Purpose in Management Research: Integrating Perspectives, Constructs, and Dimensions

The John Gokongwei School of Management invites you to a Brown Bag Session on "Purpose in Management Research: Integrating Perspectives, Constructs, and Dimensions". Our presenter is Dr. Nathania Chua, a post-doctoral research associate of the Institute for Responsibility and Sustainability in Global Business at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna)

This will be held on Tuesday, 5 March 2024 from 12:00 - 1:30PM at the Cabochan Room, SOM 307 and online via Zoom.

Please register here: https://bit.ly/jgsombrownbag5mar2024

Brief Description of the Topic:
Contemporary discussions on the purpose of businesses are fragmented due to differences in ontological premises and epistemological traditions across management scholarship. To address this gap, we reviewed how scholars have conceptualized purpose and its related core constructs. Our analysis depicts current purpose research through two perspectives: First, purpose as embedded or purpose as embodied; and second, purpose for and purpose to. We found that the literature is anchored by four management research constructs – identity, performance, objectives, and change – which we utilize for our integrative model. This allows us to uncover interlinkages across dispersed literature streams within sub-fields and find dualities along six dimensions in purpose research: property, scope, stability, materiality, motive, and rationality. With the hope of sustaining current interest in scholarly and practical interest in purpose, we establish the groundwork for a programmatic agenda for future research.