I was asked to do post graduate research, but was told my paper for my degree would good to do but my conclusion would not sit well with the thinking on the topic. I read 150 research papers for this paper, of the 150, 90 of them used research from the same 6 people. Of the other papers, 60 of them, the reference where from disciples of those 6 people.
None of them have worked in the real world a day in their lives.
My understanding of theory is there is basically two types. What people are doing and what people should do. One is based on history the other is based on theory developed by academics. Both useful but little relevance to the real world of the present.