In a message dated 99-01-19 03:44:23 EST, you write:
<< From my personal investigation thus far, the scholarly-practitioner
debate
(from the academician point of view) seems to center around the issue of the
"appropriateness" of applied research in the scholarly environment and what
scholarly contributions to the epistemology of the discipline the doctoral
student makes after graduation. There seems to be concern regarding the
preparation of scholarly-practitioners from professional doctorates to enter
the world of academe.
Hi, Bruce, and others who may be interested in this thread.
I was delighted to see that you specifically identified this paragraph as
coming from the 'from the academician point of view', because I have a totally
different perspective, coming from the other side of the divide.
If the only person who can be included in the definition of 'scholar' is one
who has a Ph.D. and does empirical research, then I am out of here, I have
nothing to add. To define that way is your privilege, of course, since we are
playing in your ballpark.
Seriously, however, if your questions will bring answers that include the
practitioner who does some serious thinking about management and leadership
issues, who publishes, possibly does some informal research and otherwise
attempts to contribute to the field, then I would like to suggest that there
are many of us, myself included.
We may, or may not wind up in controversy with the academic perception of the
critical issues. We also may be totally ignored by the scholars and editors
who insist on empirical research before they will look at the logic and
practicality of an idea or concept. Even solid foundation on prior research
in the literature often is not enough.
With those kinds of hurdles to overcome, there is not much incentive for
practitioners to give serious thought to ways in which they can contribute to
the advancement of the state of the art (or science, as it may be). That's
why we are not a big crowd, or do not sponsor our own conferences - or even
participate in large numbers in academic conferences.
You seem to address the question
'What behaviors (knowledge, skills and abilities) were associated with the
scholarly-practitioner? Was the issue of continuing education or periodic
scholarly achievements (publishing) addressed?'
specifically to your academic audience. In a subtle way you restricted your
question to institutions. What about practitioners who do what once was
considered highly scholarly - deductive reasoning from prior thinking and
exploration (even research) that can lead to significant insights.
I applaud your request to welcome 'Any thoughts from the MG-ED-DV community...
(be they from scholars, practitioners, or scholarly-practitioners).' I am
also most interested in 'The debate is growing and the faculty and students
seem to welcome the discourse.'
For my part, I would be most happy to join the debate, if there is a way for
an outsider to participate. I am basically a practitioner (over 20 years
managing two manufacturing facilities - in hard goods) who began to think
about management issues because I started to develop simple simulation games,
first for econocmics which I was teaching as an adjunct faculty member and
later for management. The need to provide valid judgments for the issues
raised in the management simulations led to very serious thought on
justifyable foundations for these judgements. That in turn helped me develop
a model for the behavioral and related aspects of management (those that are
generally covered by leadership and motivation theories in the literature).
That model has been informally validated with a huge number of practitioners,
but has so far been met with deafening silence from the academic community
despite the fact that it has been published in three books by prestigious
(non-academically oriented) publishers.
As you can see, I have some justification for feeling that the practitioner-
scholar may be a different animal than the scholarly-practitioner and may not
fit into your dialog.
It would be nice if I am wrong - and that is quite possible since your message
seemed to leave the door open.
Erwin (Rausch)