Abstract:

Business management professions are becoming more knowledge intensive, data driven, and analytically complex. As digitalisation and artificial intelligence reshape decision environments, organisations struggle to translate research into practice. While evidence-informed decisions lead to stronger performance, productivity, and competitive advantage, realising these benefits remains difficult. These tensions have contributed to the rise of hybrid professionals, also referred to pracademics, who operate across research and practice. Existing research has advanced understanding of their boundary-spanning role but remains actor focused with limited attention to how organisations embed such roles. This study aims to shift the focus from who pracademics are to what they contribute to organisational contexts. Using a qualitative multiple case study design, this research explores how pracademics are integrated and how they become bearers of academic and managerial activities enacted across professional settings. The study invites feedback on its conceptual framing, methodological approach, and intended theoretical and practical contributions.

Please choose your submission type: Developmental Paper

Primary Track: Practice Theory

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Dr. Annica Lau

Biography