Practice-Based Evidence: An "Experimental" Approach to the Theory-Practice Gap in Management

Management scientists and practitioners ultimately have the same goal: The understanding, control, and prediction of behavior. To this end, we advocate the adoption of experimental methodology on the part of managers as a way to bridge the science-practice gap. We build our argument largely on the distinction between intuitive and systematic approaches to judgment and decision-making. The intuitive approach is more common in management practice, while the systematic approach is embodied by the scientific method. Although recent research suggests that intuitive judgment can be quite effective, we highlight a number of shortcomings of the intuitive approach. Specifically, we show that the intuitive approach is particularly limited when it comes to causal reasoning, and that the experimental approach is designed to overcome this shortcoming.