Practitioners and researchers as alienated lovers in management and governance: A new journal to the rescue!

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60733/PMGR.2024.01

Keywords:

Researcher-practitioner exchange, third mission, new journal, open access, public management, public governance

Abstract

In the field of management and governance, researchers and practitioners go hand in hand in terms of topical interests and they can benefit from regular thought exchanges and various concrete collaborations. However, an increased alienation between the interests of researchers and practitioners can be observed in terms of different career incentives, organizational targets, and institutional cultures. The goal of this editorial article is (i) to pinpoint symptoms of this alienation between researchers and practitioners, and (ii) to highlight the need for a forum where high-quality research can be made accessible to practitioner audiences. As an editorial article, this article marks the launch of a new journal—Public Management and Governance Review—which aims to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to interact, reflect, and elaborate in a robust and scientific but also broadly accessible way on various challenges in the field of public management and governance.

Author Biography

Jurgen Willems, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

Jurgen Willems is professor for Public Management & Governance at the WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. He is also academic director of the Executive MBA program on Healthcare Management at the WU Executive Academy. His teaching covers various management topics, including Organizational Behavior, Management & Digital Transformation, and Public and Nonprofit Governance. His research covers a variety of topics on citizen-state and citizen-society interactions.

References

S. L. Rynes, T. L. Giluk, and K. G. Brown, “The Very Separate Worlds of Academic and Practitioner Periodicals in Human Resource Management: Implications for Evidence-Based Management,” AMJ, vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 987–1008, Oct. 2007, doi: 10.5465/amj.2007.27151939.

B. I. J. M. Van Der Heijden, E. M. M. Davies, D. Van Der Linden, N. Bozionelos, and A. De Vos, “The relationship between career commitment and career success among university staff: The mediating role of employability,” European Management Review, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 564–580, Dec. 2022, doi: 10.1111/emre.12503.

S. Harley, M. Muller-Camen, and A. Collin, “From academic communities to managed organisations: The implications for academic careers in UK and German universities,” Journal of Vocational Behavior, vol. 64, no. 2, pp. 329–345, Apr. 2004, doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2002.09.003.

L. Blaxter, C. Hughes, and M. Tight, “Writing on academic careers,” Studies in Higher Education, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 281–295, Jan. 1998, doi: 10.1080/03075079812331380256.

V. Karlsdottir, M. T. Torfason, I. R. Edvardsson, and T. M. Heijstra, “Assessing Academics’ Third Mission Engagement by Individual and Organisational Predictors,” Administrative Sciences, vol. 13, no. 1, p. 9, Dec. 2022, doi: 10.3390/admsci13010009.

P. Spânu, M.-E. Ulmeanu, and C.-V. Doicin, “Academic Third Mission through Community Engagement: An Empirical Study in European Universities,” Education Sciences, vol. 14, no. 2, p. 141, Jan. 2024, doi: 10.3390/educsci14020141.

T. Reay, W. Berta, and M. K. Kohn, “What’s the Evidence on Evidence-Based Management?,” AMP, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 5–18, Nov. 2009, doi: 10.5465/amp.23.4.5.

I. Sanderson, “Evaluation, Policy Learning and Evidence‐Based Policy Making,” Public Administration, vol. 80, no. 1, pp. 1–22, Jan. 2002, doi: 10.1111/1467-9299.00292.

R. Cookson, “Evidence-based policy making in health care: what it is and what it isn’t,” J Health Serv Res Policy, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 118–121, Apr. 2005, doi: 10.1258/1355819053559083.

L. Eden and M. F. Wagstaff, “Evidence-based policymaking and the wicked problem of SDG 5 Gender Equality,” J Int Bus Policy, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 28–57, Mar. 2021, doi: 10.1057/s42214-020-00054-w.

A. Lam, “Knowledge Networks and Careers: Academic Scientists in Industry–University Links*,” J Management Studies, vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 993–1016, Sep. 2007, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2007.00696.x.

T. Crispeels, J. Willems, and I. Scheerlinck, “Public–private collaborations in drug development: boosting innovation or alleviating risk?,” Public Management Review, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 273–292, Feb. 2018, doi: 10.1080/14719037.2017.1302247.

S. Wilkins, J. Hazzam, and J. Lean, “Doctoral publishing as professional development for an academic career in higher education,” The International Journal of Management Education, vol. 19, no. 1, p. 100459, Mar. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.ijme.2021.100459.

K. S. Cruz, “Does Anyone Care About External Validity? A Call (or Plea?) for More OB/HR Research From Multiple Organizations/Industries, Panels, and Publicly Available Datasets,” Group & Organization Management, vol. 46, no. 6, pp. 974–983, Dec. 2021, doi: 10.1177/10596011211055879.

A. A. King, “Writing a useful empirical journal article,” Journal of Management Scientific Reports, vol. 1, no. 3–4, pp. 206–228, Nov. 2023, doi: 10.1177/27550311231187068.

K. M. Eisenhardt, M. E. Graebner, and S. Sonenshein, “Grand Challenges and Inductive Methods: Rigor without Rigor Mortis,” AMJ, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 1113–1123, Aug. 2016, doi: 10.5465/amj.2016.4004.

G. George, J. Howard-Grenville, A. Joshi, and L. Tihanyi, “Understanding and Tackling Societal Grand Challenges through Management Research,” AMJ, vol. 59, no. 6, pp. 1880–1895, Dec. 2016, doi: 10.5465/amj.2016.4007.

G. C. Banks, J. M. Pollack, J. E. Bochantin, B. L. Kirkman, C. E. Whelpley, and E. H. O’Boyle, “Management’s Science–Practice Gap: A Grand Challenge for All Stakeholders,” AMJ, vol. 59, no. 6, pp. 2205–2231, Dec. 2016, doi: 10.5465/amj.2015.0728.

C. Seelos, J. Mair, and C. Traeger, “The future of grand challenges research: Retiring a hopeful concept and endorsing research principles,” Int J Management Reviews, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 251–269, Apr. 2023, doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12324.

K. Geuijen, M. Moore, A. Cederquist, R. Ronning, and M. Van Twist, “Creating public value in global wicked problems,” Public Management Review, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 621–639, May 2017, doi: 10.1080/14719037.2016.1192163.

J. Willems, “Debate: Should public management research be more interdisciplinary?,” Public Money & Management, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 76–78, Feb. 2016, doi: 10.1080/09540962.2016.1118924.

J. Wynen, J. Boon, and S. Verlinden, “Reform Stress in the Public Sector? Linking Change Diversity to Turnover Intentions and Presenteeism Among Civil Servants Using a Matching Approach,” Public Performance & Management Review, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 605–637, May 2022, doi: 10.1080/15309576.2022.2037003.

J. Orlando, “Veteran teachers and technology: change fatigue and knowledge insecurity influence practice,” Teachers and Teaching, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 427–439, Jul. 2014, doi: 10.1080/13540602.2014.881644.

J. B. Bernerth, H. J. Walker, and S. G. Harris, “Change fatigue: Development and initial validation of a new measure,” Work & Stress, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 321–337, Oct. 2011, doi: 10.1080/02678373.2011.634280.

J. Camilleri, V. Cope, and M. Murray, “Change fatigue: The frontline nursing experience of large‐scale organisational change and the influence of teamwork,” J Nurs Manag, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 655–660, Apr. 2019, doi: 10.1111/jonm.12725.

S. Taffel, “Data and oil: Metaphor, materiality and metabolic rifts,” New Media & Society, vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 980–998, May 2023, doi: 10.1177/14614448211017887.

S. Zuboff, The age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. London: Profile books, 2019.

S. Lavertu, “We All Need Help: ‘Big Data’ and the Mismeasure of Public Administration,” Public Administration Review, vol. 76, no. 6, pp. 864–872, Nov. 2016, doi: 10.1111/puar.12436.

L. Andrews, “Public administration, public leadership and the construction of public value in the age of the algorithm and ‘big data,’” Public Administration, vol. 97, no. 2, pp. 296–310, Jun. 2019, doi: 10.1111/padm.12534.

J. D. Lecy, “Treating Data-Driven Management Seriously:The Evolution of Public Administration Theory in a Digital World,” SSRN Journal, 2024, doi: 10.2139/ssrn.4754600.

Open Science Collaboration, “Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science,” Science, vol. 349, no. 6251, p. aac4716, Aug. 2015, doi: 10.1126/science.aac4716.

R. Vicente-Saez and C. Martinez-Fuentes, “Open Science now: A systematic literature review for an integrated definition,” Journal of Business Research, vol. 88, pp. 428–436, Jul. 2018, doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.12.043.

B. Geys, “Fancy seeing you here…again: Uncovering individual‐level panel data in repeated cross‐sectional surveys,” Public Administration Review, vol. 83, no. 6, pp. 1761–1771, Nov. 2023, doi: 10.1111/puar.13693.

S. Dennis et al., “Privacy versus open science,” Behav Res, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 1839–1848, Aug. 2019, doi: 10.3758/s13428-019-01259-5.

P. Bansal, S. Bertels, T. Ewart, P. MacConnachie, and J. O’Brien, “Bridging the Research–Practice Gap,” AMP, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 73–92, Feb. 2012, doi: 10.5465/amp.2011.0140.

N. Anderson, P. Herriot, and G. P. Hodgkinson, “The practitioner‐researcher divide in Industrial, Work and Organizational (IWO) psychology: Where are we now, and where do we go from here?,” J Occupat & Organ Psyc, vol. 74, no. 4, pp. 391–411, Nov. 2001, doi: 10.1348/096317901167451.

G. Krlev and A. Spicer, “Reining in Reviewer Two: How to Uphold Epistemic Respect in Academia,” J Management Studies, p. joms.12905, Jan. 2023, doi: 10.1111/joms.12905.

Editorial Logo (based on painting of Lisa Sauberer)

Downloads

Published

2024-05-24