Today, I explored what it means to be a management scholar with my doctoral students. One of the questions I asked them is why do we see this quandary of being in two different worlds: practice and academia. Several theories were suggested as to why we have it. And few suggestions were offered as to what to do about it. Of course, this is a quandary that will not go away as by definition, we (management scholars) are caught in between these two worlds. In a way this is precisely where we need to be. Sometimes, we put a convenient blind so that we can focus on one while ignoring the other. Sometimes, we tend to do better in one than the other. Therefore, no answer will be satisfying and that is good. We don’t want to exactly figure out his problem: the moment we think we figure it out, we will be stuck in that moment, while the world around us is moving on.
being a management scholar
