Do we practice what we preach when we teach (and research) PA?

The objective of this contribution is to explore how PA studies can inform PA practice, starting with the job of academics in their research, teaching, and other dissemination activities. To this purpose, the methodological approach in this chapter is used to review some of the most common practices of PA scholars in their knowledge production and supply through the lens of some of the most influential PA theories or logics, such as Public Value, Public Governance and New Institutionalism, to explore the coherence of the theory-practice gap within the job of academics. Thus, this paper is divided into three parts. The first, borrowing some concepts from the Public Value paradigm, aims at exploring what value is created in the process of PA knowledge production in terms of different target beneficiaries and types of PA knowledge: does the difference in terms of target beneficiaries (academics, students and practitioners) affect the type of value created by PA knowledge? Do such differences give rise to different and irreconcilable epistemologies? In the second part, the focus is narrowed down to a typical field of encounter between scholars and practitioners, which is the executive education of PA. In this part, the practice of teaching PA to executive students is reviewed through the lens of New Institutional Theory and Public Governance: how can we bring PA theory into the practice of teaching in terms of content, approach and methodologies? The third and concluding part, based upon the previous discussions, offers some tentative recommendations about how we can move and shift teaching and executive education – according to the EPPA purpose – for the next 20 years.