A qualitative investigation of HR practitioner’s reliance on scientific research

The scientist-practitioner gap concerns the low extent of practitioner reliance on the scientific evidence to inform their professional practice. While numerous suggestions to address the scientist-practitioner gap have been proposed over the past decades, these approaches are largely reflective of academics’ views about the gap and its causes. As a result, reasons for practitioners’ low reliance on scientific evidence remain poorly understood. This study utilises data from 15 in-depth interviews with HR practitioners to explore the barriers to research access and utilisation and the factors that support evidence-based practice. The findings elucidate the factors that shape practitioners’ views of research and researchers, their interaction with scientific literature, and the tensions that explicate the scientist-practitioner gap from a practitioner perspective. Importantly, our results highlight the pivotal role that practitioners, organisations and academic institutions can play in bridging the scientist-practitioner gap and engaging with evidence-based HRD.