Managing the “valley of death” between the management research and the management practice: An empirical academic evidence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1229/tecempresarialjournal.v15i1.14Keywords:
The Valley of death, research-practice divide, rigor-relevance gap, qualitative evidenceAbstract
The knowledge generated by academics in the field of Management is often criticized because of its reduced relevance for professionals. In recent studies, researchers agree that there is an important gap between management research and practice. However, the literature in this topic does not represent a finely structured discourse, and for the most part, it is not based on empirical works. In this paper, we make a double contribution to this literature: 1) First, an extensive literature has been developed with the aim of analysing and providing different solutions that allow linking both communities. In order to offer a more systematic view of literature in this topic, we classify these works into three different currents according to the ideas in which they are held. 2) On the other hand, the review of the literature shows that there is a need to develop more empirical evidence to help identify different causes or determinants of the gap between both communities in our field. Therefore, we identify different causes that may cause a disconnection with professionals in our field, through empirical evidence obtained in interviews with 15 academics belonging to the discipline of Management. Finally, this work concludes with a discussion of the main findings derived from the qualitative analysis and different practical recommendations that could help close the gap.
References
Abrahamson, E., 2009. Necessary conditions for the study of fads and fashions in science. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 25 (2), 235-239.
Agarwal, R., & Hoetker, G., 2007. A Faustian bargain? The growth of management and its relationship with related disciplines. Academy of Management Journal, 50 (6), 1304-1322.
Armstrong, M. 2006. A handbook of human resource management practice. London: Ko-gan Page Publishers.
Appelbaum, E., Bailey, T., Berg, P., & Kalleberg, A., 2000. Manufacturing competitive advantage: The effects of high performance work systems on plant performance and company outcomes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Artés, J., Pedraja-Chaparro, F., & del Mar Salinas-Jiménez, M. 2017. Research perfor-mance and teaching quality in the Spanish higher education system: Evidence from a medium-sized university. Research Policy, 46 (1), 19-29.
Banks, G., Pollack, J., Bochantin, J., Kirkman, B., Whelpley, C., & O’Boyle, E. 2016. Management’s science-practice gap: a grand challenge for all stakeholders. Academy of Management Journal, 59 (6), 2205-2231.
Bansal, P., Bertels, S., Ewart, T., MacConnachie, P., & O’Brien, J., 2012. Bridging the re-search–practice gap. Academy of Management Perspectives, 26 (1), 73–92.
Barley, S. R. 2016. 60th anniversary essay: Ruminations on how we became a mystery house and how we might get out. Administrative Science Quarterly, 61 (1), 1-8.
Bartunek, J. M., & Rynes, S. L., 2014. Academics and practitioners are alike and unlike: The paradoxes of academic–practitioner relationships. Journal of Management, 40 (5), 1181–1201.
Bartunek, J. M., 2011. What has happened to mode 2? British Journal of Management, 22 (3), 555–558.
Bartunek, J. M., & Rynes, S. L., 2010. The construction and contributions of “implications for practice”: What’s in them and what might they offer? Academy of Management Learning and Education, 9 (1), 100–117.
Bartunek, J. M., 2007. Academic-practitioner collaboration need not require joint or rele-vant research: Toward a relational scholarship of integration. Academy of Management Journal, 50 (6), 1323–1333.
Baum, J. A. 2012. The Skewed Few: Does “Skew” Signal Quality Among Journals, Arti-cles, and Academics?. Journal of Management Inquiry, 21 (3), 349-354.
Bennis, W. G., & O’Toole, J., 2005. How business schools lost their way. Harvard Business Review, 83 (5), 96–104.
Beyer, J. M., & Trice, H. M., 1982. The utilization process: A conceptual frame work and synthesis of empirical fiindings. Administrative Science Quarterly, 27 (4), 591–622.
Broadbent, J. & Unerman, J., 2011. “Developing the relevance of the accounting academy: the importance of drawing from the diversity of research approaches”, Meditari Accou-ntancy Research, 19 (1), 7-21.
Bryman, A., 1988. Doing Research in Organizations. London: Routledge.
Buckley, M. R., Ferris, G. R., Bernardin, H. J., & Harvey, M. G., 1998. The disconnect between the science and practice of management. Business Horizons, 41 (2), 31–38
Bullinger, B., Kieser, A., & Schiller-Merkens, S. 2015. Coping with institutional complexi-ty: Responses of management scholars to competing logics in the field of management studies. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31 (3), 437-450.
Butler, D., 2008. Crossing the valley of death. Nature, 453 (7197), 840-842.
Butler, L. 2003. Explaining Australia’s increased share of ISI publications—the effects of a funding formula based on publication counts. Research Policy, 32 (1), 143-155.
Cohen, D. J., 2007. The very separate worlds of academic and practitioner publications in human resource management: Reasons for the divide and concrete solutions for brid-ging the gap. Academy of Management Journal, 50 (5), 1013-1019.
Corley, K. G., & Gioia, D. A., 2011. Building theory about theory building: What constitu-tes a theoretical contribution? Academy of Management Review, 36 (1), 12-32.
Daft, R. L., & Lewin, A. Y., 2008. Rigor and relevance in organization studies: Idea migra-tion and academic journal evolution. Organization Science, 19 (1), 177-183.
Davis, G. F. 2015. Editorial essay: what is organizational research for?. Administrative Science Quarterly, 60 (2), 179-188.
Deadrick, D. L., & Gibson, P. A., 2007. An examination of the research–practice gap in HR: Comparing topics of interest to HR academics and HR professionals. Human Re-source Management Review, 17 (2), 131-139.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M., 2000. The «What» and « Why » of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11 (4), 227-268.
DeNisi, A. S., Wilson, M. S., & Biteman, J. 2014. Research and practice in HRM: A histo-rical perspective. Human Resource Management Review, 24 (3), 219-231.
Derrick, G. E., & Pavone, V. 2013. Democratising research evaluation: Achieving greater public engagement with bibliometrics-informed peer review. Science and Public Poli-cy, 40 (5), 563-575.
Duberley, J., Cohen, L., & Mallon, M., 2006. Constructing scientific careers: Change, con-tinuity and context. Organization Studies, 27 (8), 1131-1151.
Dunbar, R. L. M., & Bresser, R. F., 2014. Knowledge generation and governance in mana-gement research. Journal of Business Economics, 84 (1), 129–144.
Espeland, W. N., & Sauder, M. 2007. Rankings and reactivity: How public measures re-create social worlds. American journal of sociology, 113 (1), 1-40.
Flickinger, M., Tuschke, A., Gruber-Muecke, T., & Fiedler, M. 2014. In search of rigor, relevance and legitimacy: What drives the impact of publications? Journal of Business Economics, 84 (1), 99-128.
Fochler, M., Felt, U., & Müller, R. 2016. Unsustainable growth, hyper-competition, and worth in life science research: Narrowing evaluative repertoires in doctoral and postdoctoral scientists’ work and lives. Minerva, 54 (2), 175-200.
George, G., Howard-Grenville, J., Joshi, A., & Tihanyi, L. 2016. Understanding and tac-kling societal grand challenges through management research. Academy of Manage-ment Journal, 59 (6), 1880-1895.
Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M., 1994. The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contempo-rary societies. London: Sage.
Gordon, R. A., & Howell, J. E., 1959. Higher education for business. The Journal of Busi-ness Education, 35 (3), 115–117.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Tec Empresarial
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
