مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Limited application of research by practice is a recurring and prominent topic in academic literature about management (Anderson, Herriot, & Hodgkinson, 2001; Bartunek & Rynes, 2010; Beer, 2001; Van de Ven & Johnson, 2006; Walsh, Tushman, Kimberly, Starbuck, & Ashford, 2007). Over more than three decades, both researchers and practitioners have argued that practitioners cannot use or do not use research insights about management (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005; Van de Ven, 2002). Indeed, it has been argued that scholars have not done enough to assist organizations improve their management practices (Garvin, 2013). Furthermore, it is argued that theories emerging from business schools may destroy good practice (Ghoshal, 2005).

In recent years, recommendations have been made to make management research more relevant to management practice. These have included encouraging researchers to increase engagement more with practitioners, and for researchers to be more proactive in their choices of research topics (e.g., Corley & Gioia, 2011; Van de Ven & Johnson, 2006). Despite the literature concerning the lack of research relevance to practice being voluminous, it has not yet addressed the complexity of relevance. In particular, the perceived relevance of information from any source is dependent upon complex paths that are affected by hard to predict interrelated factors such as culture, personality type, past experience, group think, and task overload (Ariely, 2008; Kahneman, 2011; Voss, Rothermund, & Brandtstadter, 2008 € ).

In this paper, we introduce a fundamental shift in the scholarly debate concerning research relevance: a shift from over simplifi- cation to consideration of complexity. Firstly, we broaden and balance the framing for the debate by setting the irrelevance of many research findings alongside the irrelevance of practice information. Secondly, we provide greater specificity through consideration of complex relevance paths that are affected by hard to predict inter-related factors. Lastly, we provide recommendations for increasing research relevance. We structure the remainder of this paper by first providing definitions of principal terms. Subsequently, we describe the current skewed and indistinct framing of the inter-relation between research and practice. Next, we introduce reframing of research relevance that is more balanced and provides greater specificity. Then, we provide recommendations for addressing the complexity of relevance. Finally, we discuss implications of improved framing.