On research relevance, professors’ “real world” experience, and management development: are we closing the gap?

This small‐sample (N = 84) study investigated human resource management practitioners’ views of academic research relevance to, and management professor effectiveness in, management development. Results indicate that practitioners do not particularly value academic research, especially relative to other kinds of information they may access in pursuing their management development. Practitioners view management professors as somewhat ineffective, especially relative to executives and consultants, as instructors in management development seminars and workshops. A curvilinear relationship between company size and respondents’ ratings of both academic information’s utility and professors’ effectiveness was also observed. Implications for future research are discussed, as well as for efforts to enhance research’s relevance and increase professors’ managerial work exposure.