A highly contested issue in management science is its relevance to practice. Despite third parties’ potentially significant role in changing the interaction between divided parties, the long-standing literature on the relevance gap has paid third parties little systematic attention. Drawing on a boundary-spanning perspective, and the concept of brokerage in particular, we review how the consultant role is discussed as an intermediary third party between management science and management practice. Based on a systematic literature review of 133 articles, we identify different intermediary consultant roles linking management science to management practice. Our findings detail how the practices associated with intermediary consultant roles performed by academics or practitioners relate to several key relevance criteria, how management knowledge flows when including intermediaries and how intermediaries in different roles relate to different audiences. Based on the findings, we develop a third-party model of intermediary consultant roles and knowledge flows. The model indicates the theoretical significance of third parties in shaping the interaction and knowledge flows between management science and management practice and has theoretical implications for understanding the persistence of the relevance gap. Regarding practical implications, we suggest how management scientists could target third parties as new key practitioner audiences. Considering third parties, and thus moving away from a two-party view, opens up promising directions for further research on the roles and role shifts of various intermediary actors and on how different intermediary audiences may appreciate different types of academic knowledge.

中文翻译：

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相关性差距辩论中的中介：对咨询角色的系统评价

管理科学中一个备受争议的问题是它与实践的相关性。尽管第三方在改变分裂各方之间的互动方面具有潜在的重要作用，但关于相关性差距的长期文献很少有系统地关注第三方。借鉴跨越边界的观点，特别是经纪的概念，我们回顾了顾问角色是如何被讨论为管理科学和管理实践之间的中介第三方的。基于对 133 篇文章的系统文献回顾，我们确定了将管理科学与管理实践联系起来的不同中介顾问角色。我们的研究结果详细说明了与学者或从业者担任的中介顾问角色相关的实践如何与几个关键的相关标准相关联，包括中介在内时管理知识如何流动以及不同角色的中介如何与不同的受众相关联。根据调查结果，我们开发了中介顾问角色和知识流的第三方模型。该模型表明了第三方在塑造管理科学与管理实践之间的相互作用和知识流动方面的理论意义，并对理解相关性差距的持久性具有理论意义。关于实际影响，我们建议管理科学家如何将第三方作为新的关键从业者受众。考虑第三方，从而摆脱两方观点，