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The global university system has become extremely competitive

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The reward systems have collapsed into only measuring the number of publications in top academic journals

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These publications have a very limited impact on the outside world

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So many ask: what is the use all that hard work, why would the discipline spend so many resources on useless output?
Is it not an enormous waste of valuable human resources?

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The inmates are driven to write top-academic papers on the situation outside the prison, to be read only by some other inmates.
Contact with the outside world is very limited

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Some inmates, especially the very young ones, are unhappy in the prison. The doors are open, but only the very famous dare to escape

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The prison is built by the inmates themselves, but individuals cannot tear down the walls: only the inmates as a group can.

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The inmates may be unhappy, but there is more: the costs of running the prison are borne by the outside world.

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Academic Management research spends a lot of resources. In the long run this has to be legitimized towards the outside world, funding these resources

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How to name and frame this problem?

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an unbalance between the legitimate demands of academia and the demands of outside stakeholders: students, practice, society at large

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an out-of-control reputation system?

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an HRM-problem: you don't have the right professors
(most are not ex-practitioners)

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the downside of the scientization

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I will argue: all four views are important

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In the rat race for reputation the means (articles in academic journals) have become the ends.

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What are the ends, why would one do academic research in the first place?

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Maybe it started here, in Berlin:
to produce valid knowledge, based on 'objective' research, to share with students instead of sharing only personal wisdom.

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So it might still be:
the end of academic management research is to produce valid knowledge to share with students, practice and society at large;
sharing with fellow academics is a means to ensure the quality of the knowledge

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Presently this is not the case:
the only audience of our research seems to be the editors and reviewers top academic journals, thus creating the prison and through this the well known relevance problem of academic management research

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Proposed solutions to the relevance problem

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better communication
(make the prison walls transparent):

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translate academic papers for non-academic audiences

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exploit several communication channels

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collaborative research, interventionist research
(leave the prison from time to time):

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to define relevant problems

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to mutually understand problems and contexts

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to test solutions

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In my opinion, however, the problem is more fundamental, related with the identity of the field.

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Many management researchers regard their field as a normal social science: an Explanatory Science, with a mission to describe, explain, predict, in a quest for truth.

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An alternative is to see the field as a Design Science with a mission to develop solutions for its field problems in a quest for improving the human condition.

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The walls of our prison might be torn down if the inmates saw it as their mission to develop valid, solution-focused knowledge to support the outside world in business problem solving.

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Many see the Business School as a Professional School (like Medical School, Engineering School, Law School)

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Yet, the Business School is in a unique position as the core professors are not ex-professionals, but typically social scientists

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That is related to the nature of the work of the manager: not as knowledge-intensive as almost all other professions

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Therefore managers tend to be less reflective and therefore less likely to become academic professors.

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If MBAs are professionals, their core competence is not research, but business problem solving

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In my university the student does a large graduation project in theory-based business problem solving in the field.

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This develops their own core competence as well as the 'field competences' of their supervisors.

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In almost every country the field of management started as a craft:
the Business School was a trade school, the knowledge to be shared based on tradition and personal experience.

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But it had a strong solution-focus, like a Design Science.

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Starting in the US the 1970's, in several countries a process of scientization has transformed the field from a craft to a respected academic discipline.

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However, in this process the field lost its design or solution focus and became a 'normal' social science, an explanatory science (many social scientists feel that all academic research should aim, like in the Mother of all Sciences does, at description, explanation and prediction).

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Driving academic management research as a Design Science may tear down the walls of our prisonand allow us to interact with the outside world
and have a contribution for the outside world

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The challenge is: how to scientize the field without losing the solution-orientation?

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IFSAM might play a role in that!