Organization Studies as Applied Science: The Generation and Use of Academic Knowledge About Organizations - Introduction to the Special Issue
Organization Studies, Vol. 31, pp. 1189-1207, 2010
University of Zurich, Institute of Organization and Administrative Science (IOU), IOU Working Paper No. 111
31 Pages Posted: 30 Oct 2010
Date Written: October 2010
Abstract
The relationship between theory and practice has been discussed in the social sciences for generations. Academics from management and organization studies regularly lament the di-vide between theory and practice. They regret the insufficient academic knowledge of mana-gerial problems and their solutions, and criticize the scholarly production of theories that are not relevant for organizational practice (Hambrick 1994). Despite the prevalence of this topic in academic discourse we do not know much about what kind of academic knowledge would be useful to practice, how it would be produced, and how the transfer of knowledge between theory and practice actually works. In short, we do not know how we can make academic work more relevant for practice or even whether this would be desirable. In this introduction to the special issue we apply philosophical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives to examine the challenges of studying the generation and use of academic knowledge. We then briefly describe the contribution of the seven papers that were selected for this special issue. Finally, we discuss issues that still need to be addressed, and make some proposals for future avenues of research.
Keywords: Organization studies, applied science, academic knowledge
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