Beyond rigour and relevance: a critical realist approach to business education

Beyond rigour and relevance: a critical realist approach to business education

This article takes a critical realist perspective to understand the research–practice gap in the field of business and management. To investigate issues surrounding the rigour versus relevance debate, we examine how the
divergent perspectives of scholars and practitioners can be bridged by a critical realist approach in relation
to: (1) the research paradigm: instead of confining their research within methodological purism, scholars may
need to deploy any research paradigm to investigate a phenomenon in its context, (2) context and causality:
critical realism provides an ontological grounding for interpretivist research reaffirming the importance of a
focus on context, meaning and interpretation as causal influences, (3) methodological rigidity: multiple research
methods will be more important when addressing research–practice gaps since they are more receptive to
interdisciplinary functions and contexts in time and space than traditional methodologies, and (4) ethical aspects
of business research highlighting the need to engage with the knowledge agenda of not only the university but also
society overall. The critical nature of management studies we contend also helps to explain why at least certain
research–practice gaps can be treated as natural because of divergent preferences of scholars and practitioners.

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