A Temporal View on the Academic–Practitioner Gap

Man, Ard‐Pieter de; Luvison, Dave; Leeuw, Tim de

doi:10.1177/1056492620982375

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 163 publications

(306 reference statements)

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“…The fact that both discourse communities contribute synchronously to the growth and decline of fads also suggests that the often-proclaimed academic-practitioner gap (Birkinshaw et al, 2016;Deadrick and Gibson, 2007;Perea and Brady, 2017;de Man et al, 2021) does not seem to exist for these fads. Even though both communities address the same fads, often to an equal extent, they do so according to their own terms with variations in peaks, intensity, and endurance of interest.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Traditionally, popularization has been viewed as the one-way transfer of knowledge from academia to the practitioner domain. Scholars adopting this view have suggested an academic-practitioner gap in the management field, because scholarly research published in peer-reviewed journals is rarely taken up by practitioner magazines or generally not relevant for practitioners (Baldridge et al, 2004;Bansal et al, 2012;Bartunek and Rynes, 2014;Wastell, 2014;Adler, 2016;Perea and Brady, 2017;de Man et al, 2021). The practitioner community, meanwhile, develops its own management techniques with little need for scholarly input, which entails that knowledge about the effective management of organizations is understood as being created in two loosely connected domains that are mostly self-referential (Tranfield and Starkey, 1998;Kieser and Leiner, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The diffusion of management fads: a popularization perspective

Pollach

2021

JMH

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Purpose This paper aims to investigate the transience of management fads in the academic and the practitioner-oriented communities to shed light on their roles in the diffusion of fads. Design/methodology/approach This study traces the lifecycles of the following fads in practitioner-oriented and academic journals over more than 50 years: balanced scorecard, business process reengineering, design thinking, knowledge management, learning organization, management by objectives (MBO), matrix organization and total quality management (TQM). Findings Contrary to the academic–practitioner gap lamented in the literature, this study indicates no such gap regarding these fads in general, but finds differences in the intensity with which the fads are dealt with. The two communities stimulate, sustain and abandon fads collectively, as the lifecycles of most of the fads were found to mirror each other in both communities. This provides evidence of a contemporary form of popularization with a dynamic exchange of knowledge between academic and practitioner-oriented journals, rather than the traditional one-way transfer of knowledge from academia to practice. Originality/value This paper is the first to study multiple fads simultaneously in academic and practitioner-oriented journals in a historical comparison to investigate their roles in the diffusion of fads.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The diffusion of management fads: a popularization perspective

Pollach

2021

JMH

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“…Additionally, the accessibility of research contributions to practitioners constitutes another barrier between research and practice (Tucker, 2013;Tucker and Lowe, 2014;Tucker and Parker, 2014;Tucker and Schaltegger, 2016). Last but not least, institutional (Tuttle and Dillard, 2007) as well as time-related aspects, including different time horizons (Inanga and Schneider, 2005;Grosu et al, 2015;de Man et al, 2020;Ratzinger-Sakel and Gray, 2015) or a time lag between research and practice (Bartunek and Rynes, 2014), help to explain the research-practice gap.…”

Section: Systematization Of the Research-practice Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Last but not least, institutional (Tuttle and Dillard, 2007) as well as time-related aspects, including different time horizons (Inanga and Schneider, 2005; Grosu et al. , 2015; de Man et al. , 2020; Ratzinger-Sakel and Gray, 2015) or a time lag between research and practice (Bartunek and Rynes, 2014), help to explain the research-practice gap.…”

Section: Theoretical Background Of the Research-practice Gap In Accou...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Research-practice gap in accounting journals? A topic modeling approach

Federsel,

Fülbier,

Seitz

2023

JAL

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PurposeA gap between research and practice is commonly perceived throughout accounting academia. However, empirical evidence on the magnitude of this detachment remains scarce. The authors provide new evidence to the ongoing debate by introducing a novel topic-based approach to capture the research-practice gap and quantify its extent. They also explore regional differences in the research-practice gap.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply the unsupervised machine learning approach Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) to compare the topical composition of 2,251 articles from six premier research, practice and bridging journals from the USA and Europe between 2009 and 2019. The authors extend the existing methods of summarizing literature and develop metrics that allow researchers to evaluate the research-practice gap. The authors conduct a plethora of additional analyses to corroborate the findings.FindingsThe results substantiate a pronounced topic-related research-practice gap in accounting literature and document its statistical significance. Moreover, the authors uncover that this gap is more pronounced in the USA than in Europe, highlighting the importance of institutional differences between academic communities.Practical implicationsThe authors objectify the debate about the extent of a research-practice gap and stimulate further discussions about explanations and consequences.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to deploy a rigorous machine learning approach to measure a topic-based research-practice gap in the accounting literature. Additionally, the authors provide theoretical rationales for the extent and regional differences in the research-practice gap.

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“…It is often observed that the complexity and pace of contemporary business operations often creates a knee-jerk business decision culture, with continual guesswork as to what works and where to prioritize resources (Rousseau and Barends, 2011). Not unlike other disciplines and departments (de Man et al ., 2020; Jex, 2002), managers of HR functions often make uninformed (other than from their own experiences) critical choices affecting the future of their firms, their employees and the public (Crespin-Mazet and Ingemansson-Havenvid, 2021; Rousseau and Barends, 2011), often neglecting opportunities to investigate their business challenges via academic inquiry (Rousseau and Barends, 2011; Subramony, 2006; Vosburgh, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on service frontline employees: a science – practice perspective

Solnet,

Golubovskaya

2023

JOSM

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PurposeThis article aims to build on the insights from the systematic reviews included in this special issue (SI) on frontline service employees (FLE) by adding practitioner perspectives. Its purpose is to gauge knowledge, awareness and practices from industry and government regarding topics related to frontline workers and to offer critical and, in places, provocative insights on the relevance of scholarly focus in serving the needs of industry.Design/methodology/approachInsights were developed through consultation with managers who are responsible for leading frontline employees, who offered insights on the important issues affecting their workforce as well as direct comments on each of the key topics covered in this SI articles. Additional insights were gathered through a review of policy document reviews with relevant government agencies and trade publications, a review of a body of conference topics and speakers and personal reflections developed over decades of consulting work.FindingsThis paper presents insights from industry about looming challenges facing managers of frontline service employees, including a forecasted worsening of labor force availability to perform many frontline jobs; growing competition for workers from other sectors; a relatively shallow understanding by industry of academic research topics on workforce in service; the emerging increased cooperation between industry and governments to address these challenges and a clear deficit in necessary frontline skills.Originality/valueThis paper provides rare and direct insights from industry practitioners about current and critical topics investigated by academic researchers and offers opportunities for further collaboration and collective thought on addressing global challenges faced by frontline service employees.

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A Temporal View on the Academic–Practitioner Gap

Cited by 11 publications

References 163 publications

The diffusion of management fads: a popularization perspective

The diffusion of management fads: a popularization perspective

Research-practice gap in accounting journals? A topic modeling approach

Research on service frontline employees: a science – practice perspective

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