An interesting discussion on the AACSB's website:
What’s Wrong With Business Schools Today | AACSB
Much of that would be broader than the issues this IG addresses, but it does seem relevant.
A good question, is research in "top tier" journals that are not read by practitioners (and often not actually read by many academics) having any impact? Can they really be considered top tier? How do you measure impact beyond citation count?
More pertinent to PACE, what is one idea that PACE might be able to implement to help bridge to a more impactful academy in accounting and finance?
That's a great question and related, in a way, to how PACE came about. We were originally the IMA Managerial Costing Task Force, with the goal of helping address the low adoption rate of "better" costing systems/methodologies despite these having been around for quite some time now. Despite producing some great research our impact on practice seemed quite low.
We realized that in order to impact practice we needed to identify and address the issues relevant to practitioners. Issue #1 is enhancing profitability, which lead to our current focus. We've broadened our scope to include factors affecting profitability that might not traditionally be considered part of the management accountant's (MA's) remit, such as revenue management. Yet for MAs to serve as strategic business partners we need to be conversant with this body of knowledge.
Perhaps this is a round-about way of addressing the question posed here, but the bottom line the academy needs to address the issues most relevant to practice, and PACE can provide a platform for doing so.