Bradford University School of Management’s research wins national award

A mother and daughter academic team from Bradford University School of Management are the first winners of a new Chartered Management Institute (CMI) competition to find the most useful research to practising managers.

Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe and Juliette Alban-Metcalfe won ‘Management Article of the Year’ for their article ‘The need to get more for less: a new model of engaging transformational leadership and evidence of its effect on team productivity, staff morale and wellbeing at work’.

CMI launched the initiative with the aims of ensuring business school research meets business needs and directing time-poor managers to the research that will help them most.  They invited academics to submit research for professional managers to review.

The winning article achieved the highest average rating from CMI members. The article explores the importance of employee engagement, and what forms of leadership produce high levels of engagement, as well as proposing a model of ‘engaging, transformational leadership’, based on research amongst over 4,500 public and private sector (FTSE100) staff.

It finds that leadership is most engaging when it consists of genuine partnership, united around a shared vision, and creates an environment where empowerment, appreciation, curiosity, experimentation, questioning the status quo and learning are highly valued – and where these values are not just confined to leadership roles.

Ann Francke, chief executive of CMI, said: “This important initiative helps bridge the gap between theory and practice by allowing today’s managers to rate which academic articles they find most useful. This not only helps raise management standards by sharing the latest in research and best practice with leaders, but also encourages academics to focus their efforts on news that makes a difference in the management world- a win for both parties. It is our hope that we will build a bank of relevant articles that represent the best of both worlds.”

Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe, co-author of the winning article said: “The creation of this award by CMI, at a time of un-paralleled challenge to UK organisations, will hopefully encourage academics to translate their academic research findings into a form that makes practical sense to busy managers and professionals, and by doing so, inspire, enrich, and multiply the benefits to all involved.”

The top five articles are available to download at www.managers.org.uk/articlesoftheyear.  CMI is currently inviting researchers to submit articles for the 2012 CMI Management Articles of the Year.