Figuring out Non-Academic Research Impact With(out) Figures A European Exploratory Study

Florence Allard-Poesi (), Gianpaolo Abatecola (), Tugce Ataci (), Matteo Cristofaro (), Oskar Kosch (), Bill Lee, Michael Schlaile (), Davide Secchi (), Marek Szarucki () and Huiping Xian
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Florence Allard-Poesi: IRG - Institut de Recherche en Gestion - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12
Gianpaolo Abatecola: Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata [Roma, Italia] = University of Rome Tor Vergata [Rome, Italy] = Université de Rome Tor Vergata [Rome, Italie]
Tugce Ataci: UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12, IRG - Institut de Recherche en Gestion - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12 - Université Gustave Eiffel
Matteo Cristofaro: Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata [Roma, Italia] = University of Rome Tor Vergata [Rome, Italy] = Université de Rome Tor Vergata [Rome, Italie]
Oskar Kosch: Krakow University of Economics (Poland, Krakow) - CUE
Michael Schlaile: Universität Hohenheim = University of Hohenheim
Davide Secchi: PSB - Paris School of Business - HESAM - HESAM Université - Communauté d'universités et d'établissements Hautes écoles Sorbonne Arts et métiers université
Marek Szarucki: Krakow University of Economics (Poland, Krakow) - CUE
Huiping Xian: University of Leicester

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Abstract: While a growing number of research in management and organization studies interrogates the influence of the impact agenda on universities' organization and management, in particular in the United Kingdom and Australia – two countries that developed impact assessment frameworks -, empirical investigations of how researchers themselves define and evidence the non-academic impact of their works are scarce. In particular, the influence of the evidence-based approach and the primacy given to quantification both in this approach and in public administration institutions on the way researchers conceive evidence of non-academic impact remain to be scrutinized. Relying on 22 case-studies based on in-depth interviews conducted with researchers in management and organization studies in a broad sense from Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Poland, our research reveals three understandings of non-academic impact that sharpen current definitions of non-academic impact: as solving practical, real-life problems; as giving people means to develop through feedbacks or reports; and/or as changing or inspiring people's thoughts on important issues. The analysis also shows that researchers establish diverse relationships between their definition and evidence of non-academic impact: from a muscular relationship in which both non-academic impact and evidence are defined through numbers, to looser relationships where definition - that may be defined with qualitative underpinnings, and evidence that may be quantitative -, are either disconnected from one-another, or loosely coupled when impact is hypothesized and evidence defined as indirect signs of interests from potential audience. These diverse relationships between definition and evidence of impact are interpreted as tensions between research ethos – in which accounting rigorously for a process or a cause-and-effect relationship is of primary importance – and the impact agenda and concomitant influence of evidence-based management approach – which tend to give more value to evidence that can be expressed in numbers.

Keywords: Case-studies; evidence; non-academic impact; sociology of quantification; research impact. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06-16
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Published in 2026 EURAM Conference, Jun 2026, Kristiansand, Norway

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