The prospects for a production management body of knowledge in business schools: response to Koskela (2017) “Why is management research irrelevant?”

This article is a response to Lauri Koskela’s recent piece in Construction Management and Economics (“Why is management research irrelevant?” 35(1–2): 4–23) which reflects on the relationship between academic research and management practice in business schools. In particular, Koskela asks why production management research and teaching has disappeared from the business school agenda and why management research has failed to produce a consistent body of knowledge that is of use to management practice. In this article, I try to provide some alternative perspectives on the present and past contexts of management theory and production research. I argue that production research, if not teaching, is alive and well and the site of theory generation, problem-focused research and innovation. I also question the veracity and wisdom of a creating “body of knowledge” in relation to management research and practice-even if it were possible, which I believe it is not. My assessment of the state of research in business schools, at least in the U.K. and the U.S. and notwithstanding a lack of consensus over how to approach management research, is that it is eclectic and vibrant and of much more use to practicing managers in that state.