Note from the publisher

摘要

Hardly a day goes by when an article or viewpoint is not brought to our attention that highlights the need to review how research can be more effectively connected to real-world activity and policy setting. This debate has not emerged as a result of the current economic crisis, but it has certainly been brought into sharper focus by it. We are challenged to consider the role of research in contributing to the failures in our financial systems and leadership or, at the very least, in its inability to direct business, economies and societies away from it. So the question remains do we batten down the hatches and hope this particular squall passes over head so that we can return to the processes and systems that we know, or should we use this as an opportunity to find a better solution to an age-old and, unfortunately, increasing problem of disconnection between the world of research and scholarship and the world of practice and policy formation?