Last week we welcomed visiting Professor Francisco Roman from the Asian Institute of Management in the Philippines to hold a seminar at NUCB to discuss the importance of joint-research.

Having completed his Doctorate in Business Administration at the Harvard Business School Professor Roman has written and/or supervised over 580 cases and notes on a wide range of functions—strategy, marketing and organization, and topics—agribusiness, entrepreneurship, family firms and CSR and Governance, as well as several journal articles.

During the presentation, Dr. Roman shared with us his thoughts on joint-research and how the landscape is changing for business schools. Below is a brief summary of the seminar.

PROS & CONS OF JOINT-RESEARCH

Now strongly encouraged by accreditation boards, joint-research enhances both quality and contribution that is pushing a new trend towards multi-disciplinary research. By splitting the work through shared intellectual capability you are able to build on specific knowledge and skills and have the advantage of working with credible authors that have already built a reputation in certain journals.

Although easy on paper, joint-research is extremely difficult to carry out and has a longer review process compared to sole authorship. It takes a lot of time and effort especially for multi-country, multi-disciplinary joint-research.

PROCESSES & TIPS

To be successful in joint-research you must begin with a research topic that you are passionate about and do a very time-consuming review of the literature. It is useful to use data analysis tools and applications and even try social media such as Facebook to build your surveys.

You can then develop:

1. The Conceptual Framework
2. Your Research Framework
3. Compare Methodology & Models

EVEN IF YOU ARE AN EXPERIENCED AUTHOR

First impressions still matter so ensure that your abstract, title, data, and keywords are well thought out as these will help you get further cited.

Monitor “special calls” for specific topics on an issue and research the journal's editor, associates, and editorial board.

Professor Roman's final piece of advice was;

It is essential to build your professional network so attending conferences and workshops (regional and global) should be a focal point for your joint-research.

Professor Roman then proposed to the faculty of NUCB his ideas for joint-research with his current work "The Mediating Effects of Trust and Reciprocity on Future Purchase Intention".

We were very fortunate to learn invaluable information from someone so highly thought of in academia and look forward to our upcoming events with visiting professors.