At present, it is popular to train graduate students to recognize the importance of a variable in organizational research in terms of its psychometric characteristics (e.g., LeBreton, Hargis, Griepen trop, Oswald, & Ployhart, 2007). However, inmodeling the effects of contextual factors that might contribute to the prediction of some organizational outcome, the input of practitioners or managers with firsthand experience and indepth knowledge of an organization is, in our opinion, even more important if the research is to demonstrate ecological validity (accurately represent the pattern of relationships between employees and their organizational environments). One way to do that, as noted by Tushman and O’Reilly (2007) and Vermeulen (2007), is to use executive education or programs customized for a particular firm to create contexts where faculty and thoughtful practitioners might develop relations that spawn virtuous cycles of knowing (faculty and doctoral student research) and doing (linking scholarly research to real world practice).