Rather Than Searching for the Silver Bullet, Use Rubber Bullets: A View on the Research-Practice Gap‪.‬

We would like to thank Craig Carter for the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the research-practice "gap" in the Journal of Supply Chain Management. While we admittedly lack expertise in the supply chain management discipline, we are grateful for the chance to share our view on a debate that goes back a long time in the organizational studies. Briefly speaking, the first part of the paper addresses some potential explanations for why we believe the research relevance "gap" is still wide open. In the second part, we offer four potential ways to lessen the "gap." We consider these to be "rubber bullets" because they will not (collectively or individually) "kill the beast" but they may weaken it a bit!