You’re an organization development practitioner-scholar: Can you contribute to organizational theory?

Mainstream organizational theorizing and the work of organization development (OD) practitioner-scholars have followed somewhat separate paths during the past decades. Currently, however, as illustrated in the development of evidence-based management and as exemplified by Van de Ven’s Engaged Scholarship, there is considerable interest among management scholars in enhanced academic–practitioner relationships. The contemporary situation offers possibilities for OD practitioner-scholars to forge much stronger links between their work and academic theory by means of facilitating academic– practitioner forums and developing skills in theorizing about them. This paper suggests some means for doing this