Thanks for stopping by and adding your scholarly input to the conversation!

Maybe the reason business books sell so well is the view you posit, “theory is fundamentally nothing more than an explanation of how things work.”

If only we could somehow solve the problem of practitioners who cannot seem to synthesize and apply theory!

Now everyone gets a feel for what our discussions could be like - creative tension. I look forward to our next meeting!

Thanks for a great summary. In my opinon there can be no doubt that a divide exists between the academic and management worlds both in terms of how each look at and approach the world. Actually I think that divide is a healthy one because the aims of academia and management are, and should be, different.

That said, I think the difference between theory and practice is very small and tends to get overblown, in part because of the differences between academia and management I mentioned previously. Theory is fundatmentally nothing more than an explanation of how things work. Sure, some academics dress it up in fancy terms and sometimes use difficult to understand language but that’s the essence of it. We all have our personal ‘theories’ about how work should be performed or what management styles work best. Sometimes we call them “best practices” but at the end of the day, we operate in fundamentally theoretical ways whether we realize it or not.

Theory appeals to me and probably most academics because they/we like to know how and why things operate in the ways they do. When we are able to find this out, we can put in place systems and structures to get the outcomes we desire. That’s where theory meets practice. In the words of famed psychologist and one of the fathers of modern-day organization development, Kurt Lewin, “Nothing is as practical as a good theory.”

You’ll love the book. Van de Ven is advocating for that connection between academic research and practical application.

It does appear that academia has become a business unto itself, potentially researching themselves into that insular ‘ivory tower’ or worse, into irrelevance. As you astutely wrote, “essentially insubstantial Aristotlian concepts almost wholly divorced from reality.”

Thanks for your continued insights, relevance, and focus on sharing that unique blend of classic thinking with real world application!

This is a fascinating subject that deserves all the critical attention it gets.

I agree that managers often need to see the forest for the trees. My only problem with the converse of this is that I’m not really sure what academics, generally, see at all. I’m afraid there are too many instances of their either simply summarizing surveys or observations taken in the workplace, most of which hardly constitute the unearthing of new “science” unavailable to most managers, or developing lofty sounding but essentially insubstantial Aristotlian concepts almost wholly divorced from reality.

The best thinkers in my view, from Follett to Mintzberg, carefully and meticulously combine the two, teasing theory out of close and unpretentious observation, and identifying forests that had evaded everyone’s notice - then testing these either against their subjects or anew in the wider real world. Others (far too few) engage in classical scientific speculation, generating hypotheses which they then subject to experiment, like McGregor did, rather than back-sifting the “data” to support their conclusions.

I, too, look forward to reading Andrew’s book - thanks, Joe, for a great presentation of this important topic.

Thanks for sharing your experience! It is great to hear from someone who has worked both sides of this issue.

The successful consultants and guides, the ones that get called back, would do well following your lead, “…keep my mouth shut until I could say, ‘Here’s how to do this.’ “