Where should the field of management inquiry be heading? What should be the role of "personal knowledge" in management? How should management scholars and teachers attempt to bridge the currently perceived gap between the theories of academics and the direct experience of practitioners? The aim of this essay is to provocatively explore these questions and to argue for six normative propositions: (a) the importance of soft data and often "invisible" organizational processes, (b) the need for management scholars to be more venturesome in their writing and research, (c) the need for greater relevance, (d) the need for research to be more "actionable," (e) the need for academic scholars to be creating more and taking less credit, and (f) the need for greater openness to "wisdom." Some recent trends in the above directions are noted with the concluding observation that underlying these trends is the movement toward a paradigm shift in the way in which science, not just management science but science as a whole, is conceived of and conducted.
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