Call for Proposals
2012-2013 Research Program
Overview of the Grants Program
The Strategy Research Foundation is pleased to call for research proposals for its funding cycle in the 2012-2013 academic year. The overarching objective of these grants is to support rigorous and impactful research that otherwise would not be undertaken and that addresses the practical, contemporary problems facing managers. These problems include those current and continuing challenges that may be best solved through public policy formation involving the varied institutions, public and private, of modern societies.
The Foundation encourages grant proposal submissions on topics that are geared toward expanding the frontiers of the strategic management field into new domains of scholarship and practice. Examples include the public policy foundations and implications of strategic management, business-government interactions, stakeholder management, strategy process analytics, innovation and entrepreneurship, and new organizational forms. As these examples suggest, the opportunities are varied, and they reflect the fact that the basic disciplines that are important to strategic management are not singular and exclusive; they are multiple and inclusive, and range widely, as has been shown over the history of the field.
Proposals are also encouraged that address some of the most enduring problems of general management. Examples of such topics include managing change in large organizations, organizing global firms, implementing acquisitions effectively, addressing points of intersection between strategic management and finance in developing and deploying resources, and so forth. While these issues comprise longstanding and practical challenges facing managers that continue to be topical and deserve deeper inquiry, there are clearly other enduring problems in general management where advances in research and practice are needed. Barriers to advances in such content areas might be due to substantial data collection requirements, limitations in funding and scale in single departments or universities, or cross-disciplinary research needs. The Foundation wishes to be able to facilitate such research to address these barriers to progress in scholarship and practice.
The research topics mentioned above are intended to be illustrative rather than exhaustive. Other domains might be identified where progress in both research and practice has been limited, or perhaps even nonexistent, whether due to a lack of theoretical advances and prescriptions, or due to numerous challenges in research design and implementation. Grants by the SRF are intended to facilitate all research that will meaningfully enlarge the scholarly and practical impact of the strategic management field.
Whether a grant proposal is on a topic that would broaden the intellectual footprint and impact of strategic management or it concerns one of the thorniest problems of management, it is incumbent on a submitter to justify clearly why the research would not likely be undertaken without the resources provided by the Foundation. Beyond consideration of the general challenges inherent to the particular topics presented above, submitters may also draw upon the following funding priorities, which can also be used as guidelines to establish both the need for, and potential impact of, a grant by the SRF:
Facilitating openness and collaboration. Grants are encouraged for multi-person teams and for investigators from different institutions and organizations. For instance, addressing many of the aforementioned research topics will necessitate collaborations between strategic management scholars and researchers in other disciplines in the business school, social sciences, or other fields, and such interdisciplinary research proposals are encouraged. SRF grants are intended to facilitate the formation of such collaborations to combine theoretical and domain expertise, as well as to encourage the development and utilization of new research methods in strategic management. They are also intended to leverage the complementary resources such teams bring to research projects on complex organizational problems.
Connecting research and practice. Proposals are encouraged that not only lead to rigorous research that is potentially impactful for business and society, but also that directly engage practice in meaningful ways during the research process per se. Such interaction might take the form of fieldwork with organizations; engaged scholarship with practitioners throughout the research process; or even joint research involving scholars, managers, and/or consultants serving as co-investigators on grant proposals. The SRF has adopted the broad view that the field of strategic management is applied in its orientation, meaning that fostering better practice of management, especially that deemed strategic in nature, is as important as the formation of concepts, theories, and notions of strategy and its management in organizations of all types. There are many ways that grant proposals might demonstrate connections between research and practice, yet it is important that a grant proposal justifies the potential for research that is at once rigorous as well as relevant to practicing managers and those who advise them.
Addressing scale and complexity. Research that either holds the potential to broaden the scope of strategic management's impact, or that delves more deeply into the enduring problems of general management, will often involve multiple stages and projects as part of a larger intended research program. Such research might also involve multi-method studies, both qualitative and quantitative, as well as necessitate longitudinal research designs to investigate complex strategic processes and organizational dynamics. The purpose articulated in a grant proposal may be to develop a large-scale database (the analogue of CRSP or PIMS), which would provide positive spillovers for other strategic management research. It is therefore anticipated that funding by the SRF will serve to complement resources provided by other institutions. In addition, SRF funding can facilitate early-stage research that otherwise would not be initiated, enabling researchers to work toward a "proof of concept" that can then be leveraged to scale up and potentially garner additional research funding from other sources. Projects requiring more substantial funds can also be considered for eligibility for funding by potential sponsors of the SRF.
Funding and Deliverables
Under this Call the SRF plans to awards research grants up to $100,000 in total during the 2012-2013 funding cycle. Generally, these grants will be in the range of $5,000 to $20,000, and grantees will be named SRF Scholars. Financial support is provided to cover incurred direct research expenses for data collection (e.g., databases, surveys, interviews, and related travel), research assistants, and other support that enables the research to be conducted. Examples of ineligible expenses include conference travel, conference registration fees, compensation for the researchers' time, teaching buyouts, purchases of software or equipment, or university overhead. Determination of eligible and ineligible expenses rests with the SRF. As part of the budget section of the proposal, information on how the project would be affected by funding at 50% or at 75% the level of the amount applied for should be included.
If a proposal is accepted for funding, the SRF will prepare a written agreement that details the responsibilities of both the principal researcher and the SRF. The grant will be disbursed as expenses are incurred, which can be a multi-year period.
The SRF will expect regular progress reports as well as a final report on the project. The final report will include an executive summary of the research findings and documentation of the expenses incurred.
Submission Guidelines
Proposals should be submitted via email to srfgrants@purdue.edu. Researchers may submit only one submission per funding cycle, whether as a principal investigator or co-investigator. Doctoral students who have submitted a grant proposal to the 2012 Dissertation Program may not be part of a grant proposal to the regular program during the 2012-2013 academic year. Proposals should contain the following information:
a) Summary (500 words)
b) Research Proposal (docx or pdf) of up to ten (10) pages with the following suggested structure:
(1) Research Questions, including relevant literature, theoretical background, and expected contributions
(2) Methodology
(3) Discussion of why the research is unlikely to be done without the grant
(4) Timetable, schedule, and budget, in detail
(5) Cited references
c) Applicant(s) CV
Proprietary Rights
SRF Scholars will retain the copyright to all materials prepared in connection with the project. However, it is expected that the SRF will be granted an irrevocable, royalty free license in perpetuity to use such materials for non-commercial purposes furthering the mission of the SRF. The SRF requires that any publication of the resulting research in articles or other forms includes an acknowledgment that the research was funded in part by the Strategy Research Foundation.
Timetable
The submission deadline is December 31, 2012. Grant proposals will be reviewed by the SRF's Grants Committee, and announcement of grant decisions and SRF Scholars will be made in the spring of 2013.
The following criteria will be used in appraising proposals:
· Impact of the funding: Will the grant facilitate rigorous research that otherwise would not be undertaken, and that has the potential to make an impact on practice?
· Overall contribution to strategic management: Are the theoretical frameworks employed, and/or the data to be used, and/or the potential results to be obtained likely to make a new and substantial contribution to the strategic management field?
· Soundness, novelty and potential value of theory: Is this research likely to start up or redirect a line of inquiry? Does it put intellectual capital at risk? Is the theory parsimonious?
· Conceptual and empirical contributions: Does this research study a new phenomenon? Even if the phenomenon is not new, is the project's empirical base novel?
· Methodological rigor: Are the data appropriate for the theory being built or tested? Are the procedures appropriate for the research questions and are they adequate? If qualitative, is there adequate description of the methods used? Is validity properly justified?
· Creativity and quality of writing: Is the language used consistently? Are the arguments made clearly? Does the writing flow naturally?
· Managerial implications: Is this research likely to yield important advice for managers in public or private organizations?
Please send any questions on this research program to srfgrants@purdue.edu.