A Historical Review of Swedish Strategy Research and the Rigour-Relevance Gap
(2024) In Elements in Business Strategy- Abstract
- There are many explanations for the so-called rigor-relevance gap in academic research on strategic management. This Element reviews the existing literature on the matter and argues that it must go beyond the typical explanations of knowledge and language differences and look at more fundamental, societal, and cultural explanations. The empirical focus of this Element is the history and possible particularities of strategic management research in Sweden where the authors show how almost 300 years of relevance-centered research have undergone significant changes over the last 30 years, and that the historical development is based very much on societal pressure, academic culture and shifting perspectives on the role of academic research. The... (More)
- There are many explanations for the so-called rigor-relevance gap in academic research on strategic management. This Element reviews the existing literature on the matter and argues that it must go beyond the typical explanations of knowledge and language differences and look at more fundamental, societal, and cultural explanations. The empirical focus of this Element is the history and possible particularities of strategic management research in Sweden where the authors show how almost 300 years of relevance-centered research have undergone significant changes over the last 30 years, and that the historical development is based very much on societal pressure, academic culture and shifting perspectives on the role of academic research. The authors conclude by offering a couple of examples of how Swedish research, close to its traditional approaches, still can contribute to relevance and thus help balance the rigor-relevance divide. (Less)
- Abstract (Swedish)
- There are many explanations to the so-called rigour–relevance
gap in academic research on strategic management. In this Element we
review existing literature on the matter and argue that we have to go
beyond the typical explanations of knowledge and language differences
and look at more fundamental, societal and cultural explanations.
The empirical focus of this Element is the history and the possible
particularities of strategic management research in Sweden where we
show how almost 300 years of relevance-centred research has
undergone significant changes over the last 30 years, and that the
historical development is based very much on societal pressure,
academic culture and shifting perspectives on... (More) - There are many explanations to the so-called rigour–relevance
gap in academic research on strategic management. In this Element we
review existing literature on the matter and argue that we have to go
beyond the typical explanations of knowledge and language differences
and look at more fundamental, societal and cultural explanations.
The empirical focus of this Element is the history and the possible
particularities of strategic management research in Sweden where we
show how almost 300 years of relevance-centred research has
undergone significant changes over the last 30 years, and that the
historical development is based very much on societal pressure,
academic culture and shifting perspectives on the role of academic
research. We conclude by offering a couple of examples of how Swedish
research, close to its traditional approaches, still can contribute to
relevance and thus help balance the rigour–relevance divide. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/c2d0fc92-bdca-4de4-92c4-ffc07166f932
- author
- Kalling, Thomas LU and Bengtsson, Lars LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024-03-15
- type
- Book/Report
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- strategy, Sweden, rigour, relevance, industry–academy collaboration
- in
- Elements in Business Strategy
- pages
- 94 pages
- publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- ISBN
- 9781108648158
- 9781108468930
- DOI
- 10.1017/9781108648158
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c2d0fc92-bdca-4de4-92c4-ffc07166f932
- date added to LUP
- 2024-10-11 11:12:01
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 14:41:54
@book{c2d0fc92-bdca-4de4-92c4-ffc07166f932,
abstract = {{There are many explanations for the so-called rigor-relevance gap in academic research on strategic management. This Element reviews the existing literature on the matter and argues that it must go beyond the typical explanations of knowledge and language differences and look at more fundamental, societal, and cultural explanations. The empirical focus of this Element is the history and possible particularities of strategic management research in Sweden where the authors show how almost 300 years of relevance-centered research have undergone significant changes over the last 30 years, and that the historical development is based very much on societal pressure, academic culture and shifting perspectives on the role of academic research. The authors conclude by offering a couple of examples of how Swedish research, close to its traditional approaches, still can contribute to relevance and thus help balance the rigor-relevance divide.}},
author = {{Kalling, Thomas and Bengtsson, Lars}},
isbn = {{9781108648158}},
keywords = {{strategy; Sweden; rigour; relevance; industry–academy collaboration}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{03}},
publisher = {{Cambridge University Press}},
series = {{Elements in Business Strategy}},
title = {{A Historical Review of Swedish Strategy Research and the Rigour-Relevance Gap}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/9781108648158}},
doi = {{10.1017/9781108648158}},
year = {{2024}},
}