Coping with institutional complexity: Responses of management scholars to competing logics in the field of management studies

•The field of management studies faces increasing institutional complexity.•The complexity is caused by the two competing logics of basic and applied research.•Management scholars respond to institutional complexity in various ways.•From 1961 to 2010 their publications intensify the rhetoric of applied research.•Implicitly insisting that basic research remains the crucial output is the dominant strategy.

In contrast to existing studies on the issue of the rigor–relevance gap, we do not discuss in this article how to bridge it but analyze the responses of management scholars to it. Referring to institutional theory, we argue that the gap is related to different logics of research aimed at scientific progress (basic research) or at relevant knowledge (applied research). Analyzing publications in leading scholarly and practitioner-oriented management journals between 1961 and 2010, we identify a variety of responses. Management scholars address the demand for relevance by providing implications-for-practice sections and the development of approaches for the production of relevant knowledge. Most of them believe that the dominant logic of basic research integrates the demand for both rigor and relevance. However, we find evidence for the existence of competing logics: researchers do not base applied research on their basic research, and they tend to publish applied research in later periods of their careers. We conclude that compartmentalization is the dominant response strategy of management researchers.