The Quest for Impact Research: Position, Strategies and Future Directions

There is an urgent global call for sustainable development (SD) action to meet the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Business schools play a significant role in facilitating engagement and enabling action on the global commitment for impact. Such institutions strive for responsible and meaningful impact by fostering the sustainable development goal (SDG) commitments, where research is a core element of this impact lexicon. However, research commitments in business schools are challenged by the pressures of academic life and its progressions that scholars face, often hindering pathways towards impact research. As an interdisciplinary group of researchers embarking on a major research project focused on SD, this positional paper considers why impact research is important, what impact research is, and how we as researchers can ensure we best do impact research that is embedded in purposeful shared partnerships and collaborations. To continue the impact research dialogue and enable other researchers, we share strategic pathways and community considerations for conducting impact research that can be applied, measured, and put into action towards the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda.