Translational Work: An On-Ramp to Impact & Influence
The Academic-to-Practitioner Bridge for Your Scholarly Research
Subscribers and readers of this Substack will know how business school faculty can extend their influence beyond traditional academic boundaries. As thought leadership evolves, practitioner engagement becomes essential—not only for relevance, but for alignment with institutions increasingly investing in public-facing scholarship.
This week, we take a closer look at a practical and often overlooked entry point: translational work.
If you're an academic looking to establish yourself as a thought leader beyond scholarly journals, here’s the good news: you don’t have to reinvent your research— you can translate it. Translational work helps research become usable insight. It allows faculty to reframe academic findings in ways that managers can understand, apply, and act on.
In today’s academic landscape, this isn’t just a “nice to have.” It’s becoming an institutional imperative. Accreditation bodies like AACSB and EFMD, along with initiatives like Responsible Research in Business & Management (RRBM), are urging business schools to demonstrate real-world influence. “Societal impact” is no longer a vague aspiration—it’s becoming part of the scorecard.
For faculty, translational work is an on-ramp to real-world impact, amplifying the reach of your research, enhancing your professional visibility, and supporting your institution’s strategic goals. And here’s the encouraging part: you don’t have to go it alone. To meet growing pressures for demonstrable societal impact, many schools are stepping up and investing in research communications staff, editorial support, media training, and dedicated content platforms designed to help your work reach practitioner audiences.
It’s a way to build on your scholarship and get ahead of emerging trends, expand your influence, and leverage growing institutional support to ensure your work matters.
What Is Translational Work?
Translational work begins with a simple yet idea: moving your research from theory into action. While disciplines like medicine have long embraced translational research—bridging lab discoveries to clinical practice—the same principle can apply in business: making academic insights accessible, usable, and relevant for practitioners.
Translational work distills your research into forms that resonate with those who can use it: business leaders, policymakers, and practitioners. That might look like a short article on your school’s website, an op-ed in Bloomberg or Forbes, or an insight-driven piece in Harvard Business Review, a practitioner journal, or an industry publication. What sets translational work apart is its focus on clarity, context, and immediate relevance—reframing rigorous research in language and formats that managers can use.
An example of this shift is at Temple University’s Fox School of Business. Launched in 2018, the Translational Research Center was established to help faculty amplify the real-world relevance of their research. The center supports professors in identifying actionable insights and shaping them into accessible content for public, corporate, and policy audiences. This includes offering editorial guidance, media training, and even incentives and awards for translational output. It’s a systematic model that treats translation as central to scholarly contribution.
Done well, translational work becomes a virtuous cycle: research leads to insight, insight drives visibility, visibility sparks engagement—and that engagement generates new questions and gets you invited back into the managerial conversation.
What Makes a Great Translational Article?
A research abstract explains what you studied. A translational article explains why it matters—and what to do about it.
Effective translation starts with the practitioner’s problem, not the academic puzzle. While scholarly articles often end with a brief “managerial implications” section buried in the back, translational writing flips that logic. It leads with implications, making it clear from the start how the research connects to pressing business challenges.
In our interviews with academic thought leaders, this came through clearly. Wharton’s Peter Cappelli discussed earning reader attention:
“If you’re trying to reach practitioners, the last thing you want is a long lead-up. You have to give them a reason to keep reading. Ideally something they recognize in their own experience.”
Wharton colleague George Day agreed that relevance comes first:
“You’ve got to anchor your piece in a pain point that managers feel. Start with that, not with the theory. That comes later, if at all.”
Strong translational writing uses clear, direct language, avoiding jargon and emphasizing what matters most to time-pressed decision-makers. It’s action-oriented, drawing connections to real-world settings with frameworks or tools that give readers practical takeaways.
And while translation is a skill, it doesn’t happen in isolation. Great pieces are often refined in collaboration—with practitioners, editorial partners, or communications professionals. At Fox, for example, faculty benefit from structured editorial support to shape their ideas for maximum accessibility and utility.
In short, a strong translational piece tells a manager: “Here’s your challenge. Here’s what research shows. Here’s how to act.” That clarity, and that orientation toward usefulness, is what makes it stick—and what makes it spread.
A Role for Faculty
Translational work is becoming a key activity for faculty who want their ideas to shape the world beyond academia boosting visibility and strengthening influence. Done well, it positions you as a credible voice in high-stakes conversations.
So how to begin?
You can start small by thinking through and summarizing the managerial implications of your latest paper in a short piece. Then talk with your school’s communications team. Work with them to reach out to practitioner-focused publications. This way, you’ll begin to learn which formats for your work meet decision-makers where they are.
If you’re exploring translational work—or have stories of bridging research and practice—we’d love to hear from you. As always, we welcome your insights, reflections, and next steps.