Summary:
This paper aims to identify possible actions universities can undertake to promote Insider Action Research (IAR) in a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) program. DBA programs are an ideal setting for senior managers with intellectual curiosity willing to bridge the gap between academia and industry. These practitioner-scholars can benefit from using IAR, a methodology that fosters rigorous knowledge creation and practical relevance of management research conducted within the researcher’s own company or industry. We conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with a sample of senior executives enrolled in a DBA program at a Spanish university. This sample gave us an ex-ante perspective of practitioner-scholar perceptions of the methodology’s suitability and the four challenges to IAR identified in the extant literature (pre-understanding, role duality, managing ethics and politics, and community of inquiry). Based on the insights derived from these interviews, this paper proposes a series of actions universities can undertake to promote IAR in the context of a DBA, organized around three axes: education and training, the role of the dissertation advisor and other faculty, and communication. In this manner, we contribute
to closing the gap between industry and academia. We also provide empirical evidence, analysis, and nuances of the interviewee’s perceptions of the abovementioned challenges.
Keywords: insider action research, DBA program, practitioner-scholar, executive education, engaged management research
JCR Impact Factor and WoS quartile: 3,900 - Q1 (2023)
DOI reference:
https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069241289285
Published on paper: December 2024.
Published on-line: October 2024.
Citation:
M.F. Morales Contreras, C. Bellón, L. Barcos Redín, Promoting insider action research: a practitioner-scholar perspective. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. Vol. 23, pp. 1 - 18, December 2024. [Online: October 2024]
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