Training MBAs to Use Management Research in Strategic Decision-making

Strategy faculty have long lamented that their scholarship is rarely used by practitioners to assist with strategic decision-making. The blame is most often placed on the nature of our research and many prescriptions have been offered in this regard. We suggest that attempts to close the scholarship-practice gap should first begin in our classrooms rather than in our research. In this paper, we: (1) discuss the sources of managerial knowledge and provide an overview of the challenges to getting practitioners to use management scholarship in strategic decision-making, (2) make the case for using that research in the MBA classroom, and (3) provide a novel pedagogical use of such research to ensure that MBAs see its value in strategic decision-making and are comfortable using it after graduation.