Examining the Transfer of Academic Knowledge to Business Practitioners

Abstract

This study explores whether practitioners who hold a Ph.D. in business act as intermediaries in the transfer of academic knowledge from academia to practice. Twenty Ph.D. graduates were interviewed, and the data were subjected to deductive content analysis. It was concluded that the previous claims that academic research does not influence decision-making of industry practitioners are not fully warranted. Graduates of doctoral business programs act as knowledge-transfer intermediaries that aggregate, summarize, communicate, and implement findings reported in academic publications. Academic journals have the potential to disseminate scholarly knowledge beyond the academic world. Demand for evidence-based knowledge in the practitioner's environment determines his or her probability of applying academic knowledge. Not all academic knowledge is perceived as useful by practitioners, and limited access to academic literature is a major impediment to the application of scholarly findings in practice. The practitioners' connection with academia after graduation is also linked to their probability of using academic literature.

Global ranking of knowledge management and intellectual capital academic journals: 2017 update

“…Fourth, it would be also interesting to compare the ranking lists produced exclusively by practitioners and academics. It may be argued that practitioners, who are interested in the applied aspects of published works (Moshonsky et al, 2014), favor outlets catering to their unique needs, whereas academics assign higher scores to journals focusing exclusively on theoretical and methodological advancement.…”

A structured literature review of scientometric research of the knowledge management discipline: a 2021 update

“…Studies on KM research relevance, knowledge translation and knowledge brokering reached several conclusions. It has been generally agreed that the findings reported in the academic KM literature are of high value to practitioners (Moshonsky et al, 2014;Edvardsson and Durst, 2017) and that industry-academia collaboration and dialogue lead to knowledge creation (Fabbe-Costes, 2018). Regrettably, despite the potential usefulness of KM research, practitioners show little interest in the domain, and KM has become a purely academic discipline (Hislop et al, 2018) where scientific research output is targeted at academics rather than industry professionals.…”

Knowledge management in small and medium enterprises: a structured literature review

“…This lack of emphasis poses a risk for academia to stay isolated in an ivory tower, as practitioners complain of difficulties in accessing and utilising academic knowledge for managerial decision-making (Booker et al, 2008). Practitioners need to overcome barriers identified by Moshonsky et al (2014), including the lack of understanding of academic language and jargon used by academics and the cost of subscribing to academic journals. Considering the higher resource constraints that SMEs have compared to larger corporations, researchers could face an increased risk for academia not being understood by practitioners, managers and policymakers in this sector.…”