Engaged Management Scholarship – How to Enhance the Relevance of Business Schools

By focussing exclusively on a neutral position towards grand challenges, management scholars are increasingly reproached by business leaders and policy makers to lose track of societal relevance which considerably lowers the legitimacy of management disciplines. This symposium panel considers the extent to which these challenges require a new type of scholarship. We will in particular explore what ‘engaged scholarship’ in theory and practice entails and what type of enabling conditions have to be created in order to gain greater societal relevance.