Taking Business Seriously: Introduction to Special Issue‪.‬

Two broad themes inspire this special issue of the International Journal of Business: First, that business seriously under-performs and, second, that scientific research makes it possible to practice evidence-based management and improve business performance. Consider modern business education and business practice. Three innovations at the Harvard Business School have been widely adopted. In business education, the "case method," formalized as the main HBS teaching technique about 1920 by Dean Wallace Donham, was adapted from education in common law (Donham, 1922). It builds on precedent and consistency rather than on empirical evidence to develop scientific theory. The Harvard case method conveys an aura of business reality, but whether it contributes to understanding and effective practice is in question (Contardo and Wensley, 2004). That "most of the School's intellectual activity focused on the task of case research" appears not to have enhanced HBS research impact relative to other business schools (Cruikshank, 1987: 280; cf. Armstrong and Sperry, 1994; Fogg 2007: A11). Quantitative case analysis, an alternative approach to business reality, builds on scientific suggestions by Summer, Bettis, Duhaime, Grant, Hambrick, Snow, and Zeithaml (1990), and is presented here by Franke, Mento, Prumo, and Edlund (2007).