From Purpose to Impact The University and Business Partnership

To meet the challenge of closing the gap between academic research and industry practice, we now need a step change in how the business school and the business scholar engages with business. This book presents best practice in the methods of broadening successful academic-business engagement on a major scale. It presents concrete recommendations for setting programmes, creating incentives and structuring recruitment that will transform effective academic-business engagement.

Most universities claim to have significant links with industry and the professions, but, in reality, only a limited number of business scholars are engaged with industry. A focus on ?impact? presents an additional potential trap, confusing promotion of research and tactical tips and tricks, with genuine engagement. This book explores the increasing number of new and innovative partnerships and collaboration activities, and how academics can adapt to, and leverage, these new opportunities. It focuses on the academic as the primary driver of the external relationship and the skills and capabilities needed to pro-actively develop engagement. Finally, the book provides a number of examples of best practice from a range of countries.

Written by senior business scholars and leaders from around the world, and with examples of best practice included from leading universities, this book gives universities the insight needed to build up a broader range of relationships with businesses and to have genuine engagement and impact in practice.

Part I: The Changing University/Getting Impact on the Agenda 1. The new priority for the new academic environment 2. A Radical Notion: Make Business Schools Useful to Businesses 3. Business Schools and Business in the UK: A Growing Success Story 4. Academics Are from Pluto, Managers are from Mercury: Bringing Sense to the Management Science versus Management Practice Debate 5. Research, Impact, and Institutional Actors: Where are the Leaders? 6. Collaboration: Why Getting It Right is the Key to Academic Success 7. ‘Nothing ill can dwell in such a temple’: Internal Partnering for External Success 8. Engagement as Strategy 9. From Purpose to Impact: From Partnerships to Shaping Systems 10. Not Just Academic: Strategies to Keep Rigorous Research Relevant Part II: The Impact University 11. The Responsible Research in Business and Management (RRBM) Community: Responsible Management Education and Impactful Research 12. Third Space Innovators: Boundary Spanning for University-Industry Collaboration 13. The Two Imperatives of Business School Impact 14. Leveraging Academic Structures and Resources to Impact Non-Academic Organizations 15. Innovative Pedagogical Strategies Through University-Firm Dynamics: Transforming Practices and Mindsets 16. The Sustainability Consortium as Action Research 17. Building Holistic, Integrated Partnerships for Broader Impact: Case Study 18. ENLIGHT: Towards an Impact-Driven University 19. How can Business Schools increase external orientation and Business connect through Executive Management Education programs 20. Commercialization of Research: Managing the Transition from Academia to Business 21. A Scorecard for Designing and Evaluating University Partnerships Part III: The Impact Academic 22. Becoming an Impact Academic 23. The Early Career Researcher: A Science and Innovation Perspective 24. The Early Career Academic: Engaging with Business 25. Spanning Boundaries Through Intersectoral Mobility 26. Publishing in Practitioner Journals 27. Generating Applied Impact Through Executive Doctoral Programs in Business and Management 28. Unleashing Organisational Potential 29. How High-Impact Academics Can Build Exceptional Academic Incubators by Leveraging Business Partnerships 30. From Purpose to Impact: Time for a New Business School Model?

Nicholas O’Regan is Professor in Strategy at Aston Business School. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and a Fellow of the British Academy of Management.