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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Human Resource Management Review

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/hrmr

Developing strategic human resource theory and making a

difference: An action science perspective
Michael Beer
Harvard Business School, United States

There is nothing so practical as a good theory

Lewin (1951, p. 169)
If social scientists truly wish to understand certain phenomena, they should try to change them. Creating, not predicting, is the
most robust test of validity-actionability
Kurt Lewin (in Argyris, 1997)
When Kurt Lewin referred to “good” theory he meant that it should provide two outcomes, a theory with propositions that can be
tested, and guidelines and/or an innovative practice that can be employed by practitioners to improve desired outcomes predicted by
the theory. The development of such theories and methods requires applied field research, or as Lewin argues action science (Argyris,
Putnam, & Smith, 1985). The latter, the main focus of this article, requires academics to adopt the role of scholar-consultants. Their
role is to work collaboratively with practitioners to solve problems and/or introduce an innovative practice from which they learn by
researching the response to and effectiveness of the intervention.
A group of respected management scholars assembled by Mohrman, Lawler, and Associates (2011) at the University of Southern
California a few years ago came to this same conclusion, namely, that applied research can and has advanced theory. In this article I
evaluate SHRM research and theory against standards of usefulness and usability, and advocate that HRM scholars employ action
science and accept their form of research as a legitimate and important form inquiry and theory development. This is essential if HRM
is to provide practitioners useful and usable knowledge. I employ a brief case of action science that I have been involved with for the
last 25 years, and use it to develop principles HRM scholars should employ if they want to make a differecne and develop good theory
can.
In late 2009 I received a call from Ed Ludwig, the CEO of Becton Dickinson (BD), a global medical technology company with
revenues of 8.5 billion, with a request to help him and his successor Vince Forlenza to transform BD into a more innovative faster
growing company. During the past decade of Ludwig's tenure as CEO the company had grown substantially on the basis of its
operational effectiveness, and incremental improvement in products. That capability rested on a system of organizing, managing and
leading that had been deeply embedded over decades. Becoming a more innovative company would require senior management to
develop an organization and HRM system that fit their new strategy.
In the year that followed my colleague Russ Eisenstat and I employed the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP), an action science method
we had developed and researched for BD years earlier, to help BD transform (Beer & Eisenstat, 1996, 2004). The method guides a task
force of key managers, appointed by the senior team, to interview approximately 100 key managers in all parts of the organization
about the capacity of the organization to execute the strategy (strengths and barriers) and then to speak “truth to power” about what
they learned. Senior teams then develop a change plan to realign the organization and its HRM system with the new strategy, feed it
back to the task force for critique and once modified launch a transformation. The honest, collective and public conversation SFP
enables is intended to allow all stakeholders in the conversation to partner with senior management in identifying barriers to change
and developing an organization solution better aligned with strategy to which people are committed. As Jerry Hurwitz, BD's Chief
Human Resource Officer notes below, SFP had this effect. It enabled the development of an agenda that guided and accelerated the

E-mail address: mbeer@hbs.edu.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2017.11.005

1053-4822/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Beer, M., Human Resource Management Review (2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2017.11.005
M. Beer Human Resource Management Review xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

transformation led by Vince Forlenza, Ed Ludwig's successor:

I think we took the SFP work in 2010 quite seriously to the degree that it formed the basis of Vince's agenda for several years and
became the focus of ket Management Committee (senior team) members. Perhaps it was not completely obvious at the time but
SFP was instrumental to many of the changes at BD…
The purpose of this brief case study is not to convince the reader that of SFP is an effective process for transforming organizations,
though research we have conducted has shown that it can achieve the results that BD's CHRO describes. It is to illustrate that HRM
researchers can produce good theory and make the kind of difference this case illustrates.
The argument of this paper is that HRM, and the sub-field of SHRM in particular, is not producing useful or usable theories. By
usable I mean that the research specifies a practice that enables the manager to achieve goals predicted by the theory and practice.
Most HRM theories are abstract and not connected to real strategic problems general managers face. They are abstract because they
are based on the positivistic academic research that by definition distances the researcher from real problems and how managers cope
with them. While that research paradigm is suited to testing and validating theories, it cannot produce the “good theory” that Lewin
advocated. Instead the field of HRM must employ more action science — a collaborative process of problem definition, data gath-
ering, analysis, discussion, reflection and action from which both managers and the researcher learn (Shani, Mohrman, Pasmore,
Stymne, & Adler, 2008). I argue good theory emerges inductively from innovative practices to solve a problem developed colla-
boratively with manager as opposed to from abstract questions asked by most academics.
I do not argue that all academics must be action scientists or field researchers. There is a justifiable division of labor between
scholarship and practice. But rebalancing is required — less abstract theorizing and more applied research. That requires academics
willing and capable of developing a long-term collaboration with managers to solve real problems whose solution unfold over time.
Long-term collaborations with managers will lead to practical learning and development theories at the individual, team and or-
ganizational level of analysis. Indeed, the most impactful theories and practices have been developed, as I will show later, by
academics whose grounded theories emerged from long-term action science projects like the one I illustrate in this article.
Unless the field rebalances its research orientation, it will remain irrelevant and fail to have the influence other leading fields have
accomplished. Pfeffer (2009) advocates for shift in balance so the field of organizational studies can have (1) “…more effect on the
actual practice of management in organizations in both the private and public sector; (2) [be] at least as much ‘at the table’ and as
influential in the formulation of policy in both the public domain and private sector as our sister social science disciplines…; and (3)
[be] connected to, as engaged with, and as relevant for our profession – management – as our sister professional schools in fields such
as engineering, education, and medicine are in their professions and constituencies.”
Using action science (Argyris et al., 1985) or engaged scholarship as Van de Van (2007), calls it, I was able to develop the
Strategic Fitness Process, the SHRM method and theory employed at BD (Beer, 2011a). That method enabled my colleagues at
TruePoint, and I to “be at the table” at BD) and 100s other organizations in the last 25 years when senior management was making
decisions about how to develop a high commitment and performance system. And using data that emerged from that process my
colleague Russ Eisenstat and I (Beer, 2011a) were able to develop a theory of organizational effectiveness that explains why com-
panies have difficulty fitting and refitting their organization and HRM system to ever changing competitive realities in a way that
develops a high commitment culture. And repeated applications of SFP enabled us to improve process and learn about the conditions
required for managers to implement it effectively. Before describing how the theory and method were developed, I elaborate below
my critique of the field of HRM.

1. Why HRM is not developing good theory and practice

The field of SHRM, indeed the larger field of organizational studies, has failed to achieve the outcomes Pfeffer advocates. That is
because the field has by and large not achieved three essential goals of a vibrant professional field. These are (Beer, 2011b):

1. Relevant knowledge — Scientific theories that provide guidance to managers about what they should do, be and know to achieve
specified outcomes.
2. Actionable knowledge — Replicable practices and methods consistent with the theory that managers should employ to achieve
desired outcomes the theory predicts in their context. That type of knowledge is also essential for teaching MBAs and practi-
tioners,
3. Ethical theories and practices — They consider the interests and well-being of all stakeholders and the larger society, not just the
shareholder.

The reason for the failure of HRM to achieve these goals is a wide and ethically unjustified gap between academic researchers and
the world of practice. It is as if academics and practitioners live in different worlds. Very little academic research and theory is
therefore useful or used according to the observations and analysis of numerous practically minded academics (Bartunek & Rynes,
2014; Daft & Lewin, 2008; Rynes, Bartunek, & Daft, 2001). The field of HRM is no exception as noted by Anderson, Herroit, and
Hodgkinson (2001), Kaufman (2015a) and Kryscynski and Ulrich (2015). The latter cite a number of strategically important problems
CEOs face, similar to the problem faced by BD's CEO, for which they require urgent help but for which the field of SHRM does not
have a good and actionable theory or practice. The gap between academics and practitioners becomes even more alarming if one
considers that 50 of the most influential management innovations such as lean manufacturing have not come from academia (Pfeffer,
2009).

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At the conference on developing useful knowledge organized by Sue Mohrman and Ed Lawler Ed Lawler in 2009 at University of
Southern California (Mohrman et al., 2011), the late Richard Hackman (Hackman, 2002; Hackman & Oldham, 1980) whose research
has been influential with scholars and useful to practitioners in the field of work design and team effectiveness raised his hands in
despair. In very emotional terms he told us that he was very pessimistic about the prospect of academics making a contribution to
practice unless there were dramatic changes in the academic research enterprise. Why is it that academics and HRM scholars in
particular fail to produce relevant scientific theories and practices?
While the problem has usually been framed in terms of the accessibility of academic writing to practitioners, this is not the central
problem. It is the positivistic and deductive model of research enforced by norms of the academy. They are unsuited to a professional
field of practice like HRM. Positivistic methods, or normal science, put a premium on developing knowledge within existing theo-
retical frames. These theories are typically derivatives of other theories framed to answer questions that academics think are of
interest. These questions are then investigated by distanced cross-sectional research or lab experiments. The questions being in-
vestigated are therefore not responsive to a problem defined by practitioners. Moreover, cross-sectional nature of the research is not
based on a long-term collaborative relationship between scholars and practitioners. This precludes in depth longitudinal engagements
with companies and their leaders necessary for the development of theories that have practical value.
Consider the oft cited and influential book by Paauwe, Guest, and Wright (2013). Its HRM theory is derived almost entirely from
the stream of narrow positivistic HRM research in the last two decades. An evaluation of the HRM research and theory in the last
30 years concludes that practitioners would find the book “as academic with little information they can understand or implement
(Kaufman, 2015a).” To my knowledge executives do not know of the book, do not refer to it to develop their organizations, and the
authors do not specify how managers might apply their theory to develop their organizations.in a way that recognizes and respects
the views of multiple stakeholders.
The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm (Barney, 1991), the most cited and influential SHRM theory is motivated by economic
theory and the desire to explain human resource management in economic terms. Yet, as Kaufman argues, the assumptions that
underlie it are questionable (Kaufman, 2015b). Preim and Butler (2001) and raises concerns about the level of abstraction in the
resource-based “view” of the firm and, therefore, its usefulness for the practice of strategic management. Indeed, RBV theory is not
how senior managers frame their SHRM problems and therefore any research framed by this or any other similar abstract theory is of
little value to the manager. Even Becker and Huselid (2006), influential normal scientists, conclude that how HRM scholars are
conceptualizing the architecture of HRM systems is too indirect to guide empirical work about the linkage between high performance
work practices and relevant outcomes, or to provide guidance to practitioners.
Indeed, senior executives in their search to improve the effectiveness of their organization and HRM system do not start with
academic SHRM theories. For example, BD's CEO in 1990, when our work at the company started, knew of the HRM theory my co-
authors at Harvard and I had developed and presented in Managing Human Assets (Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Mills, & Walton, 1984).
Because it was grounded our knowledge of practice, he found it useful. Yet, he was still found it unusable and requested help in
“developing a company capable of implementing strategy.” While our Harvard HRM theory was grounded, it did not provide a
practice he might employ to realign the organization with strategy. He needed a bottom's up high involvement inquiry process that
would define requisite changes to which his key managers and lower levels would become committed. Becker and Huselid (2006)
argue that strategy execution is a direction that SHRM should take, though they do not frame this as an organization change and
development problem or cite mine or other's research and practice, a symptom of the unfortunate disconnect between the fields of
HRM and organization development scholarship.
Useful theory is grounded in the reality of organizational life so claims can be contextualized. To develop such theories academics
must develop a deep understanding of organizations as systems, the many mediating circumstances that affect relationships they are
studying. That understanding can only be obtained by involvement in collaborative inquiries with managers to solve problems —
collecting data about the problem, diagnosing its underlying root causes, and developing a practice to solve the problem. Glaser and
Strauss (1967) argue:
…the discovery of theory from data – which we call grounded theory – is a major task confronting sociology today…such a theory
fits empirical situations, and is understandable to sociologists and layman alike. Most important it works — provides us with
relevant predictions, explanations, interpretations and applications. (p. 1)
Grounded research and action science have produced far more influential scholarly theories and practical methods than current
SHRM theories, and have stood the test of time. For example, Argyris' (1985) work on the problem of defensive routines is widely
acknowledged by scholars and practitioners to be a major barrier to effectiveness, and managers as well as consultants in numerous
organizations have employed his specifications of dialogue to overcome them. With Don Schon (Argyris & Schon, 1978) these ideas
have been developed into a theory of organizational learning that is highly relevant to the field of SHRM and to strategy execution.
Yet, this theory has not been integrated into HRM, though it influenced the development of SFP I use here as an illustration of useful
research in this article.
Deep engagement with practitioners, in particular his many years as a consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation, was the basis
of Ed Schein's practical and influential theories. Process Consultation theory and method (Schein, 1969) have been widely employed
by consultants with their clients. Engagement with real managers and problems allowed Schein to obtain deep knowledge about
organizations and led to his theory of organizational culture, also widely recognized as an important contribution to understanding
and improving organizational effectiveness (Schein, 1996).
Richard Walton, my colleague at HBS, was deeply involved in helping companies develop high commitment manufacturing plants
in the 1970s and 80s. This not only helped companies like Proctor and Gamble to improve economic and human outcomes in their

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manufacturing plants, but led to a theory high commitment. And observing what happened to these plants over time helped Walton
develop a life cycle theory of organizational transformation and change (Walton, 1980).
The development of the “Harvard HRM Model” (Beer et al., 1984), cited as one of two founding HRM theories (the other was the
Michigan Model) by Kaufman (2015a), was enabled by the experience my colleagues (Walton was a co-author) and I had as scholar-
practitioners in the fields of Organization Development and Industrial Relations. The book also took shape as a result of the cases –
another way to connect with the phenomena - my colleagues and I wrote for a new required general management oriented human
resource management course for MBAs at the Harvard Business School (Beer, 2015). Interestingly, both the Harvard and Michigan
Models employed grounded insights from Hewlett Packard, a highly admired high commitment and performance company.
Richard Hackman's influential scholarly contributions to a theory or job design, and practical advice about how to redesign them,
are based on deep grounded knowledge of the phenomena (Hackman & Oldham, 1980). So is Hackman's research and theory about
team formation and development (2002).
Robert Kaplan's and David Norton's Balanced Score Card (BSC), the most widely established theory and method for assessing
progress in implementing strategy, arose out of their desire to develop an innovative method that improved on existing practice at the
time, not from an abstract theory (2001 and 2006). That understanding grew out of consulting engagements they had had with
companies. And, the development of the BSC occurred through years of engagement with 100s of companies by them and profes-
sional employed by their consulting firm. Reflecting on this journey and the development of another accounting innovation, activity-
based cost accounting, Kaplan argues that normal social science is designed to test and validate theories about existing phenomena
and practice. Action science is required to improve a practice or develop innovative new practices (Kaplan, 1998).
The theories of these influential scholar-consultants are rarely cited in AMJ or AMR or HRM journals. It is as if work that is
relevant, grounded and impactful is less worthy than the elite status that normal science has in the academy. Much of academic
research is self-referential, leading to findings that are disconnected from the real world. For example, articles about high perfor-
mance work systems that began with Huselid's (1995) article are by and large devoid of references to grounded case examples.
To be relevant and useful HRM theories must also access knowledge in other fields that may help explain the phenomena. That
has not happened because academics are not engaged in solving practical problems. Such engagement “forces” the action scientist to
utilize all the knowledge available to understand the problem and then solve it (Van de Van, 2007). SHRM has, however, become
disconnected from other relevant disciplines (Becker & Huselid, 2006; Kaufman, 2015a). Of particular relevance are the fields of
strategy, organizational behavior, organization design, and organization development and change. These provide insights that can
inform SHRM theory and practice (Ployhart, 2015). Strategic HRM challenges, like that presented by the CEO of BD, lie at inter-
section of these fields. To develop SFP practice and theory I had to use knowledge from them to solve BD's strategy implementation
problem.
SHRM theories do not incorporate a much-needed change and development perspective, one that recognizes that all individuals
and organizations are in a dynamic state of becoming (Jewell, Jewell, & Kaufman, 2018). For example, how can firms align and
realign the HRM system with ever changing competitive realities? What the field of SHRM requires are more process theories and for
that it must be linked more strongly to the field of Organization Development. It informed our development of the Strategic Fitness
Process described in this article. BD's CEO in 1990 asked for help in “creating a company capable of implementing strategy.” That is a
developmental and change problem.
Consider Mark Huselid's (1995) well-known and important findings regarding the relationship between high performance work
practices (HPWS) and financial performance. It is an example of the limits of normal science. Their research and many other studies
that followed were cross-sectional and tell us little about the situational factors that led to managers to want to adopt HPWS – their
values, business challenges or other factors – or the change processes that enabled successful adoption of HPWS. Without that type of
knowledge HRM theories are unable to make recommendations about how to develop high performance work system (Jewell et al.,
2018). Action science, such as that conducted by the influential theorists discussed earlier, can.
SHRM theories have failed the ethics test. With the exception of the Harvard HRM Theory (Beer et al., 1984), which explicitly
recognized that stakeholders, for example employees and shareholders, have different interests, SHRM theories, such as those of
Huselid (1995) and Paauwe et al. (2013), or RBV theory (Barney, 1991), fail to reflect the multiple stakeholder perspective necessary
for a vibrant professional field. Such a perspective would require HRM theories to incorporate more explicitly justice as an important
outcome of HRM policies and practices (Greenberg, 1987). Ghoshal (2005) has argued that many management theories are bad and
are destroying good practices because they do not recognize the interest of all stakeholders. SHRM theories, for example, do not
explain highly relevant phenomena such as the wide distrust of employees and society of business and business leaders. Conse-
quently, HRM theories are well behind the increasing number of CEOs who eschew shareholder value as the only purpose of business
(Beer, Eisenstat, Foote, Fredberg, & Norrgren, 2011). Engaging with unique and distinctive CEOs at the leading edge, as opposed
large cross-sectional studies representing the larger population of companies, would allow the HRM field to develop the breakthrough
interventions and theories Pfeffer argues we have not made (Pfeffer, 2009).

2. Developing an SHRM theory and method

I offer the development of the Strategic Fitness Process, initially called the Strategic Human Resource Management Process (Beer
& Eisenstat, 1996), as an example of how action science can produce grounded theory that is practical and ethical. It is based on
organization development principles similar to those Jewell et al. (2018) report they found enabled successful implementation of
high performance work systems. The Strategic Fitness Process is a container for co-investigation by the leadership team, key em-
ployees, other relevant stakeholders, and the scholar-consultant to learn together about perceived organizational strengths and

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barriers relevant to strategy execution. The process includes the following steps facilitated by a consultant in a span of approximately
six weeks (Beer, 2009; Beer & Eisenstat, 2004):

1. The senior team (SLT) develops a two-page statement articulating its strategy and the values they want to guide the organization.
2. The SLT appoints a task force of their best people one to two levels below them who, acting as researchers, will conduct con-
fidential interviews with key people in all parts of the organization regarding organizational strengths and barriers to strategy
execution and alignment with stated values.
3. The task force (TF) is trained by consultants to interview internal and external stakeholders who play key roles in executing the
strategy or are affected by the strategy. They, not senior management, select the people to be interviewed.
4. Upon completing their interviews the task force, guided by consultants, spends a day rigorously analyzing the data and developing
key themes that emerge (strengths and barriers).
5. Feedback of findings is provided the SLT in a carefully structured process that enables truth to speak to power safely.
6. The senior team, without the task force, conducts a diagnosis based on the data and develops an action plan that involves redesign
of the organizational and HRM system consistent with the feedback. Action plans typically include the behavior of the leader, the
senior team and the redesign of the organization (roles, responsibilities and relationships) and its management processes.
7. The SLT then presents the action plan to the task force for their critique (the TF meet alone). The plan is modified jointly as
appropriate.
8. The senior team holds a change mobilization meeting that involves the 100 interviewed and other key people. They present the
action plan (what they heard and what they are planning to do) obtain further feedback and then typically involve the task force
and other key people at the meeting in implementing the action plan.

While SFP was initially designed for use by senior management team, it has been applied, with some modification, at the op-
erating level (manufacturing plants, oil platforms and restaurants). If there is a union, union leaders have to join the senior team in
defining objective and values for the operating unit, and front line employees are involved in the research. In this way a partnership
between union and management could develop.

2.1. Principles for developing good theory

The principles below derive from my experience as a scholar-practitioner and were further modified through the experience of
developing SFP and the theory of organizational effectiveness that emerged. They are action science principles that I argued earlier
more HRM scholars will have to employ if the field of SHRM is to develop scientific theories that are relevant, actionable and ethical.
My goal here is not to present the theory and method in any detail or to argue for their validity.

2.1.1. Develop a collaborative relationship with managers

The principles that follow are rooted in the assumption that scholars and practitioners must be in a long-term collaborative
relationship that will enable manager to learn from the scholar and the scholar to learn from managers through a rigorous inquiry
process (Bartunek and Schein 2011; Shani et al., 2008). As noted earlier, Ed Schein's theory about culture emerged from a long-term
consulting relationship with Digital Equipment Corporation (Bartunek & Schein, 2011). My understanding about organizations and
their HRM system developed through multiple client engagements throughout my career as a scholar-practitioner. Simply asking for
access to an organization to collect data, the dominant way HRM researchers approach field research, and then leaving to write an
article does not lead to useful or usable knowledge (Beer, 1982).

2.1.2. Start with a problem

By definition, the researcher cannot make a difference in the life of managers and their organization's human resource system,
unless the inquiry is motivated by a manager's problems and the researcher is motivated to help solve that problem. That is how the
development of SFP at BD started. Of course, there are many macro HRM issues/problems such as the upcoming skills shortage or the
retirement of baby boomer generation that might not be felt by managers but require inquiry. Solving these problems at the firm level
would, however, require that managers see these issues as problems and they are willing to work with a scholar-consultant in joint
inquiry to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, most academics do not have an interest in engaged scholarship. That interest would develop if the incentive
structure of the academy, which I discuss later, motivated scholars to be scholar-consultants, or work collaboratively with con-
sultants. In my case the interest and capability to employ action science developed when I made an unconventional career choice for
a newly minted Ph.D. with normal science training. I took a job as an internal researcher and consultant in a company. I learned
quickly that one could not start with an existing theory or begin by offering to teach managers about the theory. I do not suggest that
all academics must take the same path, I do think that HRM academics would produce more relevant and actionable theories if they
made an effort to consult about real problems or at the very least do more field research and case writing.
Problem focused inquiry and action requires a change process that will allow managers and academics to co-investigate the
problem, come to understand it and plan action consistent with that understanding. That occurred at the corporate level in BD with
regard to the design of SFP, but the process itself provided a platform that enabled a co-investigatory process in each of BD's major
sub-units.
By being engaged with managers in the process of change action scientists' can observe the response of managers to change.

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Acceptance or resistance reveals truths that are not made visible by normal science research (Argyris, 1985). Consider for example,
how we learned from the response of managers to the introduction of SFP at Becton Dickinson. They initially employed the process as
if it were a survey, not engaging those below the top in developing action plans. They failed to understand that SFP was designed to
develop a partnership with lower levels that in turn develops commitment to change. When told about or findings a key manager
responded incredulously. It is the role of leaders is to decide. These observations, only available to engaged scholar-consultants,
helped us to see how cultural context moderates the effectiveness of SFP and that is reflected in our emerging theory of organizational
effectiveness (Beer, 2011b). The use of SFP over a twenty-five year period also educated senior management and led to a much more
effective use of SFP.

2.1.3. Use information from multiple disciplines

To solve real world problems engaged scholars must access knowledge from other fields, not just their own (Van de Van, 2007). I
would never have been able to develop an understanding of the strategy execution problem at BD without accessing knowledge from
the field of strategy, strategic management, organization design, organizational behavior and organization development.
For example, Lawrence and Lorsch's (1969) organization-environment theory helped me think of BD's execution problem as a
problem of alignment between the businesses' environment and senior management's choice of strategy on the one hand, and the
design of the organizational system on the other. I had employed that theory years earlier as an internal scholar-practitioner at
Corning to help a general manager adapt his business unit's organization's design to a new market demanding faster development of
cost effective products. That successful applied experience played an important part in the development of SFP.
Chris Argyris' (1993) findings about organizational defensive routines and how to overcome them led to the realization that we
could not rely on managers listening no-defensively to feedback from a task force about potentially threatening barriers to strategy
execution. We, therefore, designed a structure (the fishbowl method) and process (guidelines for listening for senior management)
that would enable honest feedback from the task forces. It made SFP a replicable process not dependent on the courage of task force
members or the listening skills of senior managers.
The development of SFP was also informed by socio-technical theory and practice that has found engagement by employees in
finding and solving problems to contribute to productivity at the operating level (Trist, 1981).

2.1.4. Maintain an open aperture in the inquiry

One of the unique strengths of action science is that enables researchers to learn about phenomena that distanced and uninvolved
normal scientists have more difficulty discovering. Application of SFP in many different client organizations allowed us to notice
similarities in the barriers to strategy execution task forces reported. That led to a formal content analysis of their reports and the
discovery of the following syndrome (they almost always appeared together) of silent barriers we came to call “silent killers” (Beer &
Eisenstat, 2000):

1. Unclear strategy, values and conflicting priorities

2. An ineffective senior leadership team
3. An ineffective leader — too tops down or too laissez faire.
4. Poor coordination across key functions, businesses or geographic regions
5. Inadequate leadership and talent development
6. Closed vertical communication and low trust

Because these barriers are difficult to discuss openly and publically the organization is stuck in the status quo, short of re-
placement of its leaders. Open and public dialogue, we concluded, is essential to a rapid and sustainable organizational transfor-
mation. As an example of the disconnect between HRM theories and organization development theories, academic SHRM theories do
not include the domains represented by the silent barriers though turning them into strengths seems crucial to identifying problems
with HRM policies and practices and developing sustainable change in them. Consider one task force that reported to senior man-
agement that the organization's incentive system had negative unintended consequences on collaboration need to improve perfor-
mance.

2.1.5. Develop a social technology to help managers solve their problem

To contribute to practice the HRM researcher must not only help managers understand the problem, the researcher must develop
a replicable practice that managers can employ to solve similar problems in the future. In effect the scholar must develop a social
technology (Beer, 1975) for organization change and development. Fritz Roethlisberger of Harvard Business School called this a
“walking stick” to help managers traverse the terrain in which the problem is embedded. Without this managers will be unable to
apply new knowledge consistently and the researcher will be unable to evaluate the efficacy of the theory that underlies the in-
tervention method.
The development of a social technology requires the action researcher to be knowledgeable about intervention theory and
methods that are part of the field of organization change and development (Argyris, 1970; Beckhard, 1969; Beer, 1980). The design of
SFP was guided by three tasks Argyris (1970) argued must be accomplished by an intervention designed to produce sustained
behavior change:

• Valid and useful information. The intervention must enable managers to learn about the whole truth. This often means information
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about the organization and its leadership must be discussed openly, something SFP enables. This also enables the development of
good theory, as argued earlier.
• Informed choice. Key stakeholders, in the case of SFP senior teams in collaboration with a task force representing a one hundred
key employees, must decide about the best course for action to solve problems based on valid data the intervention surfaces, not
top down directives by senior management. SFP was designed to enable this.
• Internal commitment. The process for deciding what course of action to take must allow those involved to develop internal
commitment to it. This means adequate time to discuss what was learned and develop agreement on what to do. SFP involves
feedback, reflection and the collaborative development of solutions.

SFP consultants do not recommend a solution. They facilitate a process and frame problems and alternative solutions to allow
commitment to develop. Moreover, we designed SFP to allow the task force representing the organization to critique senior man-
agement's action plan. By being present during these exchanges we came to understand how important they were in reducing
cynicism and developing trust and commitment. The emotions displayed in these exchanges led us to realize how important direct
exchanges were in moving senior management to action. It provided insights into how hierarchy can block that understanding and
why HRM practices like employee surveys are so often ineffectual in motivating change.

2.1.6. Contribute to theory

Multiple research methods should be employed and were to develop SFP and the theory that emerged from repeated applications.
It starts with the scholar-practitioner's observations and a discipline of written memos about them. In the case of the BD project these
notes included information about the types of issues raised by task forces (later coded as six silent barriers), insights about the efficacy
of the SFP and ideas for modification, as well as the situational conditions – leadership, presenting organizational problem and
corporate and national culture – and how they moderated the efficacy of SFP.
Surveys combined with observation can be employed to test insights from observations. For example, a survey of leaders, task
force members and those interviewed by the task force in twelve organizational units at BD helped in this regard. It showed, among
other findings, that SLT's perceived more change as a result of SFP, then ask force members, and task force more than employees who
were interviewed. SLTs had not taken the time to communicate how changes they were making emerged from feedback task forces
had given. It made clear to managers and us as scholar-consultants that to achieve its goals of alignment and commitment managers
had to communicate how SFP feedback led to the changes they were making and that continuous communication down and up was
necessary for continuous improvements.
We used multiple cases, written by third parties not involved in the intervention process to do a cross-organization analysis of
another set of organizations that implemented. SFP. After ranking the cases in terms of their relative success in motivating a
transformation, we discovered that changes in the silent killers was strongly associated with success, further reinforcing their role
critical role in enabling strategic learning and change. The cases also became powerful teaching tools for educating MBAs and
executives.
The insights we formed from these different methods of inquiry, enabled improvements in SFP and, allowed us to develop a
dynamic theory of strategic management required to develop a high commitment and performance organization (Beer, 2009; Beer,
2011a). It posits that to develop such an HRM system, organizations require a disciplined governance and learning process that will
surface silent barriers and stimulate change. Such a learning and governance perspective is not represented in current SHRM
scholarship.
Now that SFP theory and method are well developed, normal science methods could and should be employed to inquire into
propositions embedded in the method and the emerging theory of organizational effectiveness. For example, does a syndrome of six
silent barriers (undiscussable with senior management) consistently prevent strategy execution? In what way do these barriers
mediate the effectiveness of HRM policies and practices, such as employee engagement or performance appraisal, for example?
Unfortunately, such a partnership between normal and action science research traditions does not exist, though it is essential to move
field of SHRM forward. Consider that SFP research and theory is not referenced by Becker and Huselid (2006) in their review of the
SHRM field, this despite the fact that they argue the field must turn to research about alignment and strategy execution.

2.1.7. Contribute to practice and continue to learn

To contribute to practice HRM researchers must go well beyond a few paragraphs of recommendations for practitioners at the end
of an academic article. They must describe the sequence of steps – change process or practice – required to achieve the outcomes their
research and theory predicts. This specification allows the change process or practice to be replicated. Replication then allows
researchers to evaluate the extent to which predicted outcomes occur and allows improvements in the practice and theory. In effect
the practice and the theory are developed simultaneously over time.
That is the way SFP and its underlying SHRM theory were developed. As executives at Becton Dickinson saw the potential of the
Strategic Fitness Process they wanted to develop internal capability to implement this practice. We wrote a manual so that HR
practitioners in the company could facilitate SFP (Eisenstat & Beer, 1988). The manual is not an abstract academic treaties, it is a
step-by-step “how to” guide for implementation. Ed Schein, who has developed a theory of corporate culture found that he had to
write another book for practitioners (Schein, 1999) that is essentially a manual practitioners can employ to diagnose, develop and
sustain corporate culture.
Russ Eisenstat and I went further. We like Robert Kaplan who developed the Balance Score Card, created a consulting firm and
trained its practitioners in the theory and method we had developed. Twenty-five years later SFP has been applied in hundreds of

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organizations around the world enabling further improvements in SFP and the theory of effectiveness that emerged.

2.1.8. Make the theory and practice ethical

As noted earlier, SHRM theory has been oriented almost entirely to explaining how HRM policies and practices affect financial
performance (Kaufman, 2015a). Outcomes such as individual and societal well-being have by and large been ignored, in particular by
US based academics (Beer et al., 1984). When commitment is considered it is seen as an intermediate outcome in service of per-
formance and not as a separate and distinct goal worthy of development (Beer, 2009). It is assumed that all stakeholders have the
same interests, improve business performance. Yet we know this is not true when it comes to issues such as top down management or
unfair practices with regard to promotion, layoffs and compensation. Consequently the field creates bad theories and the practices
derived from them can be destructive as argued by Ghoshal (2005).
HRM theory and practice must not only consider a broad set of financial and human outcomes, it must define a process for
achieving them that is not only effective but also ethical. Because action scientists are focused on solving organizational problems
they inevitably have to deal with the question of how – the process – to solve the problem. That forces action scientists to consider the
problems of differing stakeholder interests. This in turn leads to ethical issues, as noted earlier, about the validity of the data being
used (Does it reflect the voice of all stakeholders?), who is choosing the solution and are they informed by valid data (Are relevant
stakeholder involved and are their voices heard?), and to what extent will the change process produce internal commitment (Argyris,
1970). This is not to say that academics doing field research could not identify ethical or values problems that interfere with effective
and healthy organizations. They can and do, but descriptive field research does not allow the development of an ethical practice.
The Strategic Fitness Process was designed to both identify and help managers to achieve sustainable performance and com-
mitment outcomes. We, therefore, had to design SFP to in a way that satisfied the questions posed Argyris (1970). Because data
cannot be valid unless it reveals the whole truth as perceived by multiple stakeholders we designed SFP to enable truth to speak to
power. That in turn allowed us to learn about how the six silent barriers (see above) prevented execution and organizational learning
and adaptation. By enabling honest and often emotional (controlled by guidelines) conversations about them we were also able to
learn, in a way more distanced research methods could not, that the emotional content of the conversations played an important role
in motivating management to change. Theories about the importance of emotions to organizational performance and employee
health already exist (Huy, 1999). Action science allowed us to make SFP an ethical multi-stakeholder method for conversation about
emotionally charged barriers to effectiveness and commitment. Emotions and their role in developing trust and commitment are
largely missing from the HRM literature; let alone how to develop productive conversations about them.

3. Making academic research more relevant, actionable and ethical

Like Richard Hackman (see earlier reference), I too am pessimistic that major change I advocate will be possible given an
institutional context that demands and rewards normal science research to the exclusion of action science and other forms of engaged
scholarship. Nevertheless, some change might be possible if business school deans promoted honest, collective and public con-
versations about the purpose (Almost all business schools say they want to contribute to practice, to help students make a differecne
in the world) and strategy of the school and what stands in the way of achieving them. The Strategic Fitness Process itself or a method
designed to conform to its underlying principles and theory would allow public discussion of policies and practices that make
engaged scholarship difficult. I have heard faculty in small groups complain about numerous barriers but they end in resignation that
change is not possible. The honest collective and public conversation I propose would release energy and creativity for change.
The conversation would start with giving junior and senior faculty a voice in developing a direction. What is the school's view of
the kind of research and theories the school should produce? What are the school's obligations to the larger society? What is the
strategy that will achieve this purpose? I suspect that this conversation would reveal that a far larger number of faculty members than
one might expect would like to do research makes a difference in the world of practice.
The second step is to develop an honest conversation about the attitudes and behavior of the administration and senior faculty
that make engaged scholarship and applied research difficult. No doubt the journals would be come up. But so might local policies,
practices, formal and informal incentives, the promotion process, and how time and money might be allocated differently. A process
based on the principles of SFP was employed successfully at one school.
If followed up with a collaborative (administration and faculty) investigation of what practice-oriented schools are doing, sig-
nificant changes can be made. Below are some ways some business schools have tried to close the gap between the academy and the
world of practice.

• Case writing and teaching: In my experience at Harvard Business School (HBS), making case writing and teaching a central part of
the educational enterprise delivers three advantages. It requires faculty to get into the field to write cases thereby putting them in
touch with practice. If the cases to be written are chosen carefully to elucidate an important problem they become the first step in
a research program. If the cases are the primary vehicle for teaching, not merely illustrations of a theory, they become a much
more powerful vehicle for teaching MBAs and executives than lecturing about research findings and theory. And questions about
root cause and recommendations for what and how to solve the problem in the case would enable faculty to develop a deeper
understanding of practical problems.
• Engaged executive education: Executive education, increasingly the source of a greater share of income for business schools is a
natural place where HRM scholars can become engaged in real problems. For example, concerned about developing useful and
usable knowledge when I arrived at HBS in 1975 after eleven years as a scholar-practitioner at Corning Inc., I founded and led an

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executive program for senior team members. Enrollment required articulation of an organizational problem they wanted to solve.
The two-week program featured education about organizational effectiveness using the case method. In the afternoons man-
agement teams met in small groups with faculty facilitation to discuss each company case and develop a plan for change they
became committed to implement when they returned to their organization. The program continued with a short follow-up
program nine months later in which small groups company teams presented what changes they had been able to make and lessons
they learned from the experience.
Executives thought the program taught them a lot about leading change. The faculty also learned a great deal about the orga-
nizations, their real-world problems and how to lead organization change. The cases developed were part of ongoing conversation
and research about organizational change. For example, the program opened the door for faculty to become more deeply engaged
in research within one of the attending companies. Michael Tushman, my colleague at HBS, and Charles O'Reilly at Stanford
Business School, have evolved this form of engaged education further in the last fifteen years (Tushman, 2011). It helped them
with their research and led to a number of doctoral dissertations.
• University Based Centers for problem focused research: The most prominent and successful example of this is the Center for Effective
Organizations (CEO) at USC's Marshall School of Business, led by Ed Lawler, himself a model for scholar-practitioners. CEO's staff
is composed of academics that also have an appointment in the Marshall School as well as practitioners. It is beyond the scope of
this article to discuss the many challenges of running such a Center. During the three or more decades of its existence CEO has
produced very high quality useful and usable HRM knowledge. This knowledge has been published in academic journals and in
many books and improved company practices. Centers like CEO would be wonderful part time home for tenured faculty inspired
to do research that makes a difference.
• Company consortiums: Business School can develop consortiums of practitioners around a focused theme or problem such in areas
such as strategy, human resource management, leadership development, organization effectiveness, organization change and so
on. These consortiums have the advantage of companies coming together around a shared problem that they would fund. An
example of such a consortium, which began at the Harvard Business School, but is now a not-for-profit 501c3 organization, is the
Center for Higher Ambition Leadership (CHL) that I co-founded. It brings together companies whose CEOs are committed to
creating purpose driven companies that aspire to create economic and social value (Beer et al., 2011). The Center is positioned to
do research on the unique challenges these companies face and how they deal with them.
• Incentives: Much has been written about how incentives in the academy must change. Deans can do much more to motivate senior
faculty to be engaged scholars. Time is the scarce resource faculties want and need to do the applied research I am advocating.
Why not provide time away from teaching for those who aspire to produce relevant and actionable knowledge. Just as importantly
the contributions to the development of useful theories needs to be legitimized by the senior faculty, not an easy change to
orchestrate, but one that committed deans can help nudge along.

Implementing these and other ideas for bridging the divide between the academy and the world of practice will not be easy. The
biggest challenge deans of business schools face is the institutional context – business school ranking, and accreditation – driven by
number of publications in “A” Journals like AMJ and AMR. Action scientists like Schein and Argyris, for example, rarely published
their research findings and theories in journal articles because their work did not meet normal science standards of editors, but just as
importantly because books and book chapters are a better means for communicating qualitative findings and emergent theories.
Nothing of importance comes from conforming to norms that support the status quo. For this reasons business school deans who
want to lead change must be visionary and courageous. Courage is easier if one does not work alone. Collective action by like-minded
deans will be required. Why not a consortium of business schools committed to the development of useful knowledge? As my own
work with the Strategic Fitness Process has shown, groups are more effective in speaking truth to power. This is a call for Deans,
senior faculty and their boards of trustees to forge a different path, one that enables the development of useful and useable research
and theory.

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