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This paper proposes to rethink the concepts of relevance and usefulness and their relation to the theory–practice gap in management research.

On the basis of the cognitive-linguistic relevance theory or inferential pragmatics, supplemented by insights from information science, we define relevance as a general conceptual category, while reserving usefulness for the instrumental application in a particular case.

There is no reason to hold onto the difference between theoretical and practical relevance, nor to distinguish between instrumental and conceptual relevance.

This novel approach will help to clarify the confusion in the field and contribute to a better understanding of the added value of management research.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how practical relevance of management accounting knowledge relates to research paradigms and theoretical pluralism.

The paper is conceptual in nature.

As the management accounting discipline is considered to be an applied discipline, a number of authors claim that management accounting research should develop relevant theory that can be used in practice. This call for increased practical relevance of management accounting knowledge interrelates with a debate on the desirability of theoretical pluralism and paradigm diversity in management accounting research. Drawing on the work of Nicolai and Seidl, the paper distinguishes different forms of practical relevance, and analyses the effects of theoretical pluralism on these different forms. The paper argues how theoretical pluralism particularly enhances relevance in a conceptual sense rather than an instrumental sense. The conceptual relevance of research may further be enhanced by interpretive research that acknowledges complexity and that has the potential to challenge the performativity of mainstream management accounting knowledge, without challenging the pursuit of efficiency as such. This is different from critical research. The instrumental relevance stemming from mainstream management accounting research entails de‐contextualization and simplification, and might create unintended self‐fulfilling prophecies.

The paper broadens the concept of relevance so that it includes conceptual relevance and legitimative relevance. It links these concepts of relevance to three research paradigms: a mainstream paradigm, an interpretive paradigm and a critical paradigm. For each paradigm, relevance is related to the use of theory.

The paper broadens the concept of relevance and advocates the pursuit of conceptual relevance, particularly through interpretive research.

With this chapter, we seek to shed light on the question how headquarters (HQ) can cope with geographic distance and effectively transfer relevant knowledge to their subsidiaries. By constructing a mediating model, we aim at disentangling the effects of geographic distance on the relevance of HQ knowledge to their subsidiaries, via the creation of a shared context between HQ and their subsidiaries. We tested our hypotheses using partial least squares based structural equation modelling on a sample of 124 European subsidiaries. We did not find a significant direct relationship between geographic distance and HQ knowledge relevance. Yet, we found support for our mediation hypotheses that geographic distance makes it more difficult for HQ to establish a shared normative and operational context, but that both dimensions of shared context can help HQ to transfer relevant knowledge to their subsidiaries. We contribute to the research on knowledge flows in multinational corporations (MNC) by investigating knowledge relevance directly rather than knowledge flows as such. We also advance our understanding of shared context in HQ-subsidiary relationships by showing that shared context comprises an operational and a normative dimension. Moreover, we contribute to social learning theory in basing our reasoning on the idea that shared practices and social relationships help overcoming distance to manage knowledge transfer more effectively. Finally, we add to the research of distance in international business by conceptualizing space, organizational context and knowledge transfer in one comprehensive model.

Strategy scholars have long argued that breakthrough innovation is generated by recombining knowledge from distant domains. Even if firms have the ability to access and absorb knowledge from distant domains, however, they may fail to pay attention to such knowledge because it is seemingly irrelevant to their tasks. We draw attention to this problem of knowledge relevance and develop a theoretical model to illuminate how ideas from seemingly irrelevant (i.e., peripheral) domains can generate breakthrough innovation through the cognitive process of analogical reasoning, as well as the conditions under which this is more likely to occur. We situate our theoretical model in the context of teams in order to develop insight into the microfoundations of knowledge recombination within firms. Our model reveals paradoxical requirements for teams that help to explain why breakthrough innovation is so difficult.

The “relevance literature” often moans that the publications of top-ranked academic journals are hardly relevant to managers, while actionable research struggles to get published. The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical explanation of this phenomenon.

This paper addresses the relevance debate in management science through the theoretical frame of the theories of the firm.

This paper proposes that business organizations should tend to internalize specific applied research. Applied to management research, this could explain why the “market” for academic publications might be more relevant for generalizable and conceptual research than for applied, contextualized research.

The paper is conceptual. However, it provides a new prospect to the rigor-relevance debate and to the ranking of researchers and business schools.

Business organizations should tend to internalize specific, applied research. Consequently, academic publications should concentrate on generalizable, “Mode 1” research.

The conclusions could justify the evolution of the rating of universities and researchers towards a multi-dimensional rating, including measures of the socio-economic impact of the research, instead on focusing on academic publications only.

This paper offers a new point of view on the rigor-relevance debate. It supports the idea that applied and conceptual research are different forms of knowledge and should be “traded”, produced and rewarded differently.

Rigor and practical relevance are the foundations for logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) as an applied discipline. Whereas there are well-founded criteria for establishing methodological rigor, researchers must provide their own credible logic as to why their papers can influence practice. Accordingly, this paper aims to develop guidelines for establishing practical relevance in research papers.

A literature review of LSCM, marketing, operations management and management journals forms the foundation for these guidelines.

Relevance criteria are identified; research should be problem-driven, timely and important, and findings should be implementable, nonobvious, novel and not too costly. Measures for researchers demonstrating the fulfillment of these criteria are identified as practitioner input, gray literature, funding, practitioner involvement and feedback. Researchers should also clearly articulate both problem relevance and the relevance of their findings.

A lack of practical relevance is among the reasons for the rejection of papers by LSCM journals, but researchers can overcome this obstacle using these guidelines.

At a metalevel, this paper contributes to research with greater practical relevance.

Practical relevance is emphasized in the editorials of LSCM journals but has not yet been fully conceptualized from the authors' perspective.

The purpose of this article is to establish empirically what may motivate the manager to learn, that is, keep him interested in a course for which he has been sponsored by himself or another. The importance of this sort of study lies in the fact that its results can have implications for the design and development of courses. In other words, the trainer or educator should continually be reminded of the needs of the manager in a learning situation.

The purpose of this paper is to refine the resource-based theory of the firm. It intends to deal with key theoretical issues affecting the development of a model that empirically captures the relevance of knowledge to performance. The research task is not only to look inside the firm in search of candidates for a strategic resource, but also to better understand how a resource becomes strategic as the consequence of specific attributes. This approach has the potential of providing a relevant insight into the characteristics that resources must possess as well as a more effective way to compare their relative relevance to competitive advantage.

Hypotheses are tested by a comprehensive panel data of 29 AIDS/HIV drugs from 1997 to 2010, covering the performance trajectory of more than 90 percent of all branded products in this segment.

Based on the VRIO framework (Barney 1991, 2001a), which asserts that resources need to be valuable, rare, inimitable, and difficult to organize in order to become a source of sustainable competitive advantage, the paper derives seven empirical constructs of technological knowledge. Five of these constructs are statistically significant, explaining up to 36 percent of the variance in sales outcomes. Results show that the most important resource attributes are value and organizational capabilities. Inimitability is partially relevant, but rarity is not.

Results suggest that the best way to generate competitive advantage is through continuous improvement of technological knowledge. This conclusion shows that knowledge heterogeneity is more strategically relevant to performance than knowledge immobility.

Differently from previous papers, instead of measuring how much a resource (or its accumulated stock) influences competitive advantage, this paper identifies and measures the attributes through which the resource matters to market outcomes. It is not the resource itself, but its strategic attributes which actually generate differential benefits to firms.

This paper aims to map how the debate concerning the relevance of management research historically evolved to (a) determine if B-schools and management researchers have been uninterested bystanders, as critics posit, or if they have had a relevant role, and (b) discover if a pathway for management research becoming socially relevant has been established by such debate.

This study performed a citation network analysis of the scientific literature concerning the relevance of management research. The network had a total of 1,186 research papers published between 1876 and 2018.

The results show that from a minimal to peripheral role at the beginning and middle stages, management researchers have rather taken over this debate since the 1990s; the key components of the citation network reveal a strong convergence on what needs to be done, but no convergence on how to do it; and the debate has failed to generate actual change.

This study maps the debate concerning the relevance of management research since its historical inception using a method underused in management history research. It reveals the main path of the debate and the journals that echoed such debate.

This study aims to highlight the inconsistency between conventional knowledge push judgements and the price of knowledge push. Also, a three-way decision-based relevant knowledge push algorithm was proposed.

Using a ratio of 80–20%, the experiment randomly splits the data into a training set and a test set. Each video is used as a knowledge unit (structure) in the research, and the category is used as a knowledge attribute. The limit is then determined using the user’s overall rating. To calculate the pertinent information obtained through experiments, the fusion coefficient is needed. The impact of the push model is then examined in comparison to the conventional push model. In the experiment, relevant knowledge is compared using three push models, two push models based on conventional International classification functioning (ICF), and three push models based on traditional ICF. The average push cost accuracy rate, recall rate and coverage rate are metrics used to assess the push effect.

The three-way knowledge push models perform better on average than the other push models in this research in terms of push cost, accuracy rate and recall rate. However, the three-way knowledge push models suggested in this study have a lower coverage rate than the two-way push model. So three-way knowledge push models condense the knowledge push and forfeit a particular coverage rate. As a result, improving knowledge results in higher accuracy rates and lower push costs.

This research has practical ramifications for the quick expansion of knowledge and its hegemonic status in value creation as the main methodology for knowledge services.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first theory developed on the three-way decision-making process of knowledge push services to increase organizational effectiveness and efficiency.