Well said John
"Itseems to be part of a wider trend that is connected with a decline in
>the academy's preeminent position as the originator and disseminator of
>knowledge for use by others. Nowadays there is much more emphasis on
>co-production and practitioners investigating their own practice"
The speed that information changes has accelerated to the point where
businesses need "Just In Time" answers to continually evolving problems.
The academic model worked great when new ideas evolved over a few years.
Our peer review journal process for example (no matter how effective)
publishes answers to questions that may no longer be relevant after the 2+
year delay for publication. Software companies have taught us that
sometimes fast to market is better than perfect. If we are to resume a role
as leaders we need to find a way to provide answers faster and in such a
manner that the business world looks to us first for answers that result in
an actual change in business behavior. We need to outgrow at least one part
of the definition of the word "academic" - Without meaning or value. For
the climate has changed...
John
At 03:25 PM 1/22/99 +0000, you wrote:
>The idea of a 'scholarly practitioner' has been around for a long time
>in parts of the public sector, particularly in Health and Education. It
>links with ideas such as evidenced based practice, teacher- researcher
>and so forth - is the notion any different from the idea of a
>reflective practitioner? except, of course that reflection has never
>been any guarantee of effectiveness.
>
>
>
>On the other hand professional education has always occupied the
>netherworld of Higher Education trying to avoid the 'dialogue of death'
> - the need to escape the criticisms of academics that it isn't
>rigourous enough and the criticisms of practitioners that it isn't
>relevent enough -
>or maybe different cultures experience this issue in different ways.
>
>
>John Williams
>Sheffield Hallam University
>UK
>
Dr John Sullivan
Head and Professor of HR
College of Business
San Francisco State University
JohnS@sfsu.edu
More articles by Dr Sullivan can be found at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/gately/pp15js00.htm
and at http://www.erexchange.com/daily/search.asp?author_id=9