Relevance and creativity through design-driven action research: Introducing pragmatic adequacy

SummaryThis study presents a meta-synthesis (1904–2010) of seminal voices on the ‘relevance gap’, the abyss between management science and management practice, and on remedies proposed. We then discuss dominant paradigms about truth and meaning and demonstrate how they can lead to irrelevance. We discuss relevance and its implications. We revisit basic notions of pragmatism and suggest how they might influence the meaning of management science. We seek answers in action research and, more specifically, in design-driven action research methods. We introduce the notion of pragmatic adequacy to explain how design-driven action research approaches can reduce the relevance gap, facilitate change and enhance creativity.