Research vs. Practice: Bridging the Great B-School Divide

Recently a CEO friend of mine asked to see a research paper I had written for a leading management journal. I warned him that, as it was an academic paper, it was not the easiest of reads. Some time later he offered me feedback. He complained that the paper only really "got going" at page 15 and objected to my use of words he did not understand, such as "epistemology."

His response reminded me of a manager who, having read another scholarly article I had written, suggested I get some help with my writing (this was funny because the academics who had reviewed my article had praised my "beautiful writing"). I had written in the formal theoretical and methodological language that management academics use when communicating with each other in scholarly journals. Why did the manager expect to understand or enjoy the article I had written? I would not expect to understand an article in a scholarly medical journal, even if I had the medical condition the doctors were writing about.