The research world cafe as method of scientific enquiry: Combining rigor with relevance and speed

Next to rigor and relevance, this paper addresses speed as a third challenge of joint academic practitioner inquiries. Practitioners seek fast and actionable knowledge. However, traditional academic research takes a long time to execute. We propose a data collection method - the world cafe - with the potential to reduce this clock-speed challenge and to close the knowledge production and transfer gap. However, the traditional world cafe needs some amendments in order to be fully applicable as academic data collection method. This paper has the following five objectives: 1) include speed in the discussion of rigor and relevance in management research, 2) suggest the world cafe method as a technique to accelerate data collection in academic practitioner collaborative research, 3) introduce the research world cafe as an academically rigorous data collection method, 4) illustrate the use of the world cafe method with a small example 5) compare it to alternative methods such as expert interviews, focus group or Delphi. Results of a survey on the speed of group research methods is presented, evidencing that world cafe research is able to present practitioner results twice as fast as conventional research methods.

Automated summary

This paper addresses the challenge of speed in joint academic practitioner inquiries and proposes the world cafe method as a technique to accelerate data collection. It illustrates the use of the world cafe method with an example and compares it to alternative methods. Results of a survey show that world cafe research is able to present practitioner results twice as fast as conventional research methods.