Marco Trombetta, the Tension to Understand

Practical relevance is the main problem of research on management, Marco Trombetta says. A Bocconi alumnus, he's currently Professor of Accounting and Management Control and Vice Dean of Research at the IE Business School in Madrid. "There's a strong tension between research and practice, scholars and managers. That's paradoxical when it comes to applied research. Yet these two worlds have communication problems. The scholar has trouble speaking the language that the manager understands and the latter has no time to think deeply about issues. He's looking for the kind of quick and ready solution that the scholar cannot give". Trombetta is working on two lines of research: he's studying the effectiveness of microfinance institutions that operate in developing countries; and he's measuring the influence of the financial literacy in the population on the decision to create new businesses and on their success.

"I am collecting data in Spain, but I would like to extend the research in Italy and England. Financial literacy is surprisingly low in a world where our everyday lives have been financialized". For Trombetta, doing research means being curious: "Doing research means feeling the desire to understand the whys of the problems. It means to embrace new methodologies and to explore different fields because specialization pays, but only in the short term. And finally, it means to be citizen of the world because research is globalized now. The chance to study economics and management is priceless. It feeds the teaching and gives you the broad vision that is lacking in management practices".