When Rigor and Relevance Meet: Experience from a Fruitful Researcher-Practitioner Partnership

The perennial debate in the Information Systems (IS) field about rigor and relevance of IS research to practicing managers often ends with the admonition for IS researchers to more actively engage with practice to bridge the gap between the two (Robey and Markus, 1998; Rosemann and Vessey, 2008). The expected outcome is that research will become both more rigorous as well as more relevant. While this goal is easy to articulate enacting it in practice is more difficult and time-consuming. Successful achievement of rigorous research that is practically relevant occurs at the confluence of a multiplicity of institutional and relational factors (Rosemann and Vessey, 2008). It requires incentive structures (both academic and practice-based) that foster organizational and individual collaboration, networks of personal and institutional connections that are mutually trusting and beneficial, and experiences of successful collaboration that have produced measurable benefits for both academics and practitioners