Management science includes a long-term concern for its practical relevance, which extends into the alleviation of society’s grand challenges. Much of management science asserts its relevance by presenting practical implications that are derived from contributions to academic debates. We argue that insufficient attention has been paid to how management scholars derive practical implications as well as how these are linked to knowledge production for the alleviation of grand challenges. To explore this link, we cluster and content-analyze 553 practical implications from 137 empirical studies on how managers should respond to climate change. We identify a grounded typology that sheds light on the link between types of inquiry, the derivation of practical implications, and the likelihood of research relevance to address grand challenges. The four types identified are: inquiries into theoretical models; inquiries into statuses of practice adoption; inquiries into statements about reality; and inquiries into phenomena. The results show that the more common types of inquiry – into theoretical models and statuses of practice adoption – are comparatively less likely to lead to empirically supported implications. In contrast, the more niche types of inquiry – into statements about reality as well as phenomena – appear to have greater potential for the formulation of evidence-based recommendations. We discuss these findings considering contemporary understandings of producing relevant and impactful research, propose new directions for the theorization of management science, and conclude with suggestions for editors, reviewers, and research writers.
