Does our work matter? Has your research made an impact? What about your
teaching? Are you confident that your classes are providing your students
with relevant, evidence-based tools for their professional careers? What
do businesses expect of us to consider our work more relevant?
(With apologies for cross-postings.)
If you are willing to give some serious thought to these questions, please
join us in “Questioning for Relevance, A Dialogue of Scholarship and
Practice;” a PDW that will take place on Sunday, August 10 from 9:00AM to
12:00PM at Anaheim Convention Center in the 210B room (pre-registration is
NOT required but strongly encouraged; please email
drolivaslujan@gmail.com
to pre-register).
We will critically reflect on the recent initiatives to bridge the
research-practice gap, and to inspire extensions of current efforts to
increase the relevance of academic work. Presenters have volunteered based
on their work, recent experience and research interests. We approach the
research-practice gap from several perspectives, including those of the
CEO of NSHMBA (a non-profit that has recently sponsored a journal and
increased its focus on business research), researcher, teacher, and
practitioner perspectives. We seek to interactively explore with
participants how each role contributes to the creation, translation, and
dissemination of research that achieves relevance. Reports from founding
participants in the Evidence Based Management Collaborative will be
included. The panelists include the following:
Lourdes Hassler, Chief Executive Officer of the National Society of
Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA). The organization is increasingly focusing on
business research partly as a reaction to the dearth of research on
Hispanics and businesses. Since 2007, the Business Journal of Hispanic
Research has been sponsored by NSHMBA in response to this gap. Lourdes
will share her perspective on relevant research for the business community.
David Denyer (Cranfield U, School of Management) is also a Scholar of the
Advanced Institute for Management (AIM); he will discuss the ways that
evidence-informed management bridges the gap. He is an associate of the
Research Methods Group of the Evidence Network (funded by ESRC and based
at Queen Mary College, University of London), a multi-disciplinary
community of senior scholars from the natural sciences (medicine) and
social sciences to promote and investigate Evidence-based policy and
practice in the UK. David was one of only two management scholars invited
to attend a series of seminars funded by the health development agency
(HDA) and delivered under the auspices of the Evidence Network Research
Methods Group.
Melanie P. Cohen spans the boundary of the academic and practitioner
worlds, in her roles as the Information Technology Strategist for the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); and as an adjunct
Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland (University College
Graduate School of Management and Technology). Previously, she was the
Chief of the Strategic Planning Unit at the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA). Her experience includes organizational
restructuring, change, and culture and her research focuses on public
management and the 21st century organization. She will share her
observations on the connection between theory and practice, specifically
how theory informs practice and practice implements theory.
Joy Beatty (U of Michigan – Dearborn) reflects on the relationship between
our research questions and teaching. If we are looking at having direct
impact on practice, how does teaching serve that in relation to discipline-
based research? Are we there to translate or transmit the “real” work from
other areas into plain English? Or are we preparing the students to
receive new ideas by opening their minds and teaching topics like critical
thinking? And whose needs do we serve when we form our research questions?
Chad Smith (Clarion U of Pennsylvania) sold his manufacturing company –a
firm in ten industries with annual sales of ten million dollars that
employed eighty individuals within three different internal divisions and
two distributorships in Florida and Texas. Chad has been in the
manufacturing industry for the past fourteen years and owned his business
throughout the latter twelve years. Simultaneously, he earned his
Doctorate of Science in Information Systems and Communications and entered
academia as a member of the Business Faculty at Clarion’s College of
Business Administration. His presentation will highlight differences that
these worlds present.
Josetta Mclaughlin (Roosevelt U) addresses the problem of translating
research, based on her work with journalists. She has studied how psycho-
metricians are presenting the data associated with standardized testing
and the problems the journalists face in interpreting the numbers. Her
perspective about these professionals will encourage the audience to ask
the questions that make their work more translatable for non-specialists.
Miguel R Olivas-Luján (Clarion U of Pennsylvania and Tecnológico de
Monterrey –Mexico) is Liaison to Practice for the MED division in 2007-08
and organizer of this session. He represents MED in the Evidence-Based
Management Collaborative (EBMC) convened by Denise Rousseau since 2007.
Miguel’s contribution is twofold: report on the progress of the EBMC and
make a presentation on “Holographic writing,” a writing style suitable for
reporting research to non-technical audiences in layers of gradual and
increasing complexity.
After a first set of presentations, a 45-min discussion period has been
scheduled to allow exercises facilitated by the presenters to engage the
audience through discussions in round tables. The second set of
presentations is scheduled to think about concrete ways in which our
research can be made more accessible and relevant to practitioners.
This Professional Development Workshop was organized on behalf of the MED
division and is sponsored by PTC, OB, TIM, MOC, PNP, MEN, and CM.
For more information and to pre-register, contact Miguel R. Olivas-Luján
(
drolivaslujan@gmail.com).