Balancing continuity and novelty: The practical relevance of management research from the practitioners' perspective

In management research, the literature on practical relevance holds that practitioners actively construct practical relevance. However, the practitioners' perspective on relevance has received very little scholarly attention to date. This paper puts forward a theoretical model for examining how practitioners construct academic knowledge as practically relevant based on interviews with practitioners enrolled on executive MBA (EMBA) courses. The model shows that practitioners construct academic knowledge as relevant by (1) perceiving it as congruent with their context, experiences and intuition, (2) extending their knowledge by new instruments, constructs, and means of scientific framing and (3) reconnecting it to their contexts and professional practices. This model extends the literature by showing that, in order to be considered practically relevant, academic knowledge needs to balance novelty and continuity. Additionally, the paper shows that practitioners are unlikely to perceive as relevant ambiguous academic knowledge that is 'action expansive', i.e. that presents them with an overwhelming range of possible actions

Violetta Splitter's Quick Files

The Quick Files feature was discontinued and it’s files were migrated into this Project on March 11, 2022. The file URL’s will still resolve properly, and the Quick Files logs are available in the Project’s Recent Activity

Are practice-based approaches to strategy relevant to practitioners? Implications of a Bourdieusian perspective on the relation between management research and management practice

It has variously been argued that by focussing on ‘what people do in relation to strategy’ strategy research would become relevant to practitioners. This paper puts forth the argument that the gap between strategy research and management practice cannot be resolved just by paying more attention to what strategists really do. Drawing on a Bourdieusian perspective we argue that practice-based scholars who put forward such a view might lack an awareness for their necessarily ‘scholastic view’. This leads to two related fallacies: the fallacy of epistemic doxa (i.e. the unawareness of the scholastic logic) and the fallacy of scholastic ethnocentrism (i.e. the projection of the scholastic logic into the object of research). As a consequence, such research is in danger of producing knowledge that might neither be practically relevant nor even contribute to the advancement of management science. In order to avoid these fallacies researchers need to develop a particular kind of reflexivity by engaging in so-called ‘participant objectivation’. Research based on this reflexivity also has greater chances of having an impact on management praxis as it is likely to resonate with the practical logic of the practitioners. Yet, the actual transformation of academic knowledge into practical knowledge has to be treated as the accomplishment of the practitioner, which is beyond the reach and control of the academic field

Theorizing the ‘social’ in social media: The role of productive dialogs for collaborative knowledge creation

Knowledge creation is particularly important for organizations in order to innovate and secure their existence over time (e.g., Mount & Garcia Martinez, 2014; Nonaka & von Krogh, 2009; Von Krogh, 2012). Recently, organizations typically strive to create new knowledge by setting up social media platforms (Razmerita, Kirchner, & Nabeth, 2014). Hence, there is growing scholarly interest in the role of social media, i.e. digital technologies of the Web 2.0 generation (Leonardi & Vaast, 2017) in collaborative knowledge endeavors (Hemsley & Mason, 2013; Kallinikos & Tempini, 2014; Leonardi & Vaast, 2016; Neeley & Leonardi, 2018; Voigt & Ernst, 2010; Wagner, Vollmar, & Wagner, 2014). Yet, the majority of social media studies focuses on knowledge sharing (e.g., Majchrzak, Faraj, Kane, & Azad, 2013; for recent overviews, see Leonardi & Vaast, 2016; Panahi, Watson, & Partridge, 2013). In particular, scholars highlight that social media facilitate knowledge sharing behavior in organizations in a unique manner due to their unique affordances, i.e., the “perceptions of an objects’ utility” (Treem & Leonardi, 2012, p. 145), which cover visibility, editability, persistence, and association for the ‘object’ social media (Leonardi & Vaast, 2015; Treem & Leonardi, 2012). These scholars further speculate that the affordances of social media might also contribute to knowledge creation (Leonardi & Vaast, 2017)

Practical relevance of practice-based research on strategy

In this chapter we review practice-based studies that have examined the ontological and epistemological conditions for producing strategy research that proves relevant to management practice. Drawing on these works, we argue that researchers inevitably adopt a scholastic point of view, which makes it impossible to capture directly the logic of strategy practice. However, scholars can increase the practical relevance of their research by developing theories based on practical logic. We have outlined three approaches to capture the logic of management practice (1) theorizing through practical rationality, (2) the application of ‘participant objectivation’, and (3) the consideration of the dissociation process. We argue that if strategy-as-practice research builds on these insights, it can prove a particularly fruitful approach to generate knowledge that is of conceptual relevance to strategy practice

Does practice-based research on strategy lead to practically relevant knowledge? Implications of a Bourdieusian perspective

It has often been argued by scholars adopting a practice approach that by focusing on “what people do in relation to strategy” their research would be particularly relevant to practitioners. In response to this assumption, this article draws on a Bourdieusian perspective to argue that most practice-based strategy scholars are unaware of their inevitably “scholastic view” which is the cause for the gap between strategy research and praxis. This unawareness leads to two related fallacies: epistemic doxa and scholastic ethnocentrism. In order to avoid these fallacies, strategy researchers need to develop a particular kind of reflexivity by engaging in what is known as “participant objectivation.” This enables the researcher to generate rigorous research that is conceptually relevant to practitioners—without dissolving the necessary differentiation between strategy research and praxis

Open Strategy – die neue Offenheit

Früher haben Unternehmen ihre Strategien hinter verschlossenen Türen formuliert und von oben herab umgesetzt. Heute setzen viele Betriebe auf «Open Strategy». Mitarbeiter und die Öffentlichkeit erhalten dabei mehr Einblick und bringen ihre Ideen in den Strategieprozess mit ei