Overcoming the gap between academic and pratical knowledge about CSR : a methodological framework

Whenever researchers contemplate constructing knowledge from practice and managers experience, they are faced with a number of questions which have not yet been satisfactorily answered in the literature. Although the gap between academia and practice has already been addressed by some scholars, potential solutions are still being discussed. Therefore, this paper has two main objectives: first, to shed light on methodological and epistemological challenges related to the radical constructivist epistemological paradigm, regarding its potential to help overcome the dualism between academic and practical knowledge; second, to clarify and illustrate the answers to these challenges, as provided by this paper, in the context of a research project on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Three main contributions are offered: first, we argue that the notion of generic knowledge can help overcome the gap between academic and practical knowledge; second, we offer a methodological framework for developing knowledge capturing practitioners' experience, which integrates the notion of generic knowledge. Third, we argue, through an illustrative case, that research on CSR would benefit from being carried out in the radical constructivist epistemological paradigm in order to develop not just academic knowledge but also knowledge capable of being relevant for CSR practices.