Collaborative Research: Developing Mutually Beneficial Relationships Between Researchers and Organizations

T he keys to organizational success are constantly changing. As the global economy evolves in the direction of knowledgebased enterprise, the ability to create and manage information is essential. The decisions that managers make have large operational and financial implications. However, managers often lack the information needed to make sound decisions. When faced with challenges in their organizations they may rely too heavily on personal experience or obsolete knowledge. Often, they turn to consultants for assistance. There are a large number of academics who study issues important to managers, yet the results of their work are often not communicated effectively to the practitioner audience. In addition, academics often find it difficult to gain access to organizations to obtain the data necessary to conduct highquality research. In short, there seems to be a ‘‘disconnect’’ between the needs of the business community and academic research. Though numerous calls for more academic/ practitioner collaboration have been made, there has been relatively little progress in achieving it. In a recent issue of Organizational Dynamics addressing the ‘‘manager-organizational scientist collaboration gap,’’ John Ivancevich and his colleagues note that researchers and managers could benefit from a better understanding of and respect for each other’s perspectives. They propose increasing the professionalization of management and researcher/practitioner interactions through innovative initiatives such as jointly developed practice guidelines, joint educational forums, temporary role-switching, and scientist–practitioner guilds. We suggest that in addition to these useful recommendations, there may be some relatively simple and straightforward ways to reduce this gap through concerted efforts by both parties to cooperate in research projects. We believe that this can be achieved through: (1) a greater awareness of the possible benefits of cooperation (2) an understanding by both parties about what is involved and how to negotiate a mutually beneficial relationship and (3) the initiative to get started. An example of the positive outcomes resulting from effective interaction between practitioners and academic researchers is succinctly captured in a recent quote from an article in the Academy of Management Journal by Lucy Gilson, John Mathieu, Christina Shalley, and Thomas Ruddy: Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 105–118, 2007 ISSN 0090-2616/$ – see frontmatter 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.orgdyn.2006.12.005 www.organizational-dynamics.com