beginning methodically justifying the need for keeping this field as a separate discipline. However, the most fulfilling part of the article is the proof that Strategic Management is indeed an independent academic discipline. The article also gave an insight into why it was more important to refine existing theories and substantiate previous findings rather than searching for newer theories, as this would mean a further solidification of this discipline as a research as well as practising field. The theories have been criticized and need t be justified first so that credibility can be established regarding this field of study and theories can be brought out from vagueness into concrete full bread researched establishments. Doing so would increase the knowledge as well as the literature for theoretical as well as practical application of such theories as are described Strategic Management, enriching them in the process. This advice of revising old theories first comes as a sound advice to researchers who need to establish the credibility of their research work before they can commence complete research on their selected subject and agreement should be reached amongst scholars to embark on this task at the earliest so that criticism can be countered with strong and sound proofs based upon researches made by strategists and researchers.
Conclusion
The article was highly informative and made aware of the basic nuances of the Strategic management trade and why research is crucial in this field as a separate discipline. Although the motive of the article was to ascertain whether Strategic Management is valid as an academic discipline, but it also ended up discussing the roles and challenges of a Strategic Management researcher. An academic researcher is required to research and update the database of their discipline as well as maintain credibility of concepts involved. Strategic Management researchers have to understand and interpret data for practitioners. The article also became an inspiration to pursue the field of Strategic Management in the research scenario, as well as gave insight on the significance of researchers as well as practitioners to maintain the credibility of a field of discipline. One feature that strikes out most about this stream of academic research is its relative newness in comparison to old fields like business studies and micro-economics. This brings promise to researchers to apply old theories to form new ones, produce effective results with new strategies and amend old theories with additions or changes to make the compatible with changing times. At a personal level the article was able to intrigue and insight curiosity towards this field of business arts and was able to bring out awareness of the intricacies of the subject making it known to the people as an established independent academic research discipline.
