Editorial

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-08-2021-494
• Published date: 22 July 2021
• Date: 22 July 2021
• Pages: 717-719
• Subject Matter: Management science & operations,Logistics
• Author: Britta Gammelgaard

Editorial

Editorial: a call for activist and engaged research

In June 2021, the Danish Parliament made a statement stressing university rectors’

responsibility to ensure that researchers present valid research. In the debate leading up to

this resolution, a hefty debate in the parliament and beyond took place, naming specific

researchers by name as well as research institutions within Social Sciences and Humanities at

Danish universities that apparently execute social control to an extent that researchers are

not allowed to draw conclusions on their data in an objective way. The claim is that (some)

researchers politicise their research—primarily within gender, migration and postcolonial

studies—and are activists rather than scientists. The Danish minister of research and the

governing party supported the resolution, though emphasising that they had not mentioned

names or specific institutions in it. The minister insists that, with the billions of DKK put into

public research, it is the right of politicians to debate the outcome of this investment.

The resolution sent a shock wave through Danish universities, their management and

faculty (see f.ex. the reaction from CBS colleagues on https://cbswire.dk/henrik-dahl-and-

morten-messerschmidt-would-fail-their-exams-with-their-anecdotal-argumentation/?

utm_medium5email&utm_campaign510621%20Employees&utm_content510621%

20EmployeesþCID_1f58067e4c06ef05a65e2e5bc3190b12&utm_source5Campaign%

20Monitor). First of all, the rectors felt embarrassed about being asked to do something

that is already their responsibility: securing research quality at their institutions by

setting up systems of surveillance over research quality. Second, individual researchers

see the resolution as a reduction of their freedom of research, including choice of topic and

methodology, because apparently only those working under an objectivist ontology are

welcome to participate in the public debate about social issues. Maybe this is not intended

from the political side, but the outcome may be exactly that researchers are fearful of

being mentioned by name in the parliament, which tends to be followed by—at times a

very harsh—debate on social media. Needless to say, this will hamper the open public

democratic debate. As a Danish citizen, I am obviously quite concerned about this

situation, which brings forth memories of Humboldt’s ideas of separating universities

from politics (see f.ex. https://www.hu-berlin.de/en/about/history/standardseite?set_

language5en). This separation is apparently still necessary if the social sciences and

the humanities should fulfil their obligation and contribute to the public debate when

politicians do not like what they hear.

So what does this has to do with IJLM? As an editor within the social sciences—namely

logistics and supply chain management (SCM)—political control and interference of what we

should study and with what ontology is dangerous, not only politically but also to its

relevance for businesses and students because it would mean that we would have to erase

interpretivism and social constructivism from our “toolbox”, not to mention action-oriented

research methods. This means that the how and why questions will have a hard time getting

answers published in scientific journals. Further, such control may close the door for

researching timely topics, such as sustainability and climate change (maybe this has already

happened), and because logistics and SCM research has been always close to real issues of

importance to business and society, we will have to be cautious about the political correctness

of choice of topic and how we study it in the future.

IJLM has a long and proud history within the logistics and SCM discipline and has always

been close to practice. The discipline seeks to contribute to practice, which is often named

“business and society”. We cannot do this without communicating our research findings to a

Editorial

717

The International Journal of

Logistics Management

Vol. 32 No. 3, 2021

pp. 717-719

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0957-4093

DOI 10.1108/IJLM-08-2021-494