Learning from Each Other: Why and How Business Schools Need to Create a “Paradox Box” for Academic–Policy Impact

Nic Beech, Katy J. Mason, Robert MacIntosh, Diana Beech

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)
15 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

As the “impact agenda” continues to gain prominence internationally, a key challenge is enabling academics and policymakers to interact so that they can learn effectively from and with each other. There is an ethical position that, if we could contribute to policy change impacting on work, society, and environment, then some of our resource and effort should be focused in this way, to bring the benefits of our research to the world of policy and practice and to gain insights about the use and potential direction of our research. We argue that there are significant cultural incompatibilities between academia and policymaking, but we propose an approach that establishes a learning zone in which key cultural rules are suspended (not “solved”) and groups can contribute input and extract learning insights as if they were collaborating with shared understanding, when this may only partially be the case. We explore the theoretical grounds and design principles for this new kind of learning zone, which we term the “paradox box.”
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)487-502
Number of pages16
JournalAcademy of Management Learning and Education
Volume21
Issue number3
Early online date21 Sept 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2022

Keywords

  • Impact
  • expansive learning
  • paradox
  • liminality
  • trading zones
  • learning zones

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