Do We Really Understand What the Practice Needs? : How Marketing Scholars and Practitioners Differ in Evaluating Research
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2010-06-16
Author(s)
Abstract (De)
Literature has highlighted the need for more useful research and the necessity that scholars and practitioners take each others' perspective to jointly bridge the gap between both communities. Following the idea of structuration theory, we argue that scholars operate in a separate community and assess relevance differently compared to practitioners despite efforts of perspective taking. We investigate 200 pairs of reviews for papers submitted to a marketing journal. Each pair consists of an evaluation of both a scholar and a practitioner. By categorizing practitioners into two groups, we take into account that they may have academical background. Comparing scholars' and practitioners' ratings, our results show that there is no joint interpretation of relevance between scholars and practitioners without academical background indicated by no significant correlation. Contrary, academical practitioners share a similar understanding (r=.230, p<.05). This indicates that scholars and practitioners might differ in their underlying frames of reference in evaluating research. To detail the finding, we use six criteria, including scientific and practical aspects, to assess the quality of research and run separate principal component factor analyses. For scholars, one factor was extracted (60% explained variance). Contrary, we found a two factorial structure, similar for both practitioners' samples (each with 63% explained variance). One factor joints practical attributes, while scientific criteria load on a second factor. Compared to practitioners, scholars do not clearly distinguish between practical and scientific aspects in evaluating research. We discuss implications for the relevance debate and highten the need of joint interpretive forums to enhance a similar understanding.
Language
German
Keywords
Relevance
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
INFORMS Conference Organizing Committee
Publisher place
Hannover
Event Title
32nd INFORMS Marketing Science Conference 2010
Event Location
Köln
Event Date
16.-19.06.2010
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
60468