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This small‐sample (N = 84) study investigated human resource management practitioners’ views of academic research relevance to, and management professor effectiveness in, management development. Results indicate that practitioners do not particularly value academic research, especially relative to other kinds of information they may access in pursuing their management development. Practitioners view management professors as somewhat ineffective, especially relative to executives and consultants, as instructors in management development seminars and workshops. A curvilinear relationship between company size and respondents’ ratings of both academic information’s utility and professors’ effectiveness was also observed. Implications for future research are discussed, as well as for efforts to enhance research’s relevance and increase professors’ managerial work exposure.

This paper reports on a survey of 17 value management exercises recently carried out within the UK construction industry. Twelve leading value management practitioners were asked to describe an example of a value management study which ‘worked well’ and one which ‘did not work well’. They were further asked to explain the underlying factors which they considered had influenced the eventual outcome of the value management study. The subsequent analysis of the interview transcripts reveals six recurring themes which were held to have had a significant influence: expectations, implementation, participation, power, time constraint and uncertainty. Whilst caution is necessary in extracting the themes from their individual contexts, they do provide a valuable insight into the factors which influence the outcome of value management studies.

This paper aims to investigate the transience of management fads in the academic and the practitioner-oriented communities to shed light on their roles in the diffusion of fads.

This study traces the lifecycles of the following fads in practitioner-oriented and academic journals over more than 50 years: balanced scorecard, business process reengineering, design thinking, knowledge management, learning organization, management by objectives (MBO), matrix organization and total quality management (TQM).

Contrary to the academic–practitioner gap lamented in the literature, this study indicates no such gap regarding these fads in general, but finds differences in the intensity with which the fads are dealt with. The two communities stimulate, sustain and abandon fads collectively, as the lifecycles of most of the fads were found to mirror each other in both communities. This provides evidence of a contemporary form of popularization with a dynamic exchange of knowledge between academic and practitioner-oriented journals, rather than the traditional one-way transfer of knowledge from academia to practice.

This paper is the first to study multiple fads simultaneously in academic and practitioner-oriented journals in a historical comparison to investigate their roles in the diffusion of fads.

This paper compares and contrasts practice-based perceptions of the research–practice gap in the United States (US) with those in Australia.

The current study extends the work of Tucker and Lowe (2014) by comparing and contrasting their Australian-based findings with evidence from a questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews with senior representatives of 18 US state and national professional accounting associations.

The extent to which academic research informs practice is perceived to be limited, despite the potential for academic research findings to make a significant contribution to management accounting practice. We find similarities as well as differences in the major obstacles to closer engagement in the US and Australia. This comparison, however, leads us to offer a more fundamental explanation of the divide between academic research and practice framed in terms of the relative benefits and costs of academics engaging with practice.

Rather than following conventional approaches to ‘bridging the gap’ by identifying barriers to the adoption of research, we suggest that only after academics have adequate incentives to speak to practice can barriers to a more effective diffusion of their research findings be surmounted.

This study makes three novel contributions to the “relevance literature” in management accounting. First, it adopts a distinct theoretical vantage point to organize, analyze, and interpret empirical evidence. Second, it captures practice-based views about the nature and extent of the divide between research and practice. Third, it provides a foundational assessment of the generalizability of the gap by examining perceptions of it across two different geographic contexts.

The aim of this paper is to gain insights into the gap that persists between management accounting education (MAE) and practice.

MAE is examined from four perspectives of the balanced scorecard (BSC), in terms of what is being taught at tertiary level: customer satisfaction, learning and growth, internal business and financial. A survey questionnaire was sent to management accountants selected randomly from a list of practicing management accountants identified by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in South Africa.

The study finds support for allegations that a gap exists between MAE and practice and indicates that to address this gap, a holistic focus using the four perspectives of the BSC would be useful to investigate the gap.

Previous studies in relation to the gap in management education have focused on the lack of skills provided by tertiary education. As one of the few studies to focus on the overall performance of MAE, this study identifies that the gap is not limited to the provision of adequate skills. The findings show that the gap is significant in terms of customer perspective but is not significant in relation to the internal business, learning and growth and financial perspectives of the BSC. The study provides deeper insights into the gap and will help tertiary education providers to improve their performance.

As one of the few studies on gaps between MAE and practice, the study provides insights to the potential gaps. The findings serve as a basis for further empirical and theoretical enquiries.

The study contributes to the management accounting literature by focusing on the gap in MAE using a BSC approach. Rather than single out the lack of skills provided by MAE as a reason for the gap, this paper provides information on the four areas of the BSC as ways to identify the gap.

This chapter outlines current and emerging approaches in change communication from both scholarly and practice perspectives, and what this means for organisations and practitioners, including practical implications for education. A literature review is conducted using the Kemmis and McTaggart framework for studying practice based on individual-social, objective-subjective dichotomies leading to an integrated reflexive-dialectical approach. Five roles are suggested for the practitioner in leading and influencing change, namely that of a Communication Architect, a Story-enabler, an Empathiser, an Engager and a Community Builder. These roles go beyond the traditional informative role, to practitioners co-constructing communication with stakeholders during change. With new ways of thinking about change management, there is the possibility for new methods of educating practitioners beyond the traditional qualification or professional certification. These would require greater collaboration between scholars and practitioners in creating vehicles for continuous learning.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the major trends and contributions published in the Advances in Project Management book series and place them in the context of the findings and outputs from the Rethinking Project Management Network. A key aim is to address the concerns of project practitioners and explore the alternatives to the assumed linear rationality of project thinking. The paper further offers a guided catalogue to some of the key ideas, concepts and approaches offered to practitioners through the series.

This is a conceptual review paper that reflects on the main areas covered in a book series aimed at improving modern project practice and explores the implications on practice, knowledge and the relationship between research and practice. The topics are addressed through the prism of the Rethinking Project Management Network findings.

The paper explores new advances in project management practice aligning them with key trends and perspectives identified as part of the Rethinking Project Management initiative. It further delineates new areas of expertise augmenting those mentioned in the disciplinary canons of knowledge.

The paper offers a new understanding of how knowledge is created in, for and by practice. Improving the relationship between theory and practice may demand a new appreciation of the role of practitioners and the value of their reflection in context.

The primary implication is to explore the new directions and perspectives covered by authors in the Advances in Project Management series, and identify main areas and topics that feature in the emerging discourse about project management practice. In addition, new conceptualisations of the role of practitioners in making sense of project realities are offered and considered.

New areas of interest and activity are identified and examined, offering a catalogue of new writing and perspectives in project practice. Reflection on the relationship between research and practice encourages fresh thinking about the crucial role of practitioner knowledge and reflection.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast perceptions about the research-practice “gap” as it may apply within management accounting, from the perspective of professional accounting bodies in Australia and Germany.

The findings reported in this paper is based on the collection and analysis of data from interviews with 19 senior representatives from four Australian Professional bodies and 14 representatives of German Professional accounting bodies.

In Australia and Germany, there exist common as well as unique barriers preventing a more effective engagement of academic research with practice. Common to both countries is the perception that the communication of research represents a major barrier. In Australia, practitioner access to academic research is seen to be a principal obstacle; in Germany, the relevance of topics researched by academics is perceived to represent a significant barrier to academic research informing practice.

This paper directly engages with, and extends recent empirically based research into the extent to which academic research may “speak” to management accounting practice. It extricates both common and specific barriers contributing to the oft-quoted “research-practice gap” in management accounting, and points to the pivotal nature of an intermediary to act as a conduit between academics and practice.

By investigating this issue in two quite different cultural, educational, academic and practice contexts, this paper provides much-needed empirical evidence about the nature, extent and pervasiveness of the perceived research-practice gap in management accounting, and provides a basis for further investigation of this important topic.

This paper has been produced as part of a research project that seeks to generate knowledge about the process of implementation of Activity Based Management (ABM). Implementation is identified as important by Robin Cooper, (Cooper, 1996) thus “the focus of research must broaden to include studies of the problems associated with implementing new cost management techniques”. The project is informed by the research literature addressing cooperation between practitioners and academics, (for example Kaplan, 1994; Scapens 1980, 1994; Spicer, 1992). Our aim in this paper is to meet the objective attributed to Ken Merchant (Drysdale, 1996) “it is the role of the researcher to go to managers and determine what their problems are, and to help managers articulate these”. It also takes account of the preceding research into activity based techniques, including recent work funded by CIMA (Friedman & Lyne, 1995; Innes and Mitchell, 1995). Friedman & Lyne found that the consequences of implementing these techniques were significant for management accountants, and had far reaching organisational consequences.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the co‐production of knowledge and dialogic relationships via the collaboration between business practitioners and academic researchers.

The motivations, expectations, communication processes, and final performance of those engaged in collaborative management research are explored by applying a two‐pronged methodology with a content analysis and an e‐mail survey. The authors conducted a content analysis on 136 articles identified out of a total of 2,029 articles from six leading journals during 2006‐2011 which fulfilled the criteria of being coauthored by both professors and practitioners. An e‐mail survey of six open questions was given to pre‐screened authors in the first stage to investigate the in‐depth dialogue processes and stories of these collaborations.

The results revealed that collaboration topics of interest focused mostly on organizational behavior, business policy, and strategy, and that theoretical inquiry and case study were the most used research methods. According to the 68 valid returned e‐mail surveys, the providing of consulting services by professors in firms plays a critical role in facilitating knowledge co‐creation between practice and knowing. The findings also highlight key factors of sustainable co‐production relationships.

This study provides an empirical, valuable step towards an investigation into the co‐creation dialogue experiences of practitioners and academics in three dimensions: purpose, procedure, and promise.