Management Research is an ongoing process that has spanned decades. One of the most intriguing business challenges of modern times – and one that has been around for ages – is about getting the best out of employees. Improving productivity and profit maximisation are business goals that have been pursued relentlessly, but they have almost always been constantly elusive. Since business operates in a volatile environment that is subject to varying influences of forces well outside the control of business organisations, management has to respond and pre-empt challenges to operating margins and market share, and with every stimulus, has to fine tune its personnel and human resources towards optimal performance.

This business challenge has made management constantly endeavour to find out new ways of dealing with organisational problems and novel means of dealing with business issues. However, the fact remains that all management research has already been done in the past through the years and human psychology remains the same, ruled by the same set of basic instincts that drive human behaviour. And it is the responsibility of Universities and Business Schools to indulge in research that is in line with current industry trends and to produce results that provide the key to the practical challenges in organisational behaviour.

It needs to be stressed that Universities are the research bodies that are at their jobs, adding to the knowledge base and the expertise that business can bank on. However, when dealing with such issues as employee motivation, employee morale or employee satisfaction, business has to work in tandem with Universities so that industrial contribution to the knowledge base leads to practical results. The fields of industrial psychology and organisational behaviour, that started with such pioneering works as the Hawthorne Studies, leading the way into gaining insights into the human mind at work, have evolved over the years, right through the contributions of the pioneers of management theory, such as F W Taylor and Henry Fayol and Sigmund Freud till the great minds of Peter F Drucker and Michael E Porter. And the best Universities and Top Business Schools are already in sync with the industry, with their numerous psychology experiments adding value to business. The foundations laid in management research and Business studies have to be built on further, to form a solid partnership between business and Universities, which would only add to the depth of knowledge and the breadth of practical applications of the findings of business studies.