This paper presents a critique of Freek Vermeulen’s synthesis of rigor and relevance in
management research, and argues (1) at the first glance, Vermeulen’s papers are very
appealing; (2) but with a closer scrutiny, we can unveil the weak and shaky
foundations of his argument; (3) as a consequence, his solution of ‘adding a second
loop’ to make management research meet dual needs of rigor and relevance is illusory
and merely an applied science fiction; (4) and finally, there are two real contributions
of his papers to the irrelevance debate, but they are not like what we might have
thought.