We seek to contribute to the ongoing discussion about interdisciplinary research by contextualizing its benefits, challenges, and realities specifically within the management field. The purpose of this Musing is to highlight the a“musing” (i.e., entertaining) and be“musing” (i.e., confusing) experiences that we have had trying to publish interdisciplinary research so we can offer some recommendations for how the management field can stop ignoring something we all claim to be of great value. In our experience, interdisciplinary research is amusing if you're intrinsically motivated to do it, but it is bemusing if you expect it to be tied to extrinsic rewards.
BromhamL.DinnageR.HuaX. (2016). Interdisciplinary research has consistently lower funding success. Nature, 534, 684–687. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18315.
2.
BrownR. R.DeleticA.WongT. H. F. (2015). Interdisciplinarity: How to catalyse collaboration. Nature, 525, 315–317. https://doi.org/10.1038/525315a.
3.
CruzK. S. (2021). Does anyone care about external validity? A call (or plea?) for more OB/HR research from multiple organizations/industries, panels, and publicly available datasets. Group & Organization Management, 46(6), 974–983. https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011211055879.
4.
JohnsG. (2006). The essential impact of context on organizational behavior. Academy of Management Review, 31(2), 386–408. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2006.20208687.
5.
JohnsG. (2018). Advances in the treatment of context in organizational research. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5(1), 21–46. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032117-104406.
6.
JonesE. B.BartunekJ. M. (2021). Too close or optimally positioned? The value of personally relevant research. Academy of Management Perspectives, 35(3), 335–346. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2018.0009.
7.
LeroyH.BuengelerC.VeestraetenM.ShemlaM.HoeverI. J. (2021). Fostering team creativity through team-focused inclusion: The role of leader harvesting the benefits of diversity and cultivating value-in-diversity beliefs. Group & Organization Management. https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011211009683.
8.
O’MearaK. (2011). Inside the panopticon: Studying academic reward systems. In SmartJ. C.PaulsenM. B. (Eds.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 161–220). Berlin, Germany: Springer.
9.
PorterA. L.RafolsI. (2009). Is science becoming more interdisciplinary? Measuring and mapping six research fields over time. Scientometrics, 81(3), 719–745. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-008-2197-2.
10.
RappT. L.DavisW. D.GibsonL. L. (2021). Cutting edge topics need a sharp knife and a solid cutting board: Welcome to the 2021 Special Conceptual Issue. Group & Organization Management, 46(2), 147–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011211005049.
11.
TaylorS. E.FiskeS. T. (1978). Salience, attention, and attribution: Top of the head phenomena. In BerkowitzL. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 249–288). Academic Press, Inc.
12.
TverskyA.KahnemanD. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124–1131. https://doi.org/10.1126/185.4157.1124.
