Knowledge Production and Knowledge Transfer: Closing the Research-Practice Gap‪.‬

Most of us enter academia with the hopes that our research will have an impact. Some of us share our research and knowledge with students who can then act upon our findings and suggestions as they enter the workplace; others share findings by publishing in managerial journals and through consulting engagements; and almost all of us share the results of our research and the creation of new ideas by publishing in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. It is the last of these means of sharing--publishing research results in scholarly journals--which has drawn increased attention and criticism in the field of management (e.g., Lawler, Mohrman, Mohrman, Ledford and Cummings 1985; Mohrman, Gibson and Mohrman 2001; Gulati 2007) and more recently marketing (Brown, Webster, Steenkamp, Wilkie, Sheth, Sisodia, Kerin, MacInnis, McAlister, Raju, Bauerly, Johnson, Singh and Staelin 2005). There is certainly a belief that managers often do not implement the direct findings from academic research when making strategic and tactical decisions (e.g., Abrahamson 1996; Mowday 1997). And at the same time, researchers often fail to integrate the perspectives of practitioners in developing research designs and interpreting research findings (Rynes, Bartunek and Daft 2001). Is the research that we publish relevant to practice? In other words, is there a chasm or "gap" between supply chain management research and practice? And, if so, then how should we address this research-practice gap? The authors of the other essays in this forum believe that there is indeed a gap between research and practice, and I largely agree. The relevant question then becomes one of how to address the research-practice gap. In order to do so, I believe that we first must better define the gap. I provide my own perspectives of this definition in the next section of the essay. Afterwards, I discuss several of the causes of the research-practice gap, followed by some suggested solutions. The essay ends with a few caveats and qualifiers regarding these proposed solutions.