Q Academy of Management Review2019, Vol. 44, No. 2, 480–492.

WHAT INSPIRES THE ACADEMY:BOOK REVIEWS AND BEYOND

Subi RanganReview Essays Editor

Going Public: Debating Matters ofConcern As an Imperative forManagement Scholars

By Dror Etzion, McGill University, and JoelGehman, University of Alberta

According to a Bloomberg Businessweek coverstory (Blas, 2018), the United States was poised tobecome the largest oil producer in the world bytheendof 2018. This isa remarkabledevelopment,considering that the United States imported morethan 12 million barrels per day as recently as adecade ago. In fact, the United States is now pro-ducing somuch oil it repealed a forty-year ban onoil exports and, by 2017, was shipping some 1.3million barrels per day to buyers in China, India,South Korea, Venezuela, and elsewhere (Krauss,2017). At the heart of the United States’ trans-formation into an energy superpower is an ex-tractionprocess colloquially knownas “fracking.”Fracked hydrocarbons, extracted mainly fromseven “shale plays” (see Figure 1), have displacedoil from Saudi Arabia, Libya, Nigeria, and Ven-ezuela and have generated geopolitical rippleeffects, especially forOPECmembers andRussia.Domestically, this abundance has unlocked un-told riches—by some estimates totaling $1.8 to $2trillion in the oil and gas sector, in addition to “thewealth gained by the farmers, ranchers, govern-ment entities, and others who leased land to oiland gas companies” (Sernovitz, 2016: 123–124).This good fortune has also “trickled down” in theform of jobs. Between 2004 and 2014, oil and gasindustry–related employment in theUnited Statesgrew from 450,000 to 850,000 jobs, with average

pay increasing from $71,000 to $112,000 over thesame time frame (Sernovitz, 2016: 207).Given its visibility and impact, the shale revo-

lution has been the subject of numerous booksover the past several years (e.g., Gold, 2014;McGraw, 2011; Sernovitz, 2016; Wilber, 2015;Zuckerman, 2013). These books, along with mediacoverage, portray fracking as a major technolog-ical disruption with tremendous economic andgeopolitical implications and proportionatelysignificant environmental and health concerns(e.g., Gehman, Thompson, Alessi, Allen, & Goss,2016; Mazur, 2016). But like the financial crisis(Starkey, 2015) and income inequality (Tsui,Enderle, & Jiang, 2017), the shale revolution isalso verymuch amanagement story, even thoughit is rarely analyzed as one. As we documentbelow, its origins are entrepreneurial, closelyadhering to the disruptive innovation para-digm (Christensen, 1997). Akin to the evolution ofthe electric light and power grid (Hargadon &Douglas, 2001; Hughes, 1993), contemporary ap-proaches to software development (O’Mahony &Ferraro, 2007), and innovation processes in bio-technology (Owen-Smith & Powell, 2004), it is im-possible to fully comprehend thehistoryand futuretrajectory of fracking if we consider it to bemerelya technological or economic accomplishment.In this review essay we assess the shale revo-

lution through the lens ofmanagement theory andpractice. To do so, we draw on two recent books.First, based on a close reading of The Green andthe Black, by Gary Sernovitz (2016), we contendthat fracking in America is a textbook example of“good” management. Nonetheless, as we subse-quently document, fracking’s influence extendsbeyond immediate impacts in many social, envi-ronmental, and economic spheres, often withnegative repercussions. Indeed, at different pointsduring the last twenty years, fracking has been atthe center of considerable contention and debate.Althoughmanagementscholarshave remainedonthe sidelines, academics from a variety of otherdisciplineshaveactively participated in this debate.

Both authors contributed equally and are listed alphabeti-cally. A special thanks to former review essays editor JeanBartunek for her patient, detailed, and engaged editorialguidance. We thank Bandita Deka Kalita for her research as-sistance. Financial support was provided in part by the Can-ada First Excellence in Research Fundand the Social Sciencesand Humanities Research Council of Canada.

480Copyright of theAcademy ofManagement, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmittedwithout the copyright holder’sexpress written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only.

We identify several topics where managementscholars seem positioned to contribute well-informed opinions on fracking.

Then we draw on Under the Surface, by TomWilber (2015), which provides an up-close depictionof two nonmanagement scholars—Professors TerryEngelder (geosciences) and Anthony Ingraffea(civil engineering)—and their sustained efforts tofurther the public debate on fracking in theUnitedStates. Their dialogues suggestmodels of possiblemanagement engagement and inspire us to re-consider what role, if any, management scholarsmight play as public intellectuals engaged in de-bates about major societal issues. Taking thesetwoprofessorsaspotentialarchetypes,wesuggestthat oneway formanagement scholars to increasetheir relevance and influence is by taking in-formed, evidence-based, but ultimately principledpositions on issues that are of concern to society.

Fracking, like many other issues confrontingtheworld today, is values laden. Accordingly, it isneither necessary nor likely that management

scholars will agree with each other about whichconcerns are worth engaging or concur on howto address them. Here our essay raises issuesthat go beyond simply noting the absence of man-agement scholarship on certain topics (e.g., Starkey,2015). Similarly, compared with the hand-wringingin our field that has focused on strategies for cross-ing the rigor-relevance divide (e.g., Nicolai & Seidl,2010) or for deploying evidence-basedmanagement(Reay, Berta, & Kohn, 2009; Rousseau, 2012), our in-vestigation of the fracking debate suggests that amorefulfillingandultimatelymoreprofoundroute toscholarly impact might be through deeper engage-ment with what are essentially unsolvable, messyproblems (Etzion, 2018; Ferraro, Etzion, & Gehman,2015; Gehman & Hollerer, 2019).We close the essay by posing suggestions for

what such public engagement might look like.First, we consider the kinds of problems thatmight lend themselves to public debate. Second,we tackle questions related to the ground rules forsuch debates, in terms of potential norms. Finally,

FIGURE 1The Seven Major Shale Regions in the United States

Note: The Marcellus Shale is within the Appalachia basin. The Barnett Shale is smaller and lies in northern Texas, south of theAnadarko basin. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (2018).

2019 481What Inspires the Academy: Book Reviews and Beyond

we differentiate the kinds of public debates wehave in mind from other forms of academic rele-vance. Essentially, we advocate for “going public”as a complement to rigorous and evidence-basedacademic research.

MODERN FRACKING: A MANAGEMENTSUCCESS STORY

Narrowly defined, fracking is a long-standingtechnology used to extricate oil and natural gasfrom previously untapped layers of shale rock.More expansively, fracking is a big, multifacetedreal-world problem implicating people and pol-icy, riches and risks. It thus comes as no surprisethat fracking is, quite literally, Hollywood mate-rial, as both drama (Promised Land, starringMatt Damon) and documentary (Gasland, an Acad-emy Award nominee). In many written accounts,fracking is portrayed as a story of business heroicsinvolving acumen, innovation, grit, and endur-ance. TheGreen and the Black is a book that spinsthis tale engagingly. As in any good oil story,bravado, salesmanship, and outsized personal-ities figureprominently, andSernovitzbrings themto life with aplomb. But a close, managerially in-formed reading of the book suggests that, at theend of the day, the emergence of fracking is a storyof a high-risk/high-reward strategy that has paidoff handsomely, with all the trappings of otherentrepreneurial success stories lauded by thebusiness press and in the halls of the world’sbusiness schools. Below we describe organiza-tional and strategic aspects of this story.

Fracking: Breakthrough Innovation

Many have heralded the shale revolution as amajor technological breakthrough. Agreeing withthis perspective, Sernovitz clarified that it was “notsome new invention, like Pringles . . . It was morelike the iPhone, in which a lot of strands of existingand newer technologies come together” (Sernovitz,2016: 22). Notably, the shale revolution was madepossible by improving and combining two long-standing oil and gas technologies: slickwaterfracking and horizontal drilling.1 According to

Sernovitz, the way these technologies came to-gether perfectly fits the pattern of disruptive in-novationdescribedbyClaytonChristensen (1997) inThe Innovator’s Dilemma. According to this work,“Entrant firms have an attacker’s advantage overestablished firms in those innovations—generallynew product architectures involving little newtechnology per se—that disrupt or redefine thelevel, rate, and direction of progress in an estab-lished technological trajectory” (1997: 55). Becausethey are focused on improving performance withinestablished markets, incumbent firms frequentlydismiss such breakthrough innovations as irrele-vant, only to later be disrupted by them.The first element of the breakthrough, slickwater

fracking, can be traced back to 1866, when “CivilWar veterans dropped dynamite torpedoes downwells to fracture reservoirs” (Sernovitz, 2016: 21).Over the next century, stimulation techniquesevolved to include acid, nitroglycerin, napalm, andeven a few nuclear bomb experiments. The intentbehind all these experiments was to devise amethod to trigger the release of oil andgasdepositsfrom thebonds thatheld them inplace. By the 1950s,the process now known as hydraulic fracturing be-came the de facto standard in the industry. Thetechnique employs large amounts of water, typi-cally mixed with sand and multiple chemicals, in-jected into the well under intense pressure.Although early iterations of fracking increased

yields in conventional formations, they were in-effective in extremely low-permeability sourcerock.2 In one such formation—the Barnett Shale ofTexas—George Mitchell, a particularly tenaciousindependent oilman, spent seventeen years and$250 million trying to coax hydrocarbons out of theground, with little to show for his efforts (Hinton,2012). Finally, in 1995, Mitchell Energy attempted aslickwater fracking treatment, borrowing from arecipe that had been used for decades in Kansas,which required less sand and a different, cheapermix of chemicals. This last-ditcheffort, “somewherebetween a Hail Mary and a hunch,” was commer-cially successful, andbecame “asignal event in thehistory of the oil business” (Sernovitz, 2016: 23).On its own, slickwater fracking was not suffi-

cient to bring about the shale revolution. Thesecond element of the breakthrough was hori-zontal drilling, which enables operators to follow1Our description is necessarily simplified. As Sernovitz put

it, “Tokeep thedescriptionofdrillingandcompletingamodernshalewell toa tolerable length, Iwill leaveunexplainedshoes,collars, kellies, whipstocks, catwalks, monkey boards, mudcakes, reamers, and dozens of other tools and sub-processesthat sound straight out of wizard camp” (2016: 72).

2Permeability is a measure of how easy it is for oil and gasmolecules to travel through the pores of a rock and, by impli-cation, how easy it is to extract them.

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the contours of a layer of shale, thousands of feetbelow the surface. As with slickwater fracking,horizontal drilling was not devised sui generis; it,too, evolved from early industry practices, datingto the 1930s. By the 1970s, the technique had be-come commonplace in offshore wells, allowingcompanies to forgo the substantial costs of build-ing new deep-sea platforms and moving theirdrilling rigs over the water. Applied to fracking,this innovation evolved to enable operators toextend more than thirty horizontal well bores un-derground up to four miles in different directionsfromasinglewell padon the surface (seeFigure 2).

Such a recombination of technologies over aspan of several decades that leads to a commer-cially successful configuration is a hallmark oftechnological change (Tushman & Anderson,1986). As “disruptive innovation would predict,the future disruptors’ strategies rested, self-aware,on lower margin, second rate products” (Sernovitz,2016:133).ConsistentwithChristensen’s (1997)modelof disruptive innovation, these breakthroughs wereled not by the oil and gas “majors” but by“independents”—“second-tier caterpillars [that]morphed into butterflies” (Sernovitz, 2016: 140).The large, incumbent oil companies eventuallycame to understand that theywere being undercutby small competitors using a relatively simpletechnique. However, since this technique did notfit their competencies, the incumbents deemed ituninteresting and unthreatening. In hindsight, ofcourse, the recombination of slickwater frackingand horizontal drilling into a full-fledged disrup-tion seems obvious, but it took decades to congeal,with no a priori assurance that it would succeed.

Fracking: Organizational Competencies

By 2014, the industry had transitioned “in MaxWeber’s terms, from the charismatic to the bureau-craticphaseof theboom” (Sernovitz, 2016: 52).By thispoint shale gas accounted for about half of U.S.production, up from 6 percent in 2007. “The reigningcliche became that we were not exploring for oil orgas anymore, but, hyperbolically, ‘manufacturing’it” (Sernovitz, 2016: 51). These “bureaucratic” achieve-ments were driven by several textbook managerialcompetencies discernible in Sernovitz’s analysis:operational efficiencies attained through learn-ing, effective corporate political strategy, and afocus on maintaining legitimacy.

Central to the cost-effectiveness of fracking was adogged, iterative focusonoperatingefficiency. In fact,

FIGURE 2EQT Corp’s Cogar Wellpad

Source: Litvak (2018). Copyright Q 2018, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

2019 483What Inspires the Academy: Book Reviews and Beyond

the industry isextremelyspecialized: specific tasks ineach of the thousands of wells active at a given mo-ment in timeareoutsourced toservicecompanies likeHalliburton and Schlumberger, which work seam-lessly alongside operators in a precisely calibratedsequence of steps. Operators excel at supply chainmanagement, choreographing thehundredsof trucksrumbling to and from well sites carrying sophisti-cated technical equipment and raw materials, asother trucks remove wastes (see Figure 3). Frackingoperations cost operators thousands of dollars anhour, so efficiency and speed are crucial.

The learning that promoted these opera-tional capabilities occurred at the levels of theindividual firm, industry suppliers, and regula-tors (Fershee, 2012; Gehman, Mastroianni, Grant,& Etzion, 2012; Mani & Muthulingam, in press).Collectively, the industry developed norms of

competition that allowed each operator to appro-priate “value from their own technological ad-vances but at the same time benefit generally fromadvances made by others” (Golden & Wiseman,2015: 1006). The service companies supplying theindustry “acted as natural cross-pollinators oftechniques and geological information as theymoved from job to job and company to company”(Golden &Wiseman, 2015: 1009–1010). As a result ofthese efforts, a typical well drilled in 2013 extractedseventeen times as much as the average well in2007. Not only was each new well producing moregas, but it was doing sowith far fewer resources. Byearly2015 therewereonly300drillingrigsoperatingin theUnitedStates,one-sixth thenumberoperatingin the summer of 2008. Yet total U.S. productioncontinued “to climb every year because of head-turning efficiency gains” (Sernovitz, 2016: 53).

FIGURE 3Surface Operations at a Fracking Wellpad

Source: http://fracfocus.org/hydraulic-fracturing-how-it-works/site-setup. Reprinted with permission.

484 AprilAcademy of Management Review

Fracking companies also prioritized corporatepolitical strategy. Through lobbying and otherchannels of influence, they have carved out a reg-ulatory niche tailored to their interests, largelyby gaining exemptions from federal law (Cahoy,Gehman, & Lei, 2013; Centner, 2013). In particular,the industry has collaborated closely with gov-ernment in R&D through public-private partner-ships, such as the Gas Research Initiative (GRI),whose members represent the three key segmentsof the industry: producers, pipeline companies,and local distribution companies. The industryalso has effectively engaged in self-regulation,first asawayof forestallingnew federal regulationof fracking, and later as a way of shaping anddelimiting such regulations at the state level(Avidan, Etzion, & Gehman, in press). Overall, re-lationships with governments at the local, state,and federal levels in this regulated industry havebeen excellent. As Sernovitz noted, “There hasnever been a daywhen [shale development] felt atriskof beingderailedbypolitics in themostprolificareas” (2016: 203).

Finally, the industry takes pains to nurture andmaintain its legitimacy, a particularly importanttask for an activity at risk of stigmatization.Fracking companies employ discursive strategiesto “idealize natural gas as the perfect bridge fuel”(Finewood & Stroup, 2012: 74) by emphasizing itslow carbon emissions, domestic origins, and pos-itive impacts on local economic development. Theindustryoftenemploysaneoliberal frame,arguingthat in properly functioning energy markets, con-sumer desires and local concerns are effectivelytransmitted through price signals, rendering reg-ulations redundant. Such frames may resonatewith rural, self-reliant communities that empha-size individual property and property rights(Kriesky, Goldstein, Zell, & Beach, 2013), eventhough residents in some regions remain skep-tical (Theodori, Luloff, Willits, & Burnett, 2014).Like many other extractive industries, frackingcompanies are almost obsessively committed toworker safety. “Almost every board meeting ofevery company in the oil business starts with areview of HS&E [health, safety, and environmen-tal] incidents, even if it’s just an oilfield workergettingascrapeonhishand” (Sernovitz, 2016: 108).Overall, fracking companies employ discursiveand operational strategies to maintain positivereputations with local stakeholders, thereby en-suring they retain their social licenses to operate(Gehman, Lefsrud, & Fast, 2017).

WHY ALL THE FUSS OVER FRACKING?

Fromamanagerialperspective, frackingappearstobeaperfect exampleof theory informingpractice,or perhaps practice corroborating theory. Withpluck and determination, entrepreneurial oil com-panies disrupted a stagnant, hegemonic industry,unleashing innovation to produce a much-neededproduct and create vast amounts ofwealth. In doingso they studiously deployed political strategies,successfullymaintained organizational legitimacy,and learned incessantly. At first glance, it seemsthat management scholars should be lauding theirefforts as a success story, yet this is not the case. Tounderstand why, we must first understand whytherehasbeensomuch contentionaround fracking.Fracking caught many by surprise—not just pro-

fessionals in the energy sector but also rural com-munities, where drilling activity was unexpectedand foreign. Even though the pace of fracking in-creased dramatically, it remained largelyunderthe general public’s radar until 2010, when presscoverage began in earnest and the documentarymovie Gasland debuted (Gehman et al., 2016;Mazur, 2016; Vasi, Walker, Johnson, & Tan, 2015).According to Sernovitz (2016: 65), the latter re-mains “the most famous argument against shaledrilling,” vividly depicting detrimental health out-comes associated with fracking in rural communi-ties. In the years since, the debate around frackinghas come to encompassmany additional concerns,including land rights, environmental justice, wa-tershedprotection,andeconomicdisparity, tonamejust a few.Oneway tomake sense of these differentyet often interrelated issues is to approach themfrom two perspectives. First, what happens whensomething goes wrong? Second, what happens ifeverythinggoes right?Whereas the first question isprimarily about local consequences, the second isprimarily about global costs.

Local Consequences

A long list of health and environmental harmshas been attributed to fracking (e.g., U.S. Envi-ronmental Protection Agency, 2016). Sernovitzconceded that “oil and gas drilling is loud, dirty,and complicated. Its accidents have real victims”(2016: 9). In his opinion, Gasland is difficult towatch because it showcases “unfortunate by-standers whose lives have been rattled by whatthe oil business did to their water. Middle-class orpoorer, they feel abandoned by the governmentand assaulted by a rich industry” (2016: 67). A

2019 485What Inspires the Academy: Book Reviews and Beyond

prominent example in the documentary is Dimock,Pennsylvania, “the most notorious case of watercontamination in the history of the boom . . . illus-trative of how shockingly sloppy some in the in-dustry were in the boom’s early days” (2016: 69).

Yet for all theunnecessary pain inflictedbyCabotOil andGasupon the residents ofDimock, it pales incomparison with high-profile instances of organiza-tional malfeasance and criminality in other sectors(e.g., Palmer, Smith-Crowe, & Greenwood, 2016). Af-ter a decade of fracking tens of thousands of wellsacross some twenty states,3 we have witnessed nospectacular failure comparable to the scandalresulting from Enron’s corporate culture (McLean &Elkind, 2003), the accident at the Three Mile Islandnuclear plant (Perrow, 2011) or NASA’s organiza-tional paralysis vis-a-vis the Challenger spacecraft(Vaughan, 1996), not to mention the Deepwater Ho-rizon spill in theGulf ofMexico (Hoffman& Jennings,2011) or theVolkswagenemissions scandal (Rhodes,2016).Cabot, by contrast, set asidesome$4million tosettle with residents of northeastern Pennsylvania,aminorspeedbumpin the frackingrevolution.Froman academic standpoint, this could be framed asgood management. Sernovitz argued that, at theend of the day, the industry does not want to besued, hampered, or slowed downby regulators andlocal communities; therefore, operators are con-stantly seeking to learn and improve their practicestominimize negative impacts. Conceding this pointleads us to ask perhaps a more meaningful ques-tion: What happens when fracking is done right,particularly at scale?

Global Costs

Many long-term and chronic environmental con-cerns remain unanswered in the fracking debate,even if no accidents occur. Compelling claims havebeen put forward regarding the unsustainable strainplaced on watersheds when enormous amounts ofwater are withdrawn to be injected into wells (Alessiet al., 2017). Others point to the flowback of frackingfluid and the extent to which it can be treated ade-quately over the long term to prevent themigration oftoxic chemicals, brine, and heavy metals from theearth’s crust into localwater supplies. Geologists are

actively debating whether injecting wastes into theground induces seismicactivity, particularly inareaswithnoprevioushistoryof earthquakes (Ellsworth,2013). Additional topics include fracking’s effect onair quality, noise, and, indirectly, leaks and spillsfrom the pipelines and trains that deliver frackedhydrocarbons to market.From a global perspective, perhaps the biggest

question relates to the effect of fracking on climatechange. According to Sernovitz, the shale revolutionhas benefited the global environment, displacing 200million tons of coal per year. Thanks to natural gas,between2007and2012,U.S.carbondioxideemissionsfell “a world-leading 725 million metric tons, equiva-lent to the total emissions from Germany” (2016: 7).This echoes the standard trope used by the oil andgas industry: modern society is heavily dependenton abundant, uninterrupted energy, and even thestaunchest environmental advocates appreciateheating and electricity. Sernovitz also contendedthat natural gas is themost attractive “bridge fuel” totransition away from coal into a carbon-free energyfuture driven by renewable resources such as windand solar. However, this argument conveniently ig-nores that fracking is also an effective means forextracting oil, used almost entirely for transportation.Others contend that the concept of a bridge fuel

is illusory (e.g., Levi, 2013; McJeon et al., 2014).Managerial concepts such as sunk costs, in-vestment horizons, and path dependencies sug-gest that these investments will be milked for allthey are worth, especially when considering thecapital-intensive pipelines and refinery infra-structure that support fracking. After all, it is hardto imagine a situation in which a hydrocarbonresource is available, inexpensive, andmanagedby entrenched, powerful interests yet remains inthe ground. Other detractors of fracking, amongthem prominent climate change advocate BillMcKibben, founder of 350.org, have highlightedconcerns about the release of “fugitive” methanefromwells; by some accounts, this short-lived butpotent greenhouse gas negates the carbon miti-gation advantage of natural gas over coal.Matters of concern like fracking “provoke per-

plexity and thus speech in those who gatheraround them, discuss them, and argue over them”

(Latour, 2004: 58). For example, in 2009 RobertF. Kennedy, Jr., chief attorney for the Natural Re-sources Defense Council and a high-profile envi-ronmentalist,wrote inaFinancial Timesop-ed thatconverting quickly from coal to gas was U.S. Pres-ident Barack Obama’s best strategy for saving the

3TheU.S. Energy InformationAdministration reported shalegas production from twenty states through 2015 and tight oilproduction from a dozen (see https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_prod_shalegas_s1_a.htm and https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id5847&t56).

486 AprilAcademy of Management Review

planet and jump-starting the economy after the fi-nancial crisis. But, after visiting Dimock in 2010,Kennedy reversed his views on fracking by 2013.Obama, whomade climate change a key theme ofhis presidency, resolutely supported fracking aslate as 2014, when he heaped praise on the oil andgas industry in his State of the Union address:“One of the reasons why [America is approachingenergy independence] is natural gas. If extractedsafely, it’s the bridge fuel that can power oureconomy with less of the carbon pollution thatcauses climate change.”

As these statements illustrate, fracking is notonly a matter of facts but also a matter of values.Because such concerns are value laden, as aca-demics we may feel that they are outside our pur-view. Yet, as Suddaby reminds us, in goodacademic work “facts and values interpenetrateand reinforce each other” (in press: 3). In our view,matters of concern such as fracking are worthy ofthorough, informed scrutiny by academic re-searchers, precisely because they are complex,multifaceted, and evolving. Tom Wilber, in hisbook Under the Surface, provides an exemplar ofhow academics can contribute to public debate inhis portrayal of two prominent natural scientistsand their role in the fracking revolution. In the nextsectionweexamine theirpositionson frackingandthe lengths to which they went to shape publicunderstanding and action on the topic.

ACADEMICS IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

Under theSurfaceprovidesadetailedhistoricalaccount of fracking in two neighboring states,Pennsylvania and New York, both overlaying theMarcellus Shale. Wilber assiduously detailed thecommunity cultures, social movements, and po-litical forces that led Pennsylvania to embracefracking and become its mecca, while these sameforces prompted New York to impose a morato-rium and eventually ban fracking entirely. Wefocus on his coverage of two key actors in thishistory: Terry Engelder, a professor of geosciencesat Pennsylvania State University in UniversityPark, Pennsylvania, and Anthony Ingraffea, aprofessor of civil engineering at Cornell Univer-sity in Ithaca, New York. These prominent, repu-table scholars are at polar extremes on fracking.Engelder’s starting point is the immense economicvalue of hydrocarbons that can be unlocked byfracking and the boost these riches can provide tolocal communities. Ingraffea’s starting point is that

fracking at the scale envisioned by Engelder isharmful to the health of local communities anddisastrous to earth’s climate. The debate is fas-cinating precisely because both scholars appearto be right: both have decades of experience andample peer-reviewed research to back up theirclaims.

Professor Terry Engelder (PennsylvaniaState University)

In January 2008, Engelder “was among the firstto assign a commercial value” (Wilber, 2015: 2) tothe Marcellus Shale, pegging its size at 168 to 516trillion cubic feet of gas, an astounding figure thatmeant the play was classified, in industry par-lance, as a supergiant. Engelder’s estimate wastwo orders of magnitude(!) larger than the U.S.Geological Survey’s estimate of 1.9 trillion cubicfeet. In a Penn State press release, Engelder wasquoted as saying, “The value of this science couldincrement the net worth of U.S. energy resourcesby a trillion dollars, plus or minus billions”(Wilber, 2015: 97). This estimateassumed that only50 trillion cubic feet of the gas could be recovered.After analyzing initial production data from 2009,Engelder raised his recovery estimate nearlytenfold, to 489 trillion cubic feet, enough to meetU.S. natural gas demand for decades (Wilber,2015: 97). Perhaps not surprisingly, his calculationmade international news headlines, and in acover story about shale gas, Time magazine pro-filed him as someone who “played a key role inthe discovery of the Marcellus” (Wilber, 2015: 94).Engelder’s work was actively promoted by his

university. In fact, Penn State saw an opportunityto position itself at the center of academic re-searchonshaleandgaveEngelder course relief totake a more visible role in promoting fracking inparticular and the university more generally. Hewas actively courted by oil industry executives,investors, and journalists, as well as others whosaw economic opportunity in extracting hydro-carbons from the Marcellus. More than one cor-poration reportedly offered him a seven-figuresalary.Manyhungonhis everyword, andmuchofthe rise in lease prices starting in 2008 can rea-sonably be attributed to his calculation of thecommercially retrievable hydrocarbons in theshale play. Similarly, a brief but very significantspike in natural gas prices occurred on the day hemade his calculations public. Engelder had ef-fectively leveraged his academic expertise and

2019 487What Inspires the Academy: Book Reviews and Beyond

positioned himself to be an influential voice in thepublic discourse on fracking.

Professor Anthony Ingraffea (Cornell University)

Anthony Ingraffea joined Cornell in 1977,specializing in rock fracturing mechanics—particularly how fractures can be induced to pro-mote extraction. However, Ingraffea’s research andexperience led him to believe that “pairing the ap-plication of these technologies [horizontal drillingand hydrofracking] for extracting shale gas posesunacceptable risks” to local communities and theglobal climate (Wilber, 2015: 5). In late 2009, just asthe Marcellus Shale boom was getting started,Ingraffea began challenging the claim that shalegas constituted a bridge fuel from dirty coal to acleaner, more sustainable energy future. Ingraffea“kept hearing that fracking had been done since1947overamillion timeswithoutproblems” (Wilber,2015: 150). He regarded these and other industryclaims as “inaccurate, disingenuous, and in somecases outright lies,” because the Marcellus playwas at an “entirely different scale” than any pre-vious projects (Wilber, 2015: 150).

As a counterpoint to Engelder’s breathless pro-motion of the industry, Ingraffea begangivingpubliclectures, “using industry figures and science to showwhy, inhisview,shalegasoperationsareanetsocialand environmental loss” (Wilber, 2015: 181). In 2010Ingraffea gave more than fifty such lectures, “fillingcommunity halls and library conference rooms inupstateNewYorkwith rapt audiences” (Wilber, 2015:181). He argued that realizing Engelder’s Marcellusestimates would result in “massive and intensiveindustrialization” (Wilber, 2015: 182) on the order ofeight wells per square mile. Multiplied across theentireMarcellus Shale, Ingraffea calculated it wouldrequire400,000wellsacrossPennsylvania,NewYork,West Virginia, Ohio, and Maryland to produce the489 trillion cubic feet Engelder promised. By 2017Ingraffea had made 161 public appearancesthroughout North America, updating his pre-sentation with new scientific findings as theyemerged (personal communication, 2017).

Debating Fracking

On January 14, 2011, Terry Engelder and TonyIngraffea held a public debate in Laporte, Penn-sylvania, a tiny hamlet about midway betweenCornell and Penn State (Wilber, 2015: 217).Engelder, who was used to industry-friendly

audiences, spent much of his talk explainingwhythe problems in Dimock were simply inevitableand necessary growing pains that would ulti-mately benefit the entire country. Alluding toJohn F. Kennedy’s famous call to “ask not whatyour country can do for you—askwhat you can dofor your country,” Engelder reasoned: “The peoplein Dimock have already done that, in spades. It’stheir sacrifice, hopefully, that is necessary if thegas industry continues to evolve and help otherpeople” (Wilber, 2015: 218). LikeSernovitz,Engeldersaw Dimock as merely a case study in how not tofrack.Heargued that the industrywould learn fromthese challenges and move forward.Ingraffea countered, shifting the narrative from

local consequences to global costs: even if industrycould someday “get it right”and eliminate all leaksand spills, the global impact from burning non-renewable energywouldbeanet loss (Wilber, 2015:218). “The idea of using natural gas as a bridge fuelto some brighter sustainable energy future was acarefully craftedmyth” (Wilber, 2015: 219). Ingraffeabased his argument on methane emissions, a by-product of drilling. According to Ingraffea’s calcu-lations, fugitive methane emissions were moredamaging to the climate than coal plants.During this debate and in subsequent ex-

changes, Ingraffea and Engelder sparred on sev-eral levels. At the level of academic discourse,they disputed theories and empirical findings, asis appropriate in scientific endeavors as we learnmore, conduct additional analyses, and deepenour theoretical understandings. But Engelder andIngraffea were influential because the implica-tions they drew were practically consequential.They excelled at using their professional knowl-edgeandbuildingon it toaddressbiggerquestions.Although both scholars focused on fracking,Engelder drew on his expert knowledge of geo-logical deposits to highlight economic opportuni-ties, whereas Ingraffea drew on expert knowledgeabout themigration of chemicals through geologicstrata tohighlighthealthandclimate implications.Using facts and bona fide scientific findings, theyunabashedly attempted to shape the debateabout an important issue with long-term societalimplications. They did this in person and throughscholarly outlets—for example, inNature (Howarth,Ingraffea, & Engelder, 2011)—engaging directlywith each other’s arguments. Both men knew theirfacts, but,more important, they showedup inpublicvenues, and they risk being booed off the stage,caricatured, or vilified.

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What Is Being Debated?

Importantly, theEngelder-Ingraffeadebatewasexplicitly values laden. Engelder, for example,emphasized that fracking was a means for theUnited States to attain energy independence andto create economic opportunities for rural commu-nities. His position was therefore one emphasizingnational security and financial gains. Ingraffea, incontrast, highlighted impacts on human health, lo-cal ecosystems, and climate change. Ingraffea be-lieved the risks of fracking were too high, whereasEngelder believed that frackingwas too valuable tobe suppressed (Engelder, 2009; Howarth et al., 2011;Ingraffea, Wells, Santoro, & Shonkoff, 2014). At afundamental level, underlying theacademic jargonand undeniably informing the research they con-duct, are ideology and values.

Such dynamics are endemic to matters ofconcern:

They do not conceal the researchers who are in theprocess of fabricating them, the laboratories nec-essary for their production, the instruments thatinsure their validation, the sometimes heated po-lemics towhich they give rise—in short, everythingthat makes it possible to articulate propositions(Latour, 2004: 87–88).

Many management researchers, it seems, expe-rience uneasiness when their research veers intoterrain that is imbued with such values-ladenimplications. Often, we prefer to imagine that ourresearch is value neutral. An implicit assumptionin our field is that management practices in-formed by academic research are desirable andshould be implementedby organizations.Much ofour research identifies opportunities to minimizewasted time, effort, and resources; spur in-novation; or make workplaces vibrant and wel-coming. Positive, “instrumental” research outputslike these can be widely adopted (Kieser, Nicolai,& Seidl, 2015)—whether by fracking companies orothers.Wecannotassume, however, that all of ourresearch endeavors will fall into this category. Towit, in the context of fracking, recommendationsfor practitioners about how to manage effectivelywill not tell them whether fracking is the rightthing to do. Management theory can informpractitioners how to frack and how to frack better,but not whether they should frack at all and, if so,whether it is more preferable in some circum-stances than in others.

In values-laden research contexts such asfracking, it may well be impossible to avoid

expressing an ideological disposition. This maymake management scholars uncomfortable, and itmight seem at first glance that relinquishing a de-tached, clinical posturewhen engaging in researchand debate about societal issues is risky and awk-ward. We suggest, however, that debates aboutvalues-laden topics also have the potential to begenerative, prompting us to do thorough researchthat contributes to forming a consequential albeitnot cohesive picture. In the case of fracking, geolo-gists, energyeconomists, climatechangescientists,public health researchers, and social scientists allhave written copiously on fracking and its conse-quences. Their analyses, all passing the muster ofpeer review, do not lead to the same prescriptionsaboutwhether fracking isgoodorbadand thereforewhether it should be promoted or prohibited.Substantive, engaged, ongoing contention is

not at all undesirable. The thrust and parry ofdebate informed by new studies casts additionallight on known issues. It also has the potential toidentify new issues or ameliorate others. Theresimply may not be one right answer to the ques-tion of fracking, but the trope “more research isneeded” is manifestly true, especially when it iscoupledwith thepresentationof findings topublicaudiences. There may not be closure, no accu-mulation of evidence to point the way (Reay et al.,2009; Rousseau, 2012), but this lack of convergenceneed not be a deterrent (Sarewitz, 2004). This islikely to be the case for a great many concernsfacing the world (Chandler, 2014; Latour, 2004).And it is precisely such matters of concern thatneed deliberation.

ENTERING THE FRAY

Engaging in public debate might serve as apalliative for the somewhat tortured tradition ofsoul-searching about the real-world importanceof management research. Often, our challenge asa field is framed as making rigorous researchrelevant for audiences who can benefit from theknowledgeweaccumulate. Complementarily, wesuggest that sometimes relevance may be amatter of showing up—engaging with big, im-portant, real-world issues and participating indevising thoughtful, meaningful ways to dealwith them. Below we sketch out the contours ofwhat such participation might entail.In general, it is likely that public debate about

matters of concern will center on issues, not the-ories. For instance, contention around fracking,

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both in public discourse and in the academicarena, is not driven by theory. Instead, it is driven byphenomena, such as pollution and pipelines, andtheir real-world consequences. Sometimes theorieswill be laidout inmakinganargument, but, typically,the nuances and specificities remain taken forgranted (e.g., Green, Li, & Nohria, 2009). Extension oftheory or development of new theoretical insights isnot a goal in and of itself. Such an emphasis is cur-rentlyverymuchatoddswithhowacademicsuccessis attained in the Academy. Typically, we imaginethat our theories and the studies we conduct arebroadlygeneralizableandthatcontexthasvery littleimportance for creating knowledge that is validand transferable. This also creates and sustainsparadigm-based communities, coheringaround the-oretical concepts but not around phenomena.

These norms are not often conducive to engagingin public debate. Public debate is more likely tocenter on issues such as the gig economy or genderinequality, not the intricacies of institutional theoryor the Carnegie school. This suggests that a certainambidexterity is required, amastery of both contextand theory. Effectiveness in public discourse entailsfamiliarity with work on the same issue in otheracademic disciplines and an understanding of thetheoretical underpinnings of those complementarystreamsof research. It is likely toalsorequiregreaterempirical familiaritywith thecontext, suchas in situimmersion and nonacademic discourse.

When debating, researchers should express them-selves in more than one register—both in the spe-cialized language of academics in journals and invernacular language in other venues. Socialmediaand the Internet allow researchers to write blogs,record podcasts, and respond to current eventsquickly and concisely, and faculty are increasinglyencouraged to take on this form of public engage-ment (e.g., Stein & Daniels, 2017). These media canhelp those of us who desire to do so to engage withacademics from other disciplines and even non-academic audiences, particularly about currentevents and how our research can help make senseof them. Online media (e.g., The Conversation, Pa-cific Standard) that have been established recentlywith the express purpose of showcasing importantresearch findings also provide excellent plat-forms for highlighting how our research informsrecommendations about appropriate choices forsociety (e.g., Delmas & Lyon, 2018). Our own aca-demic journalsmayaspire to host debates centeredon contemporary matters of concern (and not justtheoretical ones), inmuch thesameway thatNature

hostedduelingarticles fromEngelderand Ingraffeain a debate titled simply, “Natural Gas: ShouldFracking Stop?” (Howarth et al., 2011).A challenge with debate of any type is that it can

spiral out of control, particularly when values areexplicitly stated. Opposing points of view can becaricatured, rather thancarefullydissected.Hiddenagendas can be insinuated, and ad hominem at-tacks can displace commentary over facts andlogic. As a field, we seem able to avoid these trapsin our intradisciplinary academic debates (e.g., seethe spirited exchange between Steve Kapan andJim Walsh over the fairness of CEO compensation;Kaplan, 2008a,b;Walsh, 2008, 2009).Whenengagingwithotheraudiences,wecannotbesureof thesamesuccess. One guideline might be to clearly expressideological starting points and deeply held beliefsso as to avoid having audiences make assump-tions. Presenting the biographical history and per-sonal journey that has informed one’s positionmaybeanotherkey tohelpingaudiencesunderstandthevalues commitments that inform one’s work. An-other rule of thumb could be to delineate as care-fully as possible what is a research finding versuswhat is a belief statement, perhaps further dis-tinguishing well-established findings from thosethat are emergent or tenuous.

CONCLUSION: FACTS DON’T SPEAKFOR THEMSELVES

In our view, disagreement on values-laden is-suesof concern isnota flaw tobeglossedoverbut,rather, an important feature that should be nur-tured. According to political philosopher MichaelSandel, “Our reluctance to bring competing con-ceptionsof thegood life intopoliticaldebatehas . . .impoverishedourpublicdiscourse” (2012). Ifwearereticent inconducting researchandpresenting it ina transparent way that makes our values known,then we are likely to abstain from speaking outabout societally consequential issues.This would be unfortunate, because management

scholars are quite well positioned to participate. Asscholars,weanalyzephenomenaatmicro,meso,andmacro scales using a dizzying variety of researchmethodologies that enable us to understand com-plex,nuanced issues frommultipleperspectives.Ourresearch interfaces with economics, sociology, pol-icy, and psychology, to name but a few disciplines,meaning we can credibly apply concepts such asentrepreneurial opportunity, regulatory capture, so-cialmovements, shareholder value, and stakeholder

490 AprilAcademy of Management Review

rights to pertinent issues. Many of us engage withorganizational leaders through consulting and ex-ecutive education, and these opportunities have en-abled us to hone our communication skills fornonacademic audiences. When engaging with ourstudents, we often rely on case studies, many ofwhich provide information about contemporary so-cietal issues and are, quite literally, designed to en-courage debate. Overall, it seems we do not lackin training, credentials, or opportunities to makemeaningful contributions to public discourse. Forthese reasons and more, we believe the time hascome for management scholars to go public.

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