With apologies for cross-posting.
We are a group of scholar-practitioners and would like to invite you to participate in a PDW focused on continuing the conversation on bridging the research-practice gap and to inspire extensions of current efforts to increase the relevance of academic work with a specific focus on this coming year's program theme, "Understanding the Inclusive Organization."
An important and overarching question facing management theorists, educators, and practitioners today is the relationship between theory (scholarship) and practice. Others, such as Roger Martin (The Design of Business) have asserted that management practices are created as "business innovators" move from solving a business issue (mystery) to creating business heuristics and algorithms that can be used by managers to solve business problems. These heuristics and algorithms become "standard" management practices. Management theory focuses on the creation of prescriptions for solving mysteries (Design Thinking) and moving solutions through the knowledge funnel to create management practices. Others might argue that management theory is the result of social scientists observing practicing managers. Some might argue that management theory does not provide <g class="gr_ gr_95 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins doubleReplace replaceWithoutSep" id="95" data-gr-id="95">prescription</g> for the practice of management.
This Professional Development Workshop (PDW) is the continuation of a line of longitudinal research from prior Academy of Management Conferences and Meetings. It will build on several very successfully PDWs: 1) Translating Scholarship into Practice: How can the Results of Scholarship be Translated into Action by Practitioners? that was conducted at the 2014 AOM Conference, 2) Translating Scholarship into Practice: Using the World Café Technique to explore the gap between scholars and practitioners? that was conducted at the 2015 AOM Conference, 3) Translating Scholarship Into Practice: Which Comes First: Theory or Practice? Scholarship into Practice that was conducted at the 2016 AOM Conference, and 4) Translating Scholarship into Practice: Further Reflections on the Future of Management Theory and Practice that was conducted at the 2017 AOM Conference, and 5) Translating Theory into Practice: Identifying and Formulating Effective Strategies.
This PDW would be offered at the Academy of Management Conference in Boston, MA in August 2019.
We are approaching the research-practice gap from several angles, including the researcher, practitioner, and consultant perspectives. Therefore, we are recruiting a panel of scholar-practitioners to share with us their experiences and perspectives.
The workshop is envisioned as an interactive discussion between scholars and practitioners to identify gaps between research and practice and brainstorm strategies for working together to close the gap. As you are well aware, translating scholarship into practice is a concept focusing on the fundamental approaches to solving practical concerns by using the science of interpretation to translate theoretical orientations and research findings into usable information in the everyday world. The idea of translation is more dynamic than simply applying our research to problems. Through translation, we are able to preserve the integrity of the research and theory because it bridges the gap between knowledge creation and knowledge utilization and then perhaps most importantly interpret that knowledge for everyday use for business practitioners.
We would like to hear your ideas for questions, below are the questions we are focused upon:
- How do we build a community of management researchers, educators, consultants, and practitioners that can co-create and disseminate knowledge?
- What are the significant inhibitors to the generation of scholarship that is both rigorous and relevant? What are some strategies for overcoming or reducing the negative impact of these inhibitors?
- How can we use social media to improve the dialogue between management scholars and management practitioners?
- How should we define "impact" and how would scholars and their academic institutions aspire to achieve impact?
We seek to interactively explore with participants how each role contributes to the creation, translation, and dissemination of research that achieves relevance to practice.
If you are interested in joining us, we simply need a short paragraph from you describing your organization, your role, and a summary of the approach your organization uses to integrate research into practice or practice into research. Please submit your information to me by November 30th. I can be reached at Melanie@InstituteforCreativeManagement.org
We hope you will consider joining us!
Best,
Melanie
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Dr. Melanie P. Cohen
Executive Director and Principal
Institute for Creative Management.org
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