Session Details

Session 1607

Corporate Process

Track F Date: Sunday, October 14, 2007
Time: 13:00-14:30 h
Panel Session (Part 1) Room: Executive Center 3

Learning From or Learning With Practioners: The New Insights


Session Chair

Panelists

Abstract

Strategy as a field emerged from practice. Yet, many have lamented about the wide and perhaps widening gap between research and practice. What should the role of learning from and with practitioners be in this respect? Researchers and practitioners have different cognitive contexts, processes and purposes for knowledge creation. How do we manage these tensions and instead use this diversity to successfully identify and address “big questions”? How should objectives, roles, responsibilities and expectations be defined at the outset? Which research approaches, contexts, and methodologies, in terms of learning with and from practitioners, should become more prominent in the next 5-10 years to unravel important mechanisms underlying strategic choice and performance? How will this help us to bridge the gap between methodologically valid knowledge (disseminated solely through scholarly articles by academics for academics) and relevant, high-impact knowledge making a difference in the strategic practices and performance of firms (disseminated through, e.g., airport books by consultants for practitioners)? This will be a highly interactive session, divided in two parts, where panelists will provide in-dept insights on the basis of their extensive experience, but will also invite session participants to share their most compelling experiences.



Strategic Management Society

San Diego Conference