Developing researching managers and relevant research – the ‘executive research programme’

Abstract

The current paper argues for bridging the ‘relevance gap’ in management research and education by creating educational programmes that bring together experienced managers and management researchers. In the ‘Executive Research Programme’ discussed in this paper, managers were paired up with researchers to conduct a collaborative research project that resulted in a paper presented at an academic conference. The collaborative process was supported by 20 course days on topics such as the philosophy of science, methodology and overviews over the core disciplines of management science. This paper presents the programme and discusses experiences of the involved researchers and managers. The results suggest that programmes of this kind may provide a liminal space for managers and researchers where new and relevant knowledge is developed.

Keywords:

• management education
• relevance gap
• research-teaching nexus
• management research