Addressing the “Rigor” vs. “Relevance” Divide
One of the major challenges of academic research in management is that work that must be sufficiently rigorous to be published in top-rank academic journals is often not considered relevant (and is often never known) by senior executives who could make use of its findings; while research that may be highly relevant and useful to practitioners is often not considered sufficiently rigorous for academic publication.
The Center for Advancing Corporate Performance bridges this divide by recruiting experienced executives, who value academic research, and who are willing to engage with faculty and students to define the scope of research projects so that they are both rigorous and relevant, and that bridge the gap between theory and practice and between academia and business.
CACP’s researchers (participating faculty and research fellows) work with members of the CACP Executive Advisory Board, who represent firms that have human capital and financial data, to identify and engage in research projects that are critically important to top managers using rigorous analytics tools to deliver actionable insights.