Ms. Sujatha Balakrishna is a senior lecturer, writer, researcher, reviewer, certified trainer, and current PhD student in Management. Sujatha holds an MBA from Universiti Malaya (2007) and a BA (Hons) degree from Nilai College and Oxford Brookes University (2001). She has more than 17 years of teaching experience in higher education. She has vast experience in teaching in the areas like organizational behaviour, interpersonal skills, professional development, management, and business ethics. Sujatha has also supervised more than 20 international postgraduate and undergraduate student’s project papers. She has around 10 research publications. Sujatha is also serving various other roles such as reviewer, advisory member, session chair, jury member etc. She is also a writer who writes for various international educational magazines and news sites on topics such as Gen Z, higher education, sustainable education, child depression and mental health. She has given key note speech and guest lecture on various topics internationally. She was awarded with Global Faculty Award, the Most Exemplary Educator and Researcher Award 2023 and Distinguished Teacher Award: Management in 2024.
Publication has been a significant activity in the academic world. More importance is given to the publishing work, and more KPIs (key performance indicators) and rewards are associated with the number of publications. This role has been more attractive than ever to academicians. This certainly bring positive value for all the universities and educational institutions. However, are the authors clear on who they are writing for? Who will be the readers? What are the objectives of the publications? Any work should be done to benefit the most relevant party. In the case of academic paper publications, the author should consider who is it written for and be aware of the potential target readers.
Beneficiaries of the research
It would be more valuable if certain industries could benefit from the research done by the academicians. The data collection, conclusions, and recommendations made should add value to industries and organizations. The next target beneficiaries should be the students, given that the researchers are lecturers. Most of the research done is for knowledge sharing among other academicians only. Rarely are the research findings shared or presented to the industry, except for case studies. The publication quotas in the universities should not be the limit for academician to involve in research but also to share the results that they achieved with the desired parties. Rarely, the research is done with the intention of expanding their knowledge and being shared in the classroom. Students would love to learn and benefit from their lecturers, who are great scholars and researchers. Good research quality should make a difference in classroom learning, delivery, and student development. Research and publication should help the academicians to develop themselves who would eventually develop their students.
The changing trend
Due to the publish or perish culture nowadays, most of the working time is allocated to the research work, and less time is spent improving the teaching materials, coursework, teaching methods, and etc. The current trend of online teaching and learning, also known as ODL (open distance learning), is making lecturers spend fewer hours on the improvement of the materials and teaching style. The online classroom format is a little different, as less time is spent teaching and more time is allocated for the students to learn at their own pace. Hence, the lecturers have more free time to focus on their research work.
Research and industry collaboration
The outcomes of any research should add value to that particular industry. The academicians would be the better people to do research and provide data and suggestions for improvements to industries and organizations. Academicians should look for ways to collaborate with industry and help them with their research and development. particularly business school researches. Most of the research and experiments in science and technology benefit their industry by contributing the latest innovation and technology. How about business and management? Do business schools provide any data or suggestions to the industry based on their research? Does the industry have access to these research papers or publications? Are the sample respondents being informed of the results of the research? Unfortunately, most of us will agree that the readers are the academics as only them have access to and knowledge about papers published. It is quite understandable that the publishing industry works in a circle where numbers play an important role. When I publish my paper, it will be cited by another researcher, and another researcher, and the circle will never end.
It would be excellent if academicians could contribute to the research and development (R & D) of any organization by presenting their research outcomes to the industry. Linking industry and academics will create lots of value to the entire world. Academicians will have better know-how about research, theories, and also valuable suggestions, recommendations, and solutions for industries. Business schools could wonderfully analyse the problems in an organization’s strategies and practices and provide valuable insights into how to solve the problems case by case. This would be a case study method of research that is directly intended to help organizations. In this way, the findings of the research will reach the right readers or practitioners. Academicians would agree that most of the research done is quantitative in nature, as this would be the easiest and fastest to do. There are very few lecturers or postgraduate students who choose to do case study research that affiliates with an organization. As such, we can conclude that most of the research papers are read by the academicians themselves, who might not even benefit from the outcomes unless the research respondents are academicians themselves.
It is high time for researchers to think of ways to benefit a larger population and reach a huge circle of readers who could benefit from the findings. Academicians should think beyond the numbers of publications and serve more as lecturers in the world of educating others. This can enhance the relationship between academicians and postgraduate students in higher education and industry practitioners, who could work together to benefit each other for a more meaningful contribution for both academia and industry.