Bridging the Relevance Gap: Aligning Stakeholders in the Future of Management Research

TLDR

The report focuses on knowledge produced at the business–academia interface amid major changes that may alter demand for such knowledge, noting that management research has been criticized for lacking relevance to practice and having a narrow disciplinary base. This report examines the relevance gap in management research, investigates the conditions leading to criticism in the UK and elsewhere, and identifies a strategic need to increase stakeholder involvement in research creation and dissemination. The authors analyze the conditions behind the criticism in the UK and beyond and highlight the need to broaden user stakeholding across research creation and dissemination. The report recommends new research partnership models and training approaches to bridge the relevance gap. Bridging the gap requires not only academic mindset shifts but also managers and firms to rethink their research involvement.

Abstract

This report examines the relevance gap in management research. Its focus is the nature of knowledge created by research at the interface between business and academia in the context of major changes likely to affect the nature of demand for such knowledge. Management research has been accused of a lack of relevance to managerial practice and of too narrow a discipline base. The report examines the conditions giving rise to this criticism, in the UK and elsewhere, and identifies an important strategic need to increase the stakeholding of users in various aspects of the research and knowledge creation and dissemination process. The report concludes with recommendations concerning new forms of research partnership and research training that will address the relevance gap. However, bridging this gap does not only require changes in the academic mind‐set. Managers and firms too need to rethink their involvement in the research process.