One process, two audiences; on the challenges of management research
- 2002
This paper takes as its focus, the complex, challenging and sometimes problematic relationship between management practice and t he practice of management research. Practising managers and management researchers both tend to care passion-ately about the same subject. However, despite their commmon concerns, they remain two distinct audiences. This paper describes a five year research process, involving a range of 25 organisations drawn from the public and private sectors. During the period covered by the paper, a network of practtioners and academics co-developed a research agenda and a number of research projects were undertaken to wxplore this agenda. The projects ranged from a few weeks in some cases, to 12-24 months in most. Futhermore, the projects were about the process of strategic transformation and were informed by complexity theory. The paper presents a brief overview of these projects, their genesis, conduct and deliberables. In so doing, we hope to demonstrate one way in which the two communities identified above can engage in a single process yet each derive benefits in their own terms. Following a discussion of the individual projects, the paper concludes by addressing the two audiences separately. Practical advice is offered on conducting management research. One list of `Do's and Don't' (which emerged from the five year study described in the paper) is offered to the practitioner community, whilst a separate list is offered to the academic research community together with some speculations concerning the competencies of research-friendly practitioners and practice-friendly researches