How a professionally qualified doctoral student bridged the practice-research gap: a confessional account of Collaborative Practice Research

Information Systems (IS) is a profession-based discipline that constantly seeks new ways to bridge the practice-research gap. These efforts include enacting scholar-practitioner roles across institutional boundaries, developing and disseminating new knowledge, and engaging professionally qualified doctoral students. Against this backdrop, we provide a confessional account of 10 years of Collaborative Practice Research (CPR) between Anna, an IS practitioner, and Lars, an IS researcher. The collaboration was initiated when Anna, while working full-time, engaged as doctoral student with Lars as supervisor. Combining social process modeling with theories of change and learning, we show how Anna and Lars responded to the experienced challenges and opportunities, how Anna's action strategies developed as she grew into becoming a practitioner-researcher, how the collaboration impacted the practice context, and, how the research resulted in traditional publication outcomes. On the basis of these analyses, we discuss how to engage professionally qualified doctoral students within the IS discipline. In addition, we offer lessons on how CPR can help bridge the practice-research gap as a path towards becoming a practitioner-researcher.