Beyond the theory and application divide: Research as practice
“If doctors practiced medicine the way many companies practice management, there would be far more sick and dead patients, and many more doctors would be in jail” (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006 Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management 2006, p. 5)
Nearly twenty years ago Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton offered a prescription for ‘curing the ills’ of management practice. In a message that is ever relevant, they argued that companies should avoid hype and half-truths and instead engage with hard evidence to provide informed insight on management practice 1 . While things and terms have moved on (read big data, analytics and generative AI) most companies still fall short in flexing the muscle of research to systematically capture and engage appropriate evidence. It is not that we all need to become data scientists, coders or analysts, but rather that there should be an awareness of the potential of data and the downside of not sense-checking and challenging assumptions. Indeed, engaging in rigorous research is one of the most tried and tested pathways to effective learning and change. Some frame the challenge at hand as bridging the gap between academic research and organisational practice. But that only serves as the perfect scapegoat with academia able to argue ‘they ignore our findings’ whilst organisations claim ‘the analysis are turgid and impossible to interpret’. More fundamentally it assumes that there is a gap between research and practice in the first instance.
But what if we reframe the debate via a differentiated mindset that sees research as practice (RaP). Based on this framing, how might a well-informed executive proceed?
Slow down…..
This first recommendation might seem counterintuitive in an era demanding speed and responsiveness. We have a bias for action, a neglect of subtraction and a craving that yearns back to school days of having our hand up first with the correct answer. Cal Newport’s most
recent book ‘slow productivity’ frames slowness, not as unproductive or backward, but rather about being ‘productively different’ 2 . Here the focus is not on the rate at which knowledge is produced or solutions reached, but rather the quality of outcomes. This stance privileges
questioning to understand the likely problem with the problem statement. Or to continue with the earlier medical analogy, to take time asking questions and searching for the cause, versus focusing exclusively on the most obvious presenting symptom. How might we meet the problem to better understand it? Dealing with a machinery fault in a factory, General Electric CEO Jack Welch did not investigate with HQ, he took a plane and visited the specific plant, sticking his head under the machine. Noting a software issue that local capacity would not be able to fix, he made connections to GE divisions with such expertise. Slowness re-centres humility, learning and encourages research curiosity.
Embrace and don’t be afraid of theory….
Theory is often dismissed as a plaything of ivory towers, but in practice it is a collection of underpinning assumptions that guide behaviour. Theories guide our everyday practice including why we support the sports team that we do or what motivates our political allegiances. In
organisations it can be manifest as a preference for a particular course of action or workplace intervention. Frequently theories remain implicit in an individual’s head as opposed to being shared, discussed and challenged as a form of collective intelligence. Surfacing and testing assumptions via tactics such as reverse engineering, pre-mortems or post-mortems, and devil’s advocates can help to make sense of, explain and ultimately test strategic courses of action. Research on cardiac surgeons highlights that individual experience (i.e. the number
of operations) does not impact patient outcomes, rather what is significant is the number of operations in a specific hospital i.e. the shared experience or ‘theory of practice’. As Adam Grant explains ‘surgeons saved more lives when they knew their teams and were well
versed in their routines’3.
Engage stakeholders and gather multiple sources of evidence
Early engagement with key stakeholders can provide critical feedback and perspective. Insights from medicine highlight the significance of a ‘triage’ in assessing priorities and equally the value of inter-disciplinary teams in reaching a critical diagnosis. Equally significant is the collection of multiple sources of evidence from multiple perspectives. Canadian academic Henry Mintzberg wonderfully captures the importance of research in getting to ‘the soft underbelly of hard data’.
Too often obtaining ‘big data’ is automatically assumed as having ‘big knowledge’. On-going engagement with stakeholders can also help in making sense of, and interpreting, findings.
Test, test and then test
At the heart of embracing a ‘research as practice’ perspective is the idea of constant experimentation, control groups, starting small, examining enabling conditions and learning from failure. A key flaw is assuming that there is consensus on what success looks like and when it will be achieved. Treating prospective solutions as mere prototypes creates a culture of conversation and learning.
Perhaps the common ill across research and practice stems from a desire to prescribe universal solutions and magic bullets. This is akin to the Doctor prescribing medication on the grounds that ‘you should take this pill as it worked for my last two patients’. This form of quick and lazy thinking won’t provide a foundation for long term success. Instead effective practitioners play where good research and practice intertwine; asking the right questions; understanding the problem before attempting to solve it; surfacing the silent theory that always underpins proposed interventions; pulling together diverse sources of evidence recognising that on their own each is likely to tell their own truth; testing and experimenting on a continuous learning cycle as opposed to assuming definitive solutions. Research should be understood as core to understanding everyday learning and development practice, not a nice to have or add-on. In this way to practice
is to research and to research is to practice.
Author: Professor Brian Harney, Head of Work Psychology and Strategy, Dublin City University Business
School. A version of this piece was originally published in the Learning and Development Institute
Knowledge, June 2025 Issue 8
1 Harney, B. (2008). Book Review & Commentary: Pfeffer and Sutton’s Evidence-Based Management.
Irish Journal of Management, 29(1): 35-42. https://doras.dcu.ie/14938/
Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. (2006). Hard Facts Dangerous Half Truths & Total Nonsense. Boston MA:
Harvard Business School Press.
2 Newport, C. 2024. Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout: Portfolio.
3 Grant, A. M., & Shandell, M. S. (2024). Work. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, E. J. Finkel, & W. B.
Mendes (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (6th ed.). Situational Press.
https://doi.org/10.70400/HIBO9025
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