What do academics do? Understanding the practical relevance of research

Citation

Chapman, C.S. and Kern, A. (2012), "What do academics do? Understanding the practical relevance of research", Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Vol. 9 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/qram.2012.31409caa.004

What do academics do? Understanding the practical relevance of research

Article Type: Commentary From: Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Volume 9, Issue 3

The issue of the practical relevance of accounting research has been receiving much attention lately (Kaplan, 2011; Parker, n.d.). The critique has a particular sting in the tail for accounting, which “is fundamentally an applied research area that should ultimately provide new insights for practice” (Ittner and Larcker, 2002, p. 788). The concern that the “body of knowledge published in academic journals has practically no audience in business or government” is widespread, but also longstanding however (Daft and Lewin, 1990, p. 1). The contemporary context of universities is such that they must increasingly rely on external sources of funding that demand the demonstration of a more applied approach and in which they are expected to prepare ever larger numbers of students for a corporate career (Richardson, 2004). In terms of academic careers, the dependency of tenure upon publication in certain journals has been identified as a feature of the academic world that has a less than salutary effect on the quality of research both in its own terms, and in terms of its practical relevance (Hopwood, 2008).

While questions of relevance apply to all forms of accounting research, qualitative research faces particular challenges. Research in management accounting has a long tradition of engaging directly with practitioners and practice sites through qualitative field studies (Parker, n.d.). Yet, despite the inherent engagement that qualitative research requires with practice, it too has been criticized for lacking practical relevance. This criticism raises the question of what we mean by practical relevance of academic research. The relevance of social sciences knowledge to practice may go beyond producing solutions tailored to the needs of practitioners. A part of its relevance entails its capacity to point to neglected or underdeveloped aspects of existing practice (Chua and Mahama, n.d.). Thereby new light is shed on practice.

Theorizing is the critical step in the process of developing such new meanings for practice (Chua and Mahama, n.d.). The variety and richness of contextual detail is linked through theorizing with abstract knowledge. This enables the researcher (and the reader) to situate a phenomenon in a broader context, allowing understanding of specific patterns, and their similarity to and differences with other contexts. It is this step of theorizing in qualitative research that may sometimes be neglected in favor of a storyline designed to appeal in less clearly understood, and ultimately less powerful, ways. This lack of theorizing hampers a deeper understanding of the phenomena studied, and thereby may not only limit the contribution of qualitative field research to scientific knowledge, but also its practical relevance.

Communication of such new meanings to practitioners has not always been successful, however, partly due to the vocabulary that frequently goes alongside theorizing. Progress needs to be made in engaging and communicating more effectively with practitioners (Broadbent, n.d.; Parker, n.d.). Successful engagement might take various forms, such as stakeholder engagement in the research process or targeting specific practitioner journals and audiences. Different forms of engagement may need theorizing on epistemological, ontological, methodological (Richardson, n.d.) but also ethical questions (Richardson, 2004). Interventionist research, having at its core a strong engagement with practitioners, has theorized in depth about such engagement (Jönsson and Lukka, 2007). This type of research may thus have an important role in bridging the gap between academia and practice (Richardson, 2004).

However, any kind of engagement needs to be based on an understanding about the specific academic contribution to practice. In this brief comment, we wish to highlight the vital importance of a clear understanding of the foundations on which academic knowledge is based. It is important that, in the face of pressures to change the context and practice of research, we do not inadvertently undermine its capacity to meaningfully inform practice as we seek to engage with it.

Academic research is often characterized by three distinctive characteristics that set it apart from the kinds of knowledge that circulate within and between the epistemic communities of managers and consultants. The first of the three is the degree to which individual researcher curiosity is prioritized. The second is the extended time frame required to allow academic knowledge to come to fruition. The third is the central role that theory plays in both the development and communication of academic knowledge.

In the context of growing pressures for research to engage with practice, these three are easy to see as representing significant threats to the practical relevance of academic knowledge. A common proposition is that research should not privilege individual or academic curiosity, rather it should more directly address issues identified by practitioners. Another common proposition is that academic timescales mean that by the time the academic has decided that they know something, the manager has moved on and is no longer interested. Theory as the third foundation of academic knowledge is easy to cast as rendering any knowledge that might be sufficiently timely and topical effectively impossible to access by cloaking it in a veil of needlessly obscure language.

Before rushing to adopt norms of topic, timeliness and language of the epistemic communities of others, it is important to remember that these three are the foundations of the validity and value of academic knowledge. Largely independent of methodological choices, the aim of research can be understood as the pursuit of precision and clarity (Suddaby, 2010). Taken together, the three foundations of academic knowledge play an essential role in supporting precision and clarity. Anyone who has been through the review process with an academic journal will be all too familiar with the relentless questioning of the focus and point of a paper, and realize that answering this questioning entails repeated rethinking and rewriting. There are few shortcuts to clarity and precision and so time is required, and curiosity offers a powerful source of motivation to expend the effort. The process of linking field data with theory is iterative, requiring multiple iterations to construct a precise and clear account of the field. Theory is our most powerful tool for organizing and communicating our thoughts (Ohlson, 2011). In the move to express our knowledge using “plain language”, it is vital that we remember this role that theory plays in supporting the value of that which we seek to communicate.

The increasingly widespread and strident calls to demonstrate the relevance of our research are something that we have to think about seriously. The danger is that too blunt a demand in this area will elicit naïve reactions that threaten to fundamentally undermine the potential value of what we do, replacing it with only second rate shadows of the contributions of others such as managers and consultants. For academics to make a distinctive and valuable contribution to practice requires us to skillfully use the specific tools that are in our hands. Producing research with practical relevance is not about compromising on the specific qualities of our practice. Rather it requires that researchers are aware of the specific contribution they can make when engaging with practitioners.

Christopher S. Chapman and Anja Kern