Bridging the research-practice gap

Management research often bears little resemblance to management practice. Although this research-practice gap is widely recognized and frequently lamented, there is little discussion about how it can be bridged. We partly remedy this problem in this paper by describing our experiences with the Network for Business Sustainability. Our experiences showed that the paradoxes underlying the relationship between research and practice make bridging this gap difficult. We argue that the reason why the research-practice gap endures is that bridging it is beyond the capabilities and scope of most individuals, and we call for the creation of intermediary organizations like the Network for Business Sustainability. We close by outlining some of the activities that can be undertaken by these boundary-spanning intermediary organizations, with the hopes of better aligning management research and practice.