Management researchers lament the fact that their work has so little impact on management practice. Practicing managers, so it is claimed, search for knowledge that will help them improve organizational performance but rarely consult the work of university-based researchers - work that they often find incomprehensible and irrelevant to their day-to-day challenges. We contend that for management research matter to managers it is required the creation of mutually beneficial partnerships involving managers and researchers, as well as the support of their organizations.We illustrate the importance of practice-relevant management research by drawing on four important contributions. Together these illustrations not only demonstrate how this kind of partnership can yield practice-relevant knowledge, but also provide insights into enhancing the likelihood that productive encounters will occur.
Management Research; management science; performance Management; Research institutes; Management styles