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The issues associated with the production and dissemination of management research have been widely debated amongst administrators, scholars and policymakers for decades. However, few studies to date have examined this issue at the level of the individual scholar. The purpose of this paper is to view a management scholar’s choice of knowledge dissemination (KD) outlets as a legitimacy judgment embedded in their social structure and community norms.

To explore this, the authors conduct a sequential mixed-methods study. The study uses qualitative methods, including one-on-one interviews (n=29) and five workshops (n=79) with administrators, management scholars, students and external community members (practitioners and policymakers). In addition, the authors analyzed the KD outcomes of 524 management scholars at seven Canadian universities drawn from a stratified sample of business schools.

The results of the research demonstrate the complex interaction between individual scholar-level factors, including socialization (degree type and practitioner experience) and tenure, and the institutional-level factors, such as strategic orientation and accreditation, and how these influence KD judgments. Specifically, the authors find that institutional factors (such as tenure and promotion) are a central predictor of scholarly KD; in contrast, the authors find that individual-level factors including degree, professional experience and career stage influence non-scholarly KD.

The results suggest that as management scholars face increasing pressure to demonstrate impact beyond academia, it may be more difficult than simply adapting the reward system. Specifically, the authors suggest that administrators and policymakers will have to consider individual factors, including their academic training (including interdisciplinary training), previous practitioner experience and career stage.