Explore the Interplay Between the Interests of Academics and Practitioners in Strategic Management.

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Explore the Interplay Between the Interests of Academics and Practitioners in Strategic Management.

Name : Claire Duff

Course : BA Business Studies

Year : 4

Student Number :

Marking Tutor : David Shuttleworth

Total Words : 2041

The main requirement in today's business environment is profit and success. In many cases managers and executives of organisations are unable to reach these goals without the introduction of ideas from a third party, this is where academics, practitioners and gurus enter the picture. Employees are able gain new ideas through either the reading of academic articles such as journals and academic magazines or workshops held by gurus and practitioners. It is quite apparent that although academics and practitioners have different ideas and methods of introducing these ideas to organisations, there is some common ground upon which the two meet. It has been argued that gurus have been around far longer than people think. Some journals believe that the Victorian poet Alfred Lord Tennyson was one of the first management gurus. In his poem “Oenone” it offers an insight into leading a successful enterprise

        “In just two lines, the poet captures the essence of leading an enterprise successfully : Self reverence, self knowledge, self control. These three alone lead life to sovereign power.”

(Tennyson on management: Volume 64: Issue 5 : Start page 70: Ivey Business Journal : London, May/June 2000.) 

In order to understand what an academic, a practitioner and guru is, a definition of each is listed below.

Academic - "associated with an institution of higher learning and someone who is learned but inexperienced in practical matters"

(Longman dictionary of the English language: 1991: Clays St Ives)

This shows that an academic is a person who has studied to a significant degree, these people possess theoretical knowledge on their area of interest, however, it is common for academics to have a lack of understanding when it comes to a practical situation.

Guru - "A personal religious teacher and spiritual guide and mentor"

(Longman dictionary of the English language: 1991: Clays St Ives)

Gurus are people that are in between academics and practitioners. These people normally have an academic background as many of them have degrees and PhD's. However, their language is normally simplified like practitioners, as this will enable managers of organisations to understand what they are saying.

Practitioner - “Someone who practices something, normally an occupation or profession.”

(Longman dictionary of the English language: 1991: Clays St Ives)

Practitioners are normally consultants or specialists in their field. These people have the ability to enter an organisation with a problem and aim to initiate theories and ideas that will resolve the problem. These theories normally come from the academics. To organisations practitioners are seen as a quick fix solution to their problems.

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The area to explore was how much the academics and practitioners actually relied upon each other for ideas. I believed that the academics were the people who invented the theory and the gurus and practitioners simplified the theory and introduced it into the workplace. However, as the discussion groups went on it was quite apparent this wasn't entirely the case.

There is two major reasons why there is interplay between academics and practitioners. Firstly economic and political factors have changed substantially, this has in turn made the two different groups more receptive to alleying with each other, in ...

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