As I reflect further on the two-day 4th International Conference of Management and Social Sciences Researchers of Nigeria held at the Imo State University at Owerri, there are three things I would like to discuss briefly. The first is to reiterate that the emphasis in today’s social science scholarship is on stakeholders, and no longer on stockholders or shareholders.
Gone are the days when Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize laureate in economics and the most influential monetary economist in the last 50 years, would declare that businesses exist purely to make profits, that is, for their shareholders. Stakeholders, as we noted on the second day of the conference, are the stockholders plus organizational members otherwise called employees or the staff, the host community, suppliers, distributors, and the government.
It is important to reiterate this point because after the attention of the lady who presented a paper on the United Bank of Africa was called to the need to replace shareholders with stakeholders in her work, another presenter gave the impression that only shareholders are the stakeholders in an organization. The “UBA lady” stated that the bank’s audited report would be of critical importance to the shareholders. But the audit report would be equally of great importance to UBA employees, the CBN, the NDIC, UBA consultants, etc.
Now, the second observation. None of the second day presentations regrettably is as strong theoretically or philosophically as it should be. Theory is of great importance to academics. Theory must be reflected clearly in research methodology which in Nigerian universities constitutes Chapter Three in dissertations.
There is a philosophical framework which guides research methodology, starting from research design. For example, exploratory design goes with qualitative research, social constructionism, and inductive reasoning in the theoretical approach. Quantitative research goes with explanatory design, positivism, and deductive reasoning. The mixed methods has its own research protocol, with abductive reasoning as its theoretical approach.
I didn’t hear a reference made to any of the research protocols. Yet, this is at the heart of modern research, whether in management science in particular or social sciences in general.
There is a lot of material free of charge online from one of the two management research books I recommended two days ago, namely, Research Methods for Business Students, 9th edition, by Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill (2023). We can also learn more, free of charge, from ChatGPT or any other large language model (LLM). Needless to say, there are numerous free academic and professional articles online on the topics touched here.
My third point is how to make the next conferences more interactive. Like most participants, I would like a situation where from the first day an ample opportunity is given to critique or review every paper immediately after presentation.
It’s been so good engaging a number of participants since the conference ended. May God bless everyone abundantly.
I look forward to the day Nigerian business programmes, especially with the establishment of management schools at Unilag, UNN, Unizik and BUK, would earn accreditations from AMBAs, AACSB, and EQUIS. Many of you would be wondering: what are these things? Please, Google them. It is extremely important that you do as a business scholar.
C. Don Adinuba.
