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We present a case of academic-practitioner research collaboration to illuminate three potential determinants of the success of such cross-profession collaborations: collaborative team characteristics, collaboration environment characteristics, and collaboration processes. The case study, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data, illustrates the possible influences of these determinants on research progress, research team functioning, and benefits to individual team members. We identify directions for further work and implications for effective academic-practitioner collaborations in management research.
The premise of this article, and indeed of this special issue of the Academy of Management Journal, is that management research will be substantially strengthened by effective collaboration between researchers and practicing managers. As the complexity of management issues and the velocity of change in business increase, such collaboration may well become essential if research projects are to make any real difference in academics' understanding of or impact on management practice. Moreover, management research entails significant challenges at the interface between the world of the academic researcher and the world of the business practitioner, challenges that may best be met by academic-practitioner collaboration. These include framing research questions in a way that will be meaningful to practitioners, gaining access to sites for field research, designing data collection instruments and methods appropriate for today's workforce, and interpreting results accurately within the business context. Given the potential benefit of academic-practitioner collaborations as well as the potential difficulties involved in joint work between individuals who may have very different perspectives and priorities (Bartunek & Louis, 1996; Nyden & Wiewel, 1992), it is important to understand such collaborations and the factors that influence their success.
Unfortunately, academic-practitioner research collaborations are rare. Between January 1994 and June 1999, only 4 percent of the articles published in the Academy of Management Journal and less than 1 percent of the articles published in Administrative Science Quarterly listed academics and practitioners as coauthors. Given the dearth of successful academic-practitioner collaborations, it is not surprising that systematic examination of such collaborations is even more rare. Our aim in this article is to begin to fill that gap, by reviewing relevant theory and empirical evidence from the general collaboration literature, using the themes that emerge from that literature as a guide to examining a case study of a particular academic-practitioner collaboration,...