...debate goes back a long time in the organizational studies.

Briefly speaking, the first part of the paper addresses some potential explanations for why we believe the research relevance "gap" is still wide open. In the second part, we offer four potential ways to lessen the "gap." We consider these to be "rubber bullets" because they will not (collectively or individually) "kill the beast" but they may weaken it a bit!

SOME ROOTS OF THE RESEARCH-PRACTICE "GAP"

Organizational scholars have long recognized the divide or "gap" between academic rigor and practical relevance. This recognition goes back to at least to 1949, when Merton asked social scientists to more carefully consider the usefulness of their work (Merton 1949). Many others have since addressed this issue (Beyer and Trice 1982; Rynes, Bartunek, and Daft 2001; Bailey 2002; Shapiro, Kirkman, and Courtney 2007).

Why it is then that over a half century of discussion on this issue has produced such little progress? This is especially noteworthy since business schools are professional schools and thus they must strive to improve business practice as well as the needs of academia (Oviatt and Miller 1989; Pfeffer and Fong 2002; Bennis and O'Toole 2005).

Is it possible that this is because we primarily pay lip service or engage in impression management when we address this issue? Similarly, consider Russell Ackoffs colorful comment in response to a question he posed: "What are the contributions of business education?":

... there were three. The first was to equip students with a
vocabulary that enables them to talk authoritatively about subjects
they do not understand. The second was to give students principles
that would demonstrate their ability to withstand any amount of
disconfirming evidence; the third was to give students a ticket of
admission to a job where they could learn something about
management. (Detrick 2002, p. 56)


Furthermore, reward structures often reinforce the "academia for the academicians" reality. As noted by Bennis and O'Toole:

Deans may say they want practitioner-oriented research, but their
schools reward scientific research designed to please academics. By
recruiting and promoting those who publish in discipline-based
journals, business schools are creating faculties filled with
individuals whose main professional aspiration is a career devoted
to science. (Bennis and O'Toole 2005, p. 100)


These authors emphasize the gap between the scientific approach in academic research that stresses analysis which is in contrast to what managers face: day to day complexity. Bennis and O'Toole further argue that "when applied to business--essentially human activity in which judgments are made with messy, incomplete, and incoherent data--statistical and methodological wizardry can blind rather than illuminate" (2005, p. 99).

Van de Ven and Johnson (2006) view the research and practice "gap" as a knowledge translation problem. Here, the problem can be addressed by translating management research into publications, terminologies and frameworks that managers can apply. Others, however, see the problem as one of knowledge production where, in effect, the wrong problems are addressed. Shapiro et al. (2007) label these...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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