On the Relationship Between Research and Practice

This article offers a lively and spirited debate on the pros and cons of relating research to practice. The authors' goal is to illuminate fundamental issues in the debate in detail, consider a variety of prescriptions, and then come to a mindful conclusion about a course of action. The article begins with a point—counterpoint debate to make sure that scholars fully understand the issues in play. Mike Tushman starts off by arguing for an emic approach. He believes that scholars are most effective when they closely work with management and organizations. John Kimberly counters with an etic perspective. He argues that scholars need to keep their distance. Two attempts to make sense of the many issues raised in the debate close the article. First, Bill Starbuck steps back and offers his ideas about what the debate means for continuing scholarship. And then Sue Ashford brings the exchange to a conclusion. She draws on her many years in the dean's office to offer her wisdom about how to best organize business schools in the coming years. In the end, the authors know that there will be nearly as many errors as trials when the world's business schools determine how best to proceed. Their aim here is to minimize the effects of these errors. If and when schools do err, the authors want to be sure that they do it with their eyes wide open.

[1]  Robert Aaron Gordon,et al.  Higher Education for Business , 1959 .

[2]  Management as a Profession , 1961 .

[3]  J. W. Gardner,et al.  No easy victories. , 1968, Science.

[4]  Barr Rosenberg,et al.  Error Rates in CRSP and Compustat Data Bases and their Implications , 1974 .

[5]  J. Kimberly,et al.  Organizational innovation in a professionally dominated system: responses of physicians to a new program in medical education. , 1974, Journal of health and social behavior.

[6]  J. Kimberly,et al.  Change in physician attitudes toward reform in medical education: the results of a field experiment. , 1976, Social Science & Medicine (1967).

[7]  John R. Kimberly,et al.  Issues in the Design of Longitudinal Organizational Research , 1976 .

[8]  M. Tushman.  Special Boundary Roles in the Innovation Process. , 1977 .

[9]  J. Kimberly,et al.  Issues in Family Practice: Medical Student and Practicing Physician Perspectives , 1978, Medical Care.

[10]  Michael L. Tushman,et al.  Technical Communication in R & D Laboratories: The Impact of Project Work Characteristics , 1978 .

[11]  J. Kimberly,et al.  Issues in the creation of organizations: initiation, innovation, and institutionalization. , 1979, Academy of Management journal. Academy of Management.

[12]  Edgar G. Williams,et al.  Musings on management , 1982 .

[13]  Noel M. Tichy,et al.  Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will , 1992 .

[14]  Paul R. Lawrence,et al.  The Challenge of Problem-Oriented Research , 1992 .

[15]  D. Hambrick.  What if the Academy Actually Mattered , 1994 .

[16]  Donald A. Schön,et al.  Organizational Learning II: Theory, Method, and Practice , 1995 .

[17]  John M. Mezias,et al.  Opening Pandora's Box: Studying the Accuracy of Managers' Perceptions , 1996 .

[18]  Massimo Marraffa,et al.  Organizational learning II: Theory, method and practice , 1998 .

[19]  R. Kaplan.  Innovation Action Research: Creating New Management Theory and Practice , 1998 .

[20]  David F. Channell.  Pasteur's Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation , 1999 .

[21]  Anne Sigismund Huff,et al.  Citigroup's John Reed and Stanford's James March on management research and practice , 2000 .

[22]  Jay A. Conger,et al.  Executive Education in the 21st Century , 2000 .

[23]  A. Brief.  Still Servants of Power , 2000 .

[24]  A. Dennis,et al.  Serving Multiple Constituencies in the Business School: MBA Program vs. Research Performance , 2000 .

[25]  Ken Starkey,et al.  Bridging the Relevance Gap: Aligning Stakeholders in the Future of Management Research , 2001 .

[26]  Karl E. Weick,et al.  Gapping the Relevance Bridge: Fashions Meet Fundamentals in Management Research , 2001 .

[27]  R. Daft,et al.  Across the Great Divide: Knowledge Creation and Transfer Between Practitioners and Academics , 2001 .

[28]  Hamid Bouchikhi,et al.  ‘It’s Difficult to Innovate’: The Death of the Tenured Professor and the Birth of the Knowledge Entrepreneur , 2001 .

[29]  A. Pettigrew.  Management Research After Modernism , 2001 .

[30]  Christopher Grey,et al.  Re‐imagining Relevance: A Response to Starkey and Madan , 2001 .

[31]  Michael Beer,et al.  Why Management Research Findings Are Unimplementable: An Action Science Perspective , 2001 .

[32]  J. Bartunek.  Corporate scandals: How should Academy of Management members respond? , 2002 .

[33]  S. Clegg.  “Lives in the Balance”: A Comment on Hinings and Greenwood's “Disconnects and Consequences in Organization Theory?”• , 2002 .

[34]  Royston Greenwood,et al.  ASQ Forum , 2002 .

[35]  Christina T. Fong,et al.  The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye , 2002 .

[36]  Ronald N. Ashkenas,et al.  The GE work-out : how to implement GE's revolutionary method for busting bureaucracy and attacking organizational problems--fast! , 2002 .

[37]  Howard Rheingold,et al.  Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution , 2002 .

[38]  James G. March.  A Scholar's Quest , 2003 .

[39]  John M. Mezias,et al.  Studying the Accuracy of Managers' Perceptions: A Research Odyssey , 2003 .

[40]  J. D. Margolis,et al.  Social Issues and Management: Our Lost Cause Found , 2003 .

[41]  G. Masiero,et al.  Universities in the marketplace: the commercialization of higher education , 2003 .

[42]  Michael L. Tushman,et al.  From engineering management/R&D management, to the management of innovation, to exploiting and exploring over value nets: 50 years of research initiated by the IEEE-TEM , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

[43]  Henry Mintzberg,et al.  Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development , 2004 .

[44]  W. Richard Scott,et al.  Reflections on a Half-Century of Organizational Sociology , 2004 .

[45]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  The Business School Business: Some Lessons from the U.S. Experience , 2004 .

[46]  Mie Augier,et al.  Notes on the Evolution of a Research Community: Organization Studies in Anglophone North America, 1945-2000 , 2005, Organ. Sci..

[47]  V. Marsick,et al.  Action learning for strategic innovation in mature organizations: key cognitive, design and contextual considerations , 2005 .

[48]  R. Kanter,et al.  Moving Higher Education to the Next Stage: A New Set of Societal Challenges, a New Stage of Life, and a Call to Action for Universities , 2005 .

[49]  W. Bennis,et al.  How business schools lost their way. , 2005, Harvard business review.

[50]  M. Bazerman.  Conducting Influential Research: The Need for Prescriptive Implications , 2005 .

[51]  S. Ghoshal.  Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices , 2005 .

[52]  J. Zimmerman,et al.  What's Really Wrong with U.S. Business Schools? , 2005 .

[53]  J. Spender.  Management as a Regulated Profession , 2007 .

[54]  R. Bailey,et al.  Is the University in Ruins , 2008 .