The Relevance of Strategy Research: Practitioner and Academic Viewpoints*

Abstract

It is important for strategy research to have practical relevance given its professional orientation. The differing perspectives of academics and managers and the rapid development of the field of strategic management suggests a need to address the field's future direction. In this paper, a practitioners' agenda for the field is developed based on a survey of chief executive officers (CEOs) of major US corporations. A comparison of this agenda with one generated by academics highlights the differences between the two constituencies concerning issues of relevance for the future. Compared to academics, CEOs emphasize operating issues; disagree on the priority of strategic issues; and are generally unfamiliar with research-based journals. The two agendas should be viewed as complementary. Some implications for the field are discussed and suggestions made for dealing with the issue of relevance in future research and communicating the results to managers.

The relevance of knowledge management and intellectual capital Research

“…This article captured the attention of the business community (Bennis and O'Toole, 2005) and even some renowned scholars started questioning the applicability of academic findings. This criticism of business academic research is mentioned in various business domains such as general management (Starkey and Madan, 2001), marketing (Ankers and Brennan, 2002;Varadarajan, 2003), strategy (Bailey and Ford, 1996;Gopinath and Hoffman, 1995;McGahan, 2007;Shrivastava, 1987), information systems (Anandarajan and Lippert, 2006;Baskerville and Wood-Harper, 1996;Benbasat and Zmud, 1999;Breu and Peppard, 2003), industrial and organizational psychology (Anderson et al, 2001;Rynes et al, 2001), and international business (Daniels, 1991). There have been special journal issues (e.g., see Baskerville and Myers, 2004;Gray, 2001;Lee, 2001) and conference panels (e.g., see Kock et al, 2002) that are totally devoted to this topic.…”

Selection Processes in Economics

“…Two examples of such internal criteria are reported in a recent issue of the Journal of Management Studies. Gopinath and Hoffman (1995) compare the rankings of seventeen strategic issues by academic practitioners and CEOs in the U. S. A. and find a poor relationship, which is strikingly reflected in the CEOs' degree of familiarity with leading strategic journals. 94% of them read the Harvard Business Review at least occasionally; no other journal reaches 50%, and only two out of the 13 listed manages 25%.…”

Assessing Theory and Practice in Competitive Strategy: Challenges and Future Directions

“…The strategic management field has been replete with concerns about its practical relevance (Gopinath & Hoffman, 1995). According to critics, research that cannot provide strategic managers with improved decisionmaking abilities does not serve one of the field's primary constituencies (cf.…”