Gathering on the Bridge: Academic–Practitioner Boundaries and Boundary Work

Abstract

While the oftentimes uneasy relationship between academics and practitioners is a persistent theme in management research, it is less and less acceptable for management scholars to have no impact outside scholarly communities. However, despite considerable attention towards attempts to achieve both rigor and relevance in theory-building over the years, management scholars continue to observe little progress concerning the performance of more impactful research. We contribute to this debate by offering a “new way of seeing” academic–practitioner relationships in management research. Specifically, we draw attention to apparent “boundaries” between academic and practitioner communities, as well as the “boundary work” that can be performed in both rigorous and relevant management scholarship. We argue that understanding and embracing boundaries as constructions that seemingly divide academic practitioner communities enables management scholars to find ways to work through these boundaries so as to perform scholarship that is both rigorous and relevant. To do so, the session gathers an esteemed panel of distinguished academics and practitioners who engage in dialogues about (1) what the boundaries are that seem to inhibit impactful management scholarship through a division of academic and practitioner communities, and (2) how management scholars and practitioners can work through these boundaries.