A Change Strategy for Linking the Worlds of Academia and Practice

Abstract

This article presents a case study of a change strategy to link academia to the world of practice. The case involved a state university and a county government and its network of criminal justice agencies. The strategy centered on developing, implementing, and evaluating an innovative linkage model; adopting and stabilizing the model in the host environment; and disseminating and diffusing knowlege about the model to other jurisdictions. The authors describe the sequence of events, which spanned six years, and highlight the use of change tactics from the following four theoretical perspectives: research development and diffusion; problem solving; social interaction; and power coercion. An analysis of the change process revealed that behavioral scientists can plan and engineer change, but that the outcomes of events are occasionally governed solely by chance. The authors suggest that social engineering and political finesse complement each other and that change agents can employ them in concert to stimulate meaningful change. The study systematically integrates rational planning and politics in linking academia and local government.