REGISTRATION REQUIRED. SPACE IS LIMITED. DEADLINE IS JULY 11, 2008
PDW #10176 from Practice Committee OMT Division:
“Who are we reaching? The real and intended audiences for business school research.”
Organizers:
Professor Andrew Hoffman, University of Michigan, ajhoff@umich.edu, 734-763-9455
Professor Monica Worline, Emory University, Monica_Worline@bus.emory.edu, 404-727-6693
Date, Time and Location:
Sunday, August 10th from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in room 204A of the Anaheim Convention Center.
Panelists:
Academic Journal Editors:
R. Duane Ireland, Editor, Academy of Management Journal confirmed
Ellen Peebles, Senior Editor, Harvard Business Review, confirmed
Joel Baum, Editor, Strategic Organization, confirmed
Don Palmer, Former Editor, Administrative Science Quarterly, confirmed
Newspaper Business Editors:
George Anders, News editor, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco office, confirmed
Francisco Guerrera, US editor, Financial Times, New York office, confirmed
Communications Professionals:
Paul Gediman, Director, Office of Marketing Communications, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, confirmed
Victor Rogers, Director of Communications, Goizueta Business School Communications, Emory University, confirmed
Topic:
If you open a newspaper or magazine, it would not be uncommon to read about the latest research in the top journals of the field of medicine: the New England Journal of Medicine or the Lancet. But the odds of reading a similar story about the latest research from the top management journals are extremely low. The fact is that the major business practice journals have thus far largely ignored the research of the academy. This PDW will ask why this is so and explore how this situation can be changed.
Consistent with the theme of the 2008 academy, “The questions we ask,” the focus of this PDW will be on the question of who is reading the answers to those questions. This PDW will set the stage for exploring why the mainstream news sources and practitioner journals of business do not report on the research that emerges from the top academic journals of business research. By bringing together editors of academic journals and practitioner news sources, this PDW will uncover some of the underlying obstacles that block academic research from crossing into the major outlets of practice. As the introduction to the workshop, we will convene a panel of editors from major academic journals (both those more in the theoretical realm and those that tend to bridge more with practice) and editors from major practitioner outlets (both journals and newspapers) to discuss the relevance of academic research for business practice. In particular, we will ask these editors to address questions such as: is academic research relevant to their work? Is the roadblock merely an issue of translation? Who should do the translation from academic research to practitioner focus?
Directly addressing the question of translation between academic and practitioner oriented sources, the second step in the workshop will include the perspectives of business school and public relations communications professionals. These professionals, whose job it is to bridge the worlds of academia and practice, will help our audience uncover a more detailed understanding of the form and magnitude of the obstacles to making this translation happen.
Below are a few ideas for how to foster participation or build a “workshop” feel into the PDW time.
• In addition to asking the panelists to make comments individually, we will ask the panelists to prepare questions that they have for other panel members. We will use a portion of the PDW workshop time to have a facilitated question and answer exchange between the panel members, helping to create a dialogue between the worlds of “practice” and “academic” editors.
• We will invite participants in the PDW to pose questions to the academic and practitioner oriented journal editors, as well as to the public relations communications specialists. This question and answer session will help PDW participants address specific concerns or obstacles they have encountered.
• We will invite participants who have research findings that they think lend themselves to attention from practitioner oriented journals to prepare a summary of their research findings and bring these to the PDW. We will ask the communication specialists and the participants to work together in breakout groups to use what they have heard from the panelists to translate their research finding summaries into an appropriate proposal for a practitioner oriented journal or newspaper editor.
------------------------------------------------------
Andrew J. Hoffman
Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise
Associate-Director, Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise
University of Michigan
Phone: 734.763.9455
Fax: 734.615.4323
Email: ajhoff@umich.edu
Web: http://www.andrewhoffman.net/
------------------------------------------------------