Abstract
A manager is an actor who acts to control and influence the actions of others to obtain certain ends. Managers are assumed to base their actions on their often implicit conceptions of how their world hangs together and about information regarding the situation in which they are acting.
A management scientist or researcher is an actor who produces explicit theories and models explaining how the world of managers hangs together. To be valid, scientific models have to be justifiable in terms of known facts. Therefore, an important part of the actions of management researchers is to make investigations to find empirical evidence.
We hold that managers can develop the capability to act more effectively by using explicit models of how things hang together as a basis for their actions. For an explicit model to be a basis for action, it has to be internalized, understood, and accepted by the manager. Models that are explicit, internalized, understood, and accepted by the manager we call actionable knowledge in this chapter (Babüroglo & Ravn, 1992).