It has been an interesting start to the 51st volume of DECISION. For the last few months, we have been observing an increase in the number of submissions to the journal. What is even more interesting is the nature of research that is being conducted is also increasingly interdisciplinary. There is little doubt that adopting an interdisciplinary approach to a research problem enables a more thorough comprehension than what might be achieved through any single discipline alone. It is also quite possible that more complex, uncertain and ambiguous problems continue to emerge in management and social sciences, demanding that disciplinary boundaries be transgressed. Interdisciplinary research also brings along other dynamics that result from heterogeneity in languages and cognitive systems, beliefs and value systems shared by researchers, not to mention the ground realities in negotiating the publishing process.

One school of thought views it as inherently problematic given the challenges that arise not only from the cognitive distance between the disciplines, but also due to practical considerations such as rigor in the research design and in ensuring frictionless partnership process. Another argues that it has the potential to foster intellectual interaction and integration. Modes of integration may vary and the barriers and drivers active in a specific situation may influence mode preferences (Siedlok and Hibbert 2014). The academic context in which the researcher is embedded is often a key influencer. In recent years, universities and institutions have embraced interdisciplinarity through research centers—which often have members from multiple disciplines, funded projects and through higher education instructional programs (Leahey and Barringer 2020). Yet, there is more to be done to leverage what interdisciplinary research has to offer. As Karl Popper famously observed:

‘We are not students of some subject matter, but students of problems. And problems may cut right across the boundaries of any subject matter or discipline.’ (Popper 2002, pg. 88).

This issue of DECISION has many papers which draw ideas, concepts from more than one discipline. We begin the issue with Radka Nacheva, Maciej Czaplewski and Pavel Petrov’s paper on a model for research classification which argues that knowledge should be universally accessible, irrespective of its disciplinary origins. Their domain-agnostic data mining model therefore proposes a mechanism by which scientific research can be better classified. They empirically validate their model with research on digital workplace accessibility and find interesting results.

In the second paper in this issue, Jordi Bok and Freek Colombijn advocate for municipal policies that are more attuned to citizens’ lived experiences. Doing so requires municipalities to treat citizens as partners in waste management rather than merely subjects of state policy or even customers of municipal services. Drawing from the experiences in Hengelo municipality in Netherlands, where people wanted to engage in environment-friendly practices but often did not want to make the extra effort to do so, Bok and Colombijn call for a more nuanced and citizen-responsive governance which they term ‘modest governance’. They argue that modest governance would better harness community cooperation and effectively manage waste, aligning municipal goals with the citizens’ willingness and ability to comply with recycling policies.

Wahiba Ben Fradj Nasrallah and Ghazi Zouari explore the interplay between governance mechanisms, specifically organizational culture and compensation systems, and the efficiency of public higher education institutions through decision-making. Their research highlights how aspects like organizational culture (captured through student life) and compensation systems (local or national criteria bonuses) indirectly influence institutional efficiency via decision-making processes. The findings suggest that fostering an adaptive organizational culture and aligning compensation systems can enhance decision-making effectiveness, thereby improving institutional efficiency.

In the fourth paper of this issue, Davide Crivelli, Carlotta Acconito, and Michela Balconi investigate how different information-processing strategies influence decision-making. The study identified three distinct decision-maker profiles based on their preference for processing information and correlated these profiles with specific decision-making styles, revealing how individuals’ preference for certain types of information affects their decision-making approach. We continue with the theme of decision-making but move up one level—to that of the group in Robert Gmeiner’s paper in this issue where Gmeiner draws upon the notion of fluid dynamics to metaphorically explain how groups interact and influence each other arguing that no single group characteristic can impact outcomes, but rather it is the combination of multiple factors that will lead to dominance or compromise. Gmeiner’s propositions have broader implications for the policy environment as well as strategic decision making in an organizational environment.

The subsequent paper authored by Rui Zheng, Luis Ospina-Forero, and Yu-wang Chen, extends the discussion on decision-making to the macro-social context by examining how different structures of social networks influence decision-making processes. This research employs a simulation technique to analyze different types of network structures and attributes variations in decision outcomes to social characteristics in a network—independence, preferential attachment and community structure, using the mechanism of information diffusion.

In the final research papers of this issue, we shift the tonic note to examine two themes of importance in the domain of finance and economics—one, a paper by C. Vijaya and M. Thenmozhi who study spillover and leverage effects of Smart Beta Exchange Traded Funds using nature of shocks and their impact on volatility as well as the extent of information transmission between ETFs and different indices; two, a paper Jacek Jaworski and Leszek Czerwonka who use meta-analysis to find that the relationship between profitability and different components of an operating cycle across multiple countries in the global economy is dominantly negative.

We end the issue with Anjal Prakash’s review of the book titled The Role of Coal in a Sustainable Energy Mix for India edited by Mritiunjoy Mohanty and Runa Sarkar. Interestingly, the book too adopts an interdisciplinary approach to debate the possible paths that India can take to temper the use of coal as the significant energy source, given the country’s economic dependence on it, while taking cognizance and prioritizing the shift to more environmentally sustainably alternatives.

Framing and solving the numerous small and grand challenges of management as practice, through diverse perspectives and interdisciplinary thought continues!