We Disagree to Agree: A Call to Apply Agreement Metrics More Extensively for Advancing Management Theory
In this article, co-authors Jurgen Willems and Kenn Meyfroodt reflect on the inspiration behind their open-access article, “Group Research: Why are we Throwing Away the Best of our Observations?” found in Group & Organization Management.
The journal Group & Organization Management offers an intriguing platform for researchers to rant—but of course in a constructive way—on common practices in the research community that could use an update, or at least benefit from reevaluation or deeper and more critical reflection. The format, known as GOMusing, inspired our article, “Group research: Why are we throwing away the best of our observations?“
Our article begins with two notable observations. First, over the past few decades, multi-level research has gained substantial importance within management research, and with good reason! Multi-level research enables a more comprehensive understanding of real-life group and organizational dynamics, which shape and are shaped by various management decisions. Said differently, employing multi-level data and analysis approaches enhances the accuracy of empirical analyses for real-life predictions and strengthens the practical relevance of management theories.
However, our second observation highlights a prevalent trend in many of these multi-level studies: agreement metrics are predominantly used for methodological reasons. In essence, while agreement within groups and organizations is often measured or operationalized in multi-level research, it tends to serve merely as a means to verify whether individual survey data from team or organization members can be used and/or aggregated to quantify group or organization-level concepts.
Building upon these two observations, we assert that there are numerous untapped opportunities to study within-group agreement and consensus as core theoretical concepts in group and organization management. In our article, we muse about the potential of leveraging agreement metrics to address centerpiece research questions, extending beyond mere methodological argumentations about data selection and technical model specifications. We argue that this shift is necessary for both theory development and for keeping management implications relevant.
To facilitate the discussion with scholars and practitioners, we structure our considerations around three guiding questions, which we also visualize in an accessible decision tree. Our three guiding questions are:
- Does the meaning of agreement about a group-level variable relate to the meaning of the group-level variable itself?
- Does the meaning of agreement about a group-level variable relate to the hypothesized antecedents or effects of the group-level variable?
- Does the meaning of agreement about a group-level variable relate to the practical implications related to the group-level variable?
You will find our elaboration of these questions in our open-access article. We intend for these guiding questions, along with our decision tree, to spark a productive and constructive scientific debate—a hallmark of a GOMusing article. Hence, we welcome a fair amount of disagreement—but not too much—from the research and practitioner communities. Such disagreement can fuel a good debate that enriches our collective understanding of group and organization research, while also making implications for practice (even) more relevant.
