ABSTRACT
To what extent does research impact involve care? In this chapter, we explore what it would mean to infuse care in the way we conceptualize of and create research impact in organisation and management studies. Invoking an ethics of care, which focusses on relationships with particular others and how to attend to needs of these particular others, we conceptually explore how to purposefully develop and evaluate meaningful research impact in relation with participants, ourselves as researchers, and the broader society we are trying to ‘impact’. Although impact agendas assume scholars will cause a change-in behaviours, attitudes, or practices for stakeholders beyond academia, our current conceptions of research impact stop short of demonstrating attentiveness and responsiveness to others as is advocated by an ethics of care. After critically discussing research impact from an ethics of care perspective, we suggest that conceptualizing and enacting research impact as care can lead to improved outcomes for different audiences, and we outline how more inclusive and participatory forms of measurement can help academic institutions encourage impact as a form of care.
