Practical usefulness or relevance of the knowledge produced in academic settings has become an issue of growing concern in recent years. We argue that feedback can be an important means of making academic research more relevant to practitioner needs. We propose a three-phase feedback process model and have illustrated its applicability in an academic setting by integrating usefulness concerns into the knowledge creation process. Since the Impact of feedback can be affected by the institutional context, some key institutional factors influencing usefulness of academic research are noted. (Author).