Staw, B. M. (1985) Reports on the road to relevance and rigor: Some unexplored issues in publishing organizational research. In L. L. Cummings & P. J. Frost, eds. Publishing in the Organizational Sciences (pp 96-107). Homewood Illinois, Richard D. Irwin, Inc.

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Is there a tradeoff between relevance and rigor in organizational research? From a research perspective, relevance means the importance of a finding or idea to the advancement of knowledge. We often judge the relevance of a work against the research already conducted, not to its contribution in understanding organizations.

Research that is literature driven focuses more on finding gaps in existing theories rather than fresh looks at organizations. Deviant ideas are also screened out in the review process.

What is a significant contribution? Some say it's those that refute common sense or give an answer when common sense could go either way. Others say its when the contribution sheds light on topics where common sense is not applicable.

Some flashy studies have much distance between dependent and independent variables. In others the two variables may be very close and similar. It's also hard to tell where one variable stops and another begins.

Rigor is the strength of inference made possible by the given research study. It's more than the quantitativeness and statistical power of the study. Most of the issues are logical rather than statistical.

The existing journal publishing system serves to limit creativity, primarily serving as a retainer of exisiting, accepted knowledge that a catalyst for new ideas.