Practices for leveraging the paradoxes of engaged scholarship

This chapter aims to help academics generate valuable knowledge and spark high quality connections by working more effectively with practitioners. It integrates both paradox theory and practice theory to develop insight about effective practices for "engaged scholarship." Heated debates among academics reveal different approaches—an "either/or" separation approach versus a "both/and" paradoxical approach—to engaging practitioners. One approach regards academia and practice as separate domains pursuing divergent objectives, with little to say to each other. Leveraging a paradox mindset, practices of differentiation and integration help scholars engage the academic—practitioner divide. It is within practices that people can instantiate taken-for-granted structures that, reciprocally, shape practice. The chapter illustrates the nature and responses of academic—practitioner paradoxes. It highlights practices for addressing the tensions in three integrative spaces: action research; executive education; and field research. Engaged scholarship offered laboratory—a chance to generate insights from observing practitioners, but also from observing ourselves as we work with these practitioners