Scholarly vs. Popularized Bucom Writings: Two Sides of the Same Elephant?

Scholarly vs. Popularized Buscom Writings: two sides of the same elephant? The widespread popularity of 'problem-solving' pop-management literature, in the form of self-help books and 'how-to' manuals, has promoted an authorial voice, and in some cases, a default 'go-to' or primary information source for managers and business communications practitioners who seek to improve or 'add-value' to their professional know-how and performance ( Frenkel 2005: 138 ). Varying greatly in format and content, these readings include best-selling books, manuals, blogs, popularized management journals, book summaries and emailed newsfeeds, all of which address practitioners' needs by rationalizing how to best efficiently manage time, social interactions, communications, performance, health and more. Their advocates (including authors and publishers) argue that such readings, by drawing upon scholarly writings and evidence-based practices in organizational settings, result in creatively reinterpreted, credible and inspiring experienced-based narratives that abridge the normal requirement for scholarship based on evidence and causality. These readings, it is claimed, are based upon real world practices in organizational settings, which surpass the reader's need for scholarly sources. This surge of fast-track writing, they say, successfully bypasses-laborious academic descriptions, which are accused of creating a wider gap between perceived and real practitioner needs ( Frenkel 2005 ). But have these 'cure-all' writings, having presumably incorporated elements borrowed from academic research, really managed to make findings both prescriptive and reliable while popularizing them for wider readership?