Special Issue on Management theory and practice: bridging the gap through multidisciplinary lens

Citation

(2006), "Special Issue on Management theory and practice: bridging the gap through multidisciplinary lens", European Business Review, Vol. 18 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2006.05418baa.007

Special Issue on Management theory and practice: bridging the gap through multidisciplinary lens

Special Issue on Management theory and practice: bridging the gap through multidisciplinary lens

Guest EditorsBeverly A. Wagner, University of Stirling, UKGöran Svensson of Halmstad University,SwedenDouglas Brownlie of University of Stirling, UKPaul Hewer of University of Stirling, UK

For this special issue we invite contributions from all management disciplines urging you to consider the relationship between theory and practice. Is there one? What is that relationship? Does it matter, and if so, in what ways?

We suggest that “relevance” and “being critical” are qualities widely attributed to research that close the gap between theory and practice. They are attributes, but also aspirations, well worth fostering and preserving these days.

For many academics of business and management closing this so-called gap has assumed the proportions of an heroic struggle between the high-mindedness of theory and the allure of the pragmatic everyday trials and tribulations of practice. Through critically appraising discourse and rhetoric, this special issue invites contributions which provide alternative understandings of the gap between theory and practice, and the “slings and arrows” academics suffer in our quest to achieve the “Holy Grail” of closure.

This understanding implicates the various disciplinary formations within management studies in the perpetuation of the belief that the gap exists “out there” and that it should and can be closed.

Controversially, by way of an incitement to encourage you to submit papers, we suggest that in spite of the declarations to pursue “relevance” through providing insight into better management practice, perhaps it is in the interest of those disciplinary formations to continue to perpetuate the particular myth of the “gap”. One way that this is achieved is through the notion of being critical. We argue that if this is so, then management discourse is in danger of being trapped in the aspic of its own prejudices.

The special issue invites contributions that chart the contours of such dangers, papers which map out the road travelled and the roads to be travelled.

The deadline for submission of papers for this special issue is October 28, 2006. Submissions should be sent electronically to any of the co-editors of this special issue: Beverly A. Wagner, University of Stirling, UK, e-mail: b.a.wagner@stir.ac.uk; or Paul Hewer, University of Stirling, UK, e-mail: p.a.hewer@stir.ac.uk; Douglas Brownlie, University of Stirling, UK, e-mail: Douglas.brownlie@stir.ac.uk; Göran Svensson, Halmstad University, Sweden, e-mail: goran.svensson@set.hh.se

The format for submissions to the European Business Review can be found at: www.emeraldinsight.com/ebr.htm. Those with questions about the acceptability of proposed topics are urged to contact any of the co-editors as soon as possible.

European Business Review

ISSN: 0955-534X

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