A year ago, a busi­ness con­nec­tion in con­grat­u­lat­ing me for a per­son­al ac­com­plish­ment, de­scribed me as a pra­ca­d­e­m­ic. At the time of his com­ments, the word pra­ca­d­e­m­ic was not fa­mil­iar to me. Us­ing my ap­proach of re­search to ac­quire knowl­edge, I de­cid­ed to look up the de­f­i­n­i­tion of the word pra­ca­d­e­m­ic, sought to find out who qual­i­fies to be called a pra­ca­d­e­m­ic, and to un­der­stand why pra­ca­d­e­mics are valu­able to so­ci­ety.

De­f­i­n­i­tion of a pra­ca­d­e­m­ic

A pra­ca­d­e­m­ic is one who un­der­stands the world of busi­ness and re­search, is equipped to gen­er­ate and ap­ply knowl­edge, en­gages in on­go­ing ideation, eval­u­ates out­comes, and in­forms busi­ness prac­tice. Pra­ca­d­e­mics pos­sess qual­i­ties of cu­rios­i­ty, sys­tems and ev­i­dence-based think­ing, con­tin­u­ous learn­ing, and the abil­i­ty to trans­late knowl­edge in­to ac­tion.

In to­day’s rapid­ly chang­ing en­vi­ron­ment; char­ac­terised by un­cer­tain­ty and com­plex­i­ty, and in­creas­ing em­pha­sis on sus­tain­abil­i­ty and so­ci­etal im­pact, or­gan­i­sa­tions, be they in acad­e­mia or en­ter­prise, can no longer de­pend on lead­ers who are sole­ly aca­d­e­mics or sole­ly prac­ti­tion­ers. In­stead, the lead­ers equipped to re­spond to change are those who en­vi­sion the val­ue of com­bin­ing re­search with prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence, to cre­ate ev­i­dence-based, in­no­v­a­tive, and sus­tain­able so­lu­tions for so­ci­ety.

The rise of pra­ca­d­e­mics - why is it hap­pen­ing

It has long been ad­vo­cat­ed that bridg­ing the gap be­tween acad­e­mia and en­ter­prise is ben­e­fi­cial to coun­tries glob­al­ly. This is al­so the case in Trinidad & To­ba­go (T&T) and the oth­er Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) with­in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com). The nar­row­ing of the gap, how­ev­er, can on­ly oc­cur through a shared vi­sion for trans­for­ma­tion, mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion, and so­ci­etal im­pact, by lead­ers in both acad­e­mia and en­ter­prise. Where lead­ers in acad­e­mia and en­ter­prise op­er­ate in si­los, the abil­i­ty to con­vert re­search-based in­sights in­to ideas, and ideas in­to in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions for re­al-world change is com­pro­mised.

The main fac­tor dri­ving the rise of the pra­ca­d­e­m­ic leader or pra­ca­d­e­m­ic-mind­ed ex­ec­u­tive is the dy­namism of the ex­ter­nal en­vi­ron­ment. In a world of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, cli­mate change, shift­ing work­force and cus­tomer ex­pec­ta­tions, geopo­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic changes, lead­ers’ de­ci­sion-mak­ing should not be based sole­ly on re­search prac­tices, the­o­ret­i­cal con­cepts, or out­dat­ed busi­ness prac­tices.

The com­plex­i­ty of the worlds of acad­e­mia and en­ter­prise re­quire a new way of think­ing, con­tin­u­ous learn­ing, speed, agili­ty, and mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary ap­proach­es to prob­lem solv­ing and in­no­va­tion.

In the same way that longevi­ty in prac­tice can no longer be suit­able to ad­dress cor­po­rate needs, aca­d­e­m­ic knowl­edge is not suf­fi­cient to en­able uni­ver­si­ties to ful­fil the role of

re­search and have pos­i­tive so­ci­etal im­pact. The fu­ture will in­creas­ing­ly be­long to lead­ers who can trans­late knowl­edge in­to ac­tion and ac­tion back in­to fur­ther re­search and new knowl­edge.

When or­gan­i­sa­tions recog­nise the sig­nif­i­cance of the pra­ca­d­e­m­ic lead­er­ship mind­set, lead­ers’net ca­pa­bil­i­ties car­ry more weight than their qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

The Caribbean per­spec­tive

The coun­tries of the Caribbean, like glob­al SIDS, face mul­ti­ple chal­lenges. These in­clude vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, risk as­so­ci­at­ed with de­pen­den­cy on one sec­tor; main­ly tourism for most coun­tries and the en­er­gy sec­tor for T&T, high debt to GDP ra­tios, in­creas­ing crime, low lev­els of in­no­va­tion, low lev­els of R&D spend­ing and tal­ent flight.

The chal­lenges and con­straints as stat­ed re­it­er­ate the ur­gent need for mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween acad­e­mia and prac­tice, and for pra­ca­d­e­m­ic lead­er­ship to play a piv­otal role in bring­ing to­geth­er uni­ver­si­ties, the busi­ness and en­tre­pre­neur­ial class, pol­i­cy mak­ers, pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­a­tions, and com­mu­ni­ty groups and to align knowl­edge cre­ation with so­cioe­co­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. The risks of eco­nom­ic de­cline, pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­creased uni­ver­si­ty-in­dus­try col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Chal­lenge for the pra­ca­d­e­m­ic leader in prac­tice and acad­e­mia

Notwith­stand­ing the ben­e­fits of pra­ca­d­e­m­ic lead­ers in the busi­ness and aca­d­e­m­ic world, these in­di­vid­u­als may face chal­lenges. The shift to pra­ca­d­e­m­ic lead­er­ship is tan­ta­mount to a shift from two de­fined strands; aca­d­e­m­ic rigour and rel­e­vant prac­tice, to a com­mon sin­gu­lar strand of pur­pose, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and qual­i­ty, shared by all.

The cor­po­rate pra­ca­d­e­m­ic leader is like­ly to face chal­lenges in the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment giv­en the ten­den­cy for some with­in the cor­po­rate sec­tor to view pra­ca­d­e­mics as be­ing dis­con­nect­ed from the re­al­i­ty of the busi­ness world. Fur­ther, the cul­ture of some or­gan­i­sa­tions may not sup­port the method­olog­i­cal ap­proach that pra­ca­d­e­mics use to pro­vide ev­i­dence-based rec­om­men­da­tions to solve prob­lems. Pra­ca­d­e­mics are al­so like­ly to face adilem­ma in rec­on­cil­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion­al in­ter­ests and re­search in­tegri­ty.

The pra­ca­d­e­m­ic leader in acad­e­mia al­so faces chal­lenges. Re­search has in­di­cat­ed that many in acad­e­mia still hold the po­si­tion that aca­d­e­m­ic rigour and busi­ness prac­tice be­long to two dis­tinc­tive­ly dif­fer­ent sides, which should be kept apart. Fur­ther for many aca­d­e­mics cross­dis­ci­pli­nary work as un­der­tak­en by pra­ca­d­e­mics, though rel­e­vant, would un­like­ly strength­en their pub­li­ca­tion record, a key met­ric of re­search ex­cel­lence.

De­spite the chal­lenges faced, pra­ca­d­e­mics are valu­able to uni­ver­si­ties; the epi­cen­tre of re­search as well as to the cor­po­rate sec­tor; the epi­cen­tre of busi­ness prac­tice.

De­vel­op­ing pra­ca­d­e­m­ic lead­ers

Giv­en the valu­able con­tri­bu­tions of pra­ca­d­e­mics to or­gan­i­sa­tions and na­tions, a con­cert­ed ef­fort must be made to de­vel­op them. Tar­get­ed pro­grammes, joint pub­lic-pri­vate re­search ini­tia­tives, and cross-sec­tor ini­tia­tives are some of the ways to de­vel­op pra­ca­d­e­m­ic lead­ers and to bridge the gap be­tween acad­e­mia and en­ter­prise.

Uni­ver­si­ties and oth­er high­er ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions, the pri­vate sec­tor as well as the state must play an ac­tive role in de­vel­op­ing the pra­ca­d­e­m­ic-ori­ent­ed mind­set nec­es­sary for the cre­ation of lead­ers, equipped to nav­i­gate change:

• Un­der­take ac­tion and ap­plied re­search in­ter­nal­ly or through col­lab­o­ra­tion;

• De­vel­op ex­ec­u­tive coach­ing and men­tor­ing pro­grammes;

• De­vel­op com­mu­ni­ties of prac­tice by bring­ing to­geth­er stake­hold­ers com­mit­ted to solv­ing iden­ti­fied prob­lems;

• Sup­port col­lab­o­ra­tive re­search through pol­i­cy and fis­cal mea­sures; and

• Cre­ate a cul­ture of life­long learn­ing

A fu­ture led by pra­ca­d­e­m­ic lead­er­ship

Pra­ca­d­e­m­ic lead­er­ship is not an emerg­ing trend. As or­gan­i­sa­tions nav­i­gate un­cer­tain­ty and com­plex­i­ty, pra­ca­d­e­m­ic lead­er­ship will be­come a strate­gic ne­ces­si­ty. Or­gan­i­sa­tions across sec­tors and in­dus­tries need lead­ers ca­pa­ble of chal­leng­ing the sta­tus quo, ask­ing ques­tions, in­ter­pret­ing da­ta, ex­per­i­ment­ing re­spon­si­bly, and trans­lat­ing ideas in­to in­no­va­tions for mea­sur­able im­pact.

Pra­ca­d­e­m­ic lead­ers are equipped to trans­late ev­i­dence from re­search in­to ac­tion­able in­sights, im­ple­ment ini­tia­tives that cre­ate val­ue and mon­i­tor and eval­u­ate out­comes. Their ev­i­dence­based ap­proach to man­age­ment helps or­ga­ni­za­tions be­come learn­ing sys­tems ca­pa­ble of con­tin­u­ous in­no­va­tion while en­sur­ing that re­search con­tributes to broad­er so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

The depth and breadth of the knowl­edge of pra­ca­d­e­mics, which stems from their dual iden­ti­ty of re­search and prac­tice make them a cat­a­lyst of change and a strate­gic re­source in the Caribbean’s trans­for­ma­tion agen­da.

Dr Ju­dith M S Mark is a busi­ness strat­e­gy con­sul­tant, ed­u­ca­tor, aca­d­e­m­ic coach and ad­vo­cate for in­no­va­tion-dri­ven lead­er­ship. Con­tact her at: ju­dith­m­mark@gmail.com