Chapter 7 Productive Misunderstandings between Organization Science and Organization Practice: The Science–Practice Relation from the Perspective of Niklas Luhmann's Theory of Autopoietic Systems

David Seidl

doi:10.1108/S1877-6361(2009)0000006008

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Advanced Series in Management

ISSN: 1877-6361
Series editor(s): Professor Miguel R. Olivas-Lujan and Dr Tanya Bondarouk

Subject Area: Management Science/Management Studies

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Chapter 7 Productive Misunderstandings between Organization Science and Organization Practice: The Science–Practice Relation from the Perspective of Niklas Luhmann's Theory of Autopoietic Systems

Document Information:
Title:	Chapter 7 Productive Misunderstandings between Organization Science and Organization Practice: The Science–Practice Relation from the Perspective of Niklas Luhmann's Theory of Autopoietic Systems
Author(s):	David Seidl
Volume:	6 Editor(s): Rodrigo Magalhães, Ron Sanchez ISBN: 978-1-84855-832-8 eISBN: 978-1-84855-833-5
Citation:	David Seidl (2009), Chapter 7 Productive Misunderstandings between Organization Science and Organization Practice: The Science–Practice Relation from the Perspective of Niklas Luhmann's Theory of Autopoietic Systems, in Rodrigo Magalhães, Ron Sanchez (ed.) 6 (Advanced Series in Management, Volume 6), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.133-148
DOI:	10.1108/S1877-6361(2009)0000006008 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Article type:	Chapter Item
Extract:	Many recent studies have voiced the growing concern that the body of knowledge that springs from organization science is hardly taken notice of in management practice. This has given rise to urgent calls for making organization research more relevant to practitioners and an intensive debate on how to realize this aim has set in (e.g., Hodgkinson, Herriot, & Anderson, 2001; Rynes, Bartunek, & Daft, 2001; MacLean & MacIntosh, 2002; Baldridge, Floyd, & Markoczy, 2004; Van de Ven & Johnson, 2006). In most of the existing literature one can identify three main reasons for the observable lack of connection between organization research and practice: research is not sufficiently focused on the “real” problems of practitioners (e.g., Rynes, McNatt, & Breetz, 1999), research results are not properly disseminated to practitioners (e.g., Spencer, 2001), and the language of science is not properly translated into the language practitioners' use (e.g., Starkey & Madan, 2001; Van de Ven & Johnson, 2006). The underlying assumption is that if scientists redressed these shortcomings, their findings would be utilized by practitioners and thus the gap between theory and practice would be bridged.