This article describes the results of the "Efficiency Challenge," a 10-week, Principles of Management course activity that uses reflection and goal setting to help students understand the concept of operational efficiency. With transformative learning theory as a lens, we base our report on 4 years’ worth of student reflections regarding their experiences and the evolution of the activity. The students report identifying explicit behaviors and uncovering implicit, unconscious aspects of those behaviors that they then have the opportunity to evaluate and change, if desired. We have also learned that a traditionally mechanistic, linear, causal, and rational approach can be transformed into a more holistic one by systematically introducing new experiences into the learning cycle, especially the link between student-learning-through-experience and empowerment. The goal of this article is twofold: explore the application of transformative learning activities in the classroom and provide a "road map" for instructors who opt to use an activity such as the Efficiency Challenge.
Women in academia face unique challenges when it comes to advancing to professorship. Using latest research about gender and academic leadership, we present a training curriculum that is sensitive to the unique demands of women in and aspiring to leadership positions in academia. The context-specific and evidence-based approach and a focus on self-directed leadership development are unique characteristics of the training. It aims to enhance women’s motivation to lead, increase their knowledge about academic leadership, and empower them to seek the support they need to proactively work toward appointment to a professorship. We also delineate an evaluation framework, which addresses these targeted outcomes. The findings from a pilot program in Germany confirmed that the curriculum is effective in developing women as academic leaders. The discussion highlights the significance of a context-specific and evidence-based approach to women’s leadership development in academia.
We describe an in-class activity that helps students improve their skills in media selection and use to reinforce effective communication. The activity builds on media richness and channel expansion theories through an examination of the media selection and use of NBA athlete LeBron James and Cleveland Cavaliers majority owner Dan Gilbert during James’s career moves. We utilize three minicase studies highlighting James’s and Gilbert’s videos and open letters. We provide guidelines for preparing and implementing the activity and present students’ reactions through their in-class participation and quantitative survey responses. Student evaluations, collected from both a required undergraduate course and a graduate elective course, indicate that students found this activity engaging and effective in achieving the learning objectives. In addition to business communication courses, this in-class activity may be used in other courses including organizational behavior, introduction to business and management, leadership, human resources management, introduction to public relations, and crisis management.
Project teams are a mainstay in both organizations and business schools. Despite their popularity, instructors and students often express dissatisfaction regarding assigned student team projects. In this article, we examine the effects of influence tactics available to instructors (collaborative assistance and rational persuasion) and individual student outcome valence on goal commitment for assigned team projects. Data were collected from upper-division students majoring in business administration at a large public university to examine the roles that instructors and students alike can play in increasing individual student commitment for assigned team projects. Results indicate that both instructor collaborative assistance and rational persuasion are related to individual student value placed on assigned team projects and also that this value affects overall project goal commitment. We suggest these results provide insights to assist instructors and students for increasing overall levels of student goal commitment in assigned team projects.
This study provides insight into the factors that influence satisfaction with an Internet-based practitioner–student mentoring relationship that is part of an undergraduate business school curriculum. Practitioner mentors are especially important because they can help student protégés learn the skills needed for their professional development, encourage the formation of professional networks, and enhance the protégés’ satisfaction with their education. In this study, we examine a number of factors that can potentially influence satisfaction with the mentoring relationship, including the protégé’s networking to find a mentor, protégé trust in the mentor, protégé self-disclosure, the level of protégé understanding of the mentoring program’s objectives, and how effectively the mentor serves as a role model. Hypotheses were tested through a structural equation model. The results showed that mentoring relationship satisfaction was positively associated with networking to find a mentor, trust in the mentor, protégé self-disclosure, protégé understanding of the objectives of the mentoring program, and the degree to which the protégé viewed the mentor as a role model. In addition, mentor trust was positively associated with the level of protégé self-disclosure. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, and recommendations on how to strengthen satisfaction with practitioner–student mentoring relationships are provided.
This article explores the use of threshold concepts and their application to teaching culture. While there is clear recognition of the importance of preparing students to succeed in a global and multicultural world, the way we teach students about the importance and role of culture is often disjointed, narrowly focused, and does not always address key underlying issues that could help them grasp, retain, and apply the concept. After reviewing the literature on threshold concepts, and providing a quick overview of the ways in which culture is usually taught, I propose teaching culture-as-meta-context as an alternative approach that leads students to cross a conceptual threshold that allows them to gain a previously inaccessible perspective and develop the cultural mindset that is key to managing and working across cultures, nationally and globally. I further present some guidelines and ideas for teaching students culture-as-meta-context and a cultural mindset.
In light of the prominent role of socio-materiality in contemporary social scientific, and particularly educational research, this article uses two practice-based theories to investigate the experiences of German business management professionals on a U.K.-based DBA delivered in Germany. We specifically take concepts from cultural historical activity theory and actor network theory to explore the evolving relationships between professional and academic identities as revealed in qualitative interviews with individual students and supervising faculty. The discussion underlines the potential of these theories to produce rich understandings of the identity formation of researching professionals. We conclude that professional doctorates should be seen not just as specific forms of advanced professional training but as complex and indeterminate processes. Findings suggest that earning a professional doctorate degree often feels like a journey leading to some form of metacognitive shift from a problem-solving mindset to a more critical appreciation of different ways of knowing.
This article explores how part-time students in an online international management course perceived various features of the course-learning design and whether international perspectives were built into their learning experiences. The focus of the study was on cross-cultural differences across groups of learners in the United Kingdom, in other European countries, and in Russia and studying the course in different languages. Using a mixed-method approach, the study’s results challenge the distinction between "internationalization at home" and "internationalization away" perspectives on curricula, due to growing numbers of students studying online from their home countries. Study participants reported high degrees of engagement with international perspectives, but their experience can be best described as "internationalization at a distance," where traditional campus-based acculturation effects were not observed. The article concludes with a discussion of opportunities for management educators to develop a "glocal" approach to online course curriculum design, intentionally blending global perspectives with locally relevant knowledge and managerial skills.
Although the volume of business and management education (BME) research has expanded substantially, concerns remain about the field’s legitimacy and its ability to attract new and dedicated scholars. An obstacle that may impede field development is lack of knowledge about influential works and authors to frame topical areas of inquiry and future research questions. We used citation analysis to track the development of BME research by uncovering 100 highly cited articles that revolve primarily around four research topical areas: (a) Entrepreneurship Education, (b) Distance Education/Online Teaching and Learning, (c) Business Student Ethics, and (d) Characteristics/Critiques of Business Schools. We then used legitimation code theory to categorize these articles on the basis of richness of knowledge ideas (Knowledge Code), the reputation of scholars (Knower Code), the combination of knowledge and reputation (Elite Code), or some other qualities (Relativist Code). Both Entrepreneurship Education and Online Teaching and Learning had articles in Relativist Code, Elite Code, and Knowledge Code categories, with other topical areas primarily populating the Knower Code and Relativist Code categories. We conclude by discussing potential implications for the development of BME research topics, BME scholars, and future applications of legitimation code theory.
We studied group and individual co-regulatory and self-regulatory strategies of self-managed student project teams using data from intragroup peer evaluations and a postproject survey. We found that high team performers shared their research and knowledge with others, collaborated to advise and give constructive criticism, and demonstrated moral responsibility by respecting project management processes and communication protocols. Low team performers lacked self-regulatory strategies to work autonomously and clearly explain their research and its purpose, to ask for clarification, and to work autonomously. Consequently, effective regulatory strategies are crucial for high team performance, for team skills development, and for preparing business and management students for future team-based work environments.
In this essay, we explore why there has traditionally been so little emphasis on teaching preparation in business doctoral programs. Program administrators and faculty typically espouse support for teaching development; yet the existing reward systems are powerfully aligned in favor of a focus on research competency. Indeed, through the lens of a performance diagnostic model, it is entirely predictable that doctoral programs have not offered more teaching development opportunities, as administrators often do not have the requisite motivation, ability, opportunity, or resources to develop comparable teaching competence. However, given that the average graduate will take a professorial position with greater than 50% of responsibilities devoted to teaching, most external observers would conclude that there is a curious dearth of teaching preparation in contemporary business doctoral programs. However understandable the dearth of teaching development, we argue that those reasons are no longer acceptable, and the present essay is predominately a call for change. Suggestions for enhancing the depth and nature of teaching development are offered, and we include some examples of progressive initiatives underway in the hopes of provoking a more intense conversation on the teaching preparation of the next generation of business professors.
Digital technology has proven a beguiling, some even venture addictive, presence in the lives of our 21st century (millennial) students. And while screen technology may offer select cognitive benefits, there is mounting evidence in the cognitive neuroscience literature that digital technology is restructuring the way our students read and think, and not necessarily for the better. Rather, emerging research regarding intensive use of digital devices suggests something more closely resembling a Faustian quandary: Certain cognitive skills are gained while other "deep thinking" capabilities atrophy as a result of alterations in the neural circuitry of millennial brains. This has potentially profound implications for management teaching and practice. In response, some advocate that we "meet students where we find them." We too acknowledge the need to address student needs, but with the proviso that the academy’s trademark commitment to penetrating, analytical thinking not be compromised given the unprecedented array of existential challenges awaiting this generation of students. These and rising faculty suspicions of a new "digital divide" cropping up in the management classroom represents a timely opportunity for management educators to reflect not only on how today’s students read and learn, but equally, on what and how we teach.
Although the term has roots in the training and development literature, blended learning has only recently begun to be studied in management education. This article examines the literatures of blended and fully online management education to determine whether there are factors that may influence instructional effectiveness that are unique to blended learning. The review provides tentative support for the premise that opportunities for enhanced learner control of the learning process and group cohesiveness and collaboration may be distinguishing advantages of blended learning in management education. The article concludes by discussing pressing research issues, including discovering optimal blends, differentiating from or integrating blending with the concept of "flipped classrooms," distinguishing the effects of blending from other potential confounds, determining the effects of subject matter and program level, and seeking increased thought leadership on blended perspectives from classroom-based management education scholars.
Over the past decade, numerous business schools have begun experimenting with studio-based inquiry, often drawing inspiration from professional studios used within art and design schools and from business and governmental studios used for problem-solving and innovation. Business school studios vary considerably in form, ranging from temporary "pop up" studios to dedicated facilities with full-time staff, with the primary purpose of educating managers in craft, art, and design-based approaches to business problems. The jury on the studio phenomenon is out—can they deliver on their educational promise? To address this question, we pull together 25 years of studio experimentation in multiple settings, visits, and observations of studios around the world and interviews with studio makers from various disciplines. We consider the question of "what is a business studio?" in some detail, conjecture about the value that studios might have for management education, provide examples of four different business studio orientations and how these might translate into practice, and highlight what we believe to be some essentials when starting and running a business studio.
Textbooks are an important element in teaching management in higher education because of their assumed ability to disseminate key theories and debates in a seemingly objective fashion. However, a number of studies have questioned not only the scientific character of the textbook but also of management theory itself. More recent studies suggest that dominant notions of management theory in North America were shaped by the Cold War context. In this article, we examine the influence of sociopolitical context on the development of management textbooks in North America. In seeking a more nuanced approach to sociopolitical context that takes into account cross-cultural differences, we undertook a critical hermeneutic analysis on two sets of Cold War–era textbooks, one from the United States and another from Canada. We looked for important differences in how Cold War narratives are reproduced. Canadian textbooks were more likely to legitimize noncapitalist forms of organization, to allow for a more positive role for government, and to discuss communism and socialism more seriously and thoroughly. We argue that these differences are attributable to the divergent political context found in Canada during the Cold War era. The significance of this article is to recognize that discourses change geographically on a scale much smaller than anticipated.
Networks and the social capital that they carry enable people to get things done, to prosper in their careers, and to feel supported. To develop an effective network, one needs to know more than how to make connections with strangers at a reception; understanding the consequences of network properties on one’s ability to obtain benefits is essential. Such understanding enables students to better assess who to connect to. The simulation described herein enables participants to experience and therefore better understand the consequences of their position within a network and to overcome potential aversion to networking by recognizing its benefits and potential for reciprocity. It has been used effectively with undergraduates, MBA students, and executive audiences.
The Under Construction Exercise was developed by the authors to highlight key factors of work design that when implemented among the work group or entire organization can lead to an environment conducive to fostering satisfaction and motivation. In the exercise, groups are assigned to one of four different conditions that are designed to emulate elements of the Job Characteristics Model: the core job dimensions, critical psychological states, and personal and work outcomes. Students work in groups to complete a LEGO building project in a short amount of time and are then asked to reflect on the activity. Instructions for conducting and debriefing the 45-minute exercise are followed by students’ reactions to the activity.
This article presents the findings of an exploratory study into the perceptions of a culturally and linguistically diverse cohort of management students (n = 236) about the use of video as a teaching and learning tool. The results show that while students are generally favorable toward audiovisual materials, the choice of content, how the medium is used, and the types of supporting pedagogical activities all influence the students’ perceived learning and enjoyment. Notably, students from non-English-speaking backgrounds reported different benefits and challenges to their native English-speaking classmates. We use the findings to outline some practical guidelines for instructors about the most effective ways of using video as a pedagogical tool with diverse classes.
Management schools must be prepared to aid leaders and managers to succeed in uncertain environments. We offer two approaches, each designed for critical thinking skill development, to teach graduate management students about leading in and through potential disruption to organizational life. First, we present a personalized case method that relies on a critical incident approach to examine crises students personally experienced at work. We provide a description of the student assignment and a process for student analysis. Second, we present a group project involving a poster session in which students collaboratively work on complex crisis leadership challenges and present their analysis to their peers. We describe how these two approaches develop the critical skills effective crisis leaders possess.
The inclusion of photographic approaches in the business classroom can incorporate missing elements of liberal education into business education, which were highlighted in a recent Carnegie study of undergraduate business education. Building on photographic methods in social science research, we identify three categories of photographic approaches that can enhance undergraduate liberal arts modes of thinking: (a) archival or researcher-created images translated into in-class activities, (b) photo-elicitation course projects in which students envision future careers and step into the shoes of another, and (c) photovoice courses built around semester-long projects to generate student self-reflection. These in-class, grassroots efforts allow professors to provide undergraduate business students the opportunities to learn through multiple framing and reflective exploration of meaning.
Education philosopher Wilfred Carr points to the importance of engagement in the debates on the central issues in education, but not about education, rather for education. In this essay, we extend this position into the realm of management education by critiquing the disappointing outcomes of traditional approaches to teaching and learning, that is, spoon-feeding. We build on the imperative of enhancing student development through scholarly teaching that focuses on what we ask students to do. Our reflections derive from the disappointing results of an assignment asking students to articulate their learning by making claims to knowledge. Our interpretation argues for the need for reflexive practice by faculty as well as a systemic focus on developing students as more sophisticated "knowers," especially in the management classroom.
The traditional case-based method used to teach ethics in business classrooms gives students valuable practice identifying and applying key moral principles. This approach builds on a rational model of decision making and emphasizes moral awareness and moral judgment, encouraging students to describe moral dilemmas and assess the consequences of various responses. Unfortunately, moral awareness and moral judgment do not necessarily lead to moral action; organizational variables and social influences frequently trigger emotions such as fear, anxiety or desire, motivating employees to act in ways that they know are wrong. A review of ethics education articles and a sampling of business textbooks and learning objectives indicate that attention to the role of social influence in ethical decision making is limited in business classrooms. The contribution of this article is to heighten the awareness of this deficiency among business faculty and offer a set of instructional strategies that can be used to expand the current use of case studies across the business curriculum so that our students will recognize and respond ethically to social influence tactics.
While the scholarship of teaching and learning literature has made great advances in our understanding of how learning might best occur, the syllabus as a teaching and learning tool appears to have been almost completely left out of the developmental conversation. Overwhelmingly, extant literature about syllabi and their use focuses on operational course norms—what to include, policies to be delineated, structural aspects to be covered. However, the student development literature and in particular, the Generation Y age cohort literature, indicates that information processing norms may increasingly degrade students’ ability to use course syllabi for their intended purpose. In this article, we explore how and why the role of a course syllabus has changed, particularly in the management education realm, using the andragogy literature to frame the discussion. Employing four analytic frames from the current syllabus development literature—syllabus as contract, as power, as communication or signaling device, and as collaboration—we offer current and andragogically revised excerpts from our own syllabi as part of the conversation.
In our previous article about reconceptualizing the course syllabus, we argued that instructors must move syllabi beyond their traditional pedagogically-inspired focus on operational course norms if the syllabus is to remain relevant as a teaching and learning tool. Here, we take the andragogical ideas developed in the prior article and provide educators with seven practical and concrete tips for syllabus development efforts that are more consistent with co-learning communities and shared learning outcomes.
The neurosciences have expanded our understanding of the role of the "old" brain in generating defensive reactions to threat. Because the learning and practice of management skills pose various forms of threat to would-be practitioners, the question of how individuals respond to threat and how this affects their ability to learn has also been a persistent concern of management scholars. I present a model of management learning defensiveness and defensiveness-management strategies that integrates traditional management perspectives with recent neuroscientific and psychological research. Because neuroscience makes clear that defensive reactions are all but inevitable upon the experience of threat, the model and discussion distinguish between antecedent and post-threat strategies for managing defensiveness in management development and education. Implications for educators focus on the benefits of enhancing learners’ understanding and self-awareness of the neurological bases of defensive reactions in learning situations. I discuss teaching methods and suggest research propositions related to the educational strategies I describe.
This essay provides evidence from the neurosciences that standard Introduction to Management and Introduction to Organizational Behavior textbooks may inhibit, rather than facilitate, learning of the basic concepts and the rudimentary knowledge-basis that underlie the complex skills business students should learn in subsequent coursework and that they must hone in practice as future managers. Specific introductory textbook limitations that are addressed include the following: (a) the nearly total absence of neuroscience findings that have important relevance and application to management and organizational behavior; (b) the ineffective manner in which theories are presented; (c) the use of idiosyncratic, academically derived, or simply spot-invented language; (d) the nonengaging manner in which information (generally speaking) is presented; and (e) the question of whether such textbooks are being read, much less studied. Based on my recent, joyous experience in not using such textbooks, I propose, for readers’ possible consideration, an alternative (hyperlink) practice that is (a) fully compatible with recent neuroscience research on management, learning, and information retention/retrieval and (b) likely to dramatically increase student engagement with assigned readings in Introduction to Management and Introduction to Organizational Behavior courses and their ability to retrieve content and apply it during class discussions.
Organizational scholars and neuroscientists suggest that when people are more emotionally engaged, they learn more effectively. Clinical art therapists suggest that the experience as well as the expression of emotions can be enabled or constrained by different materials. So then, what materials can be employed by management educators to achieve optimal levels of emotional engagement? In this essay, we begin to answer this question by discussing the ubiquitous material aspects of management learning by exploring the complex relationships involving materials, emotions, and learning, and by presenting a set of practical ideas about how management educators can become more adept at designing and facilitating learning processes that effectively engage students’ emotions through the use of materials such as clay, LEGO bricks, and paper.
We investigate the relationships between narcissism, materialism, and environmental ethics in undergraduate business students. Data were collected from business students (n = 405) at an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business–accredited business school at a comprehensive state university. Results indicate that narcissism has an indirect effect on business students’ environmental ethics. Narcissism was significantly related to materialism, and materialism was significantly related to lower levels of environmental ethics. Considering increasing levels of narcissism among business students, we discuss the potential for future research and potential intervention strategies.
This article describes an in-class exercise designed to demonstrate the concept of emotional contagion. Empirical research has found that leader emotional displays at work relate to various member work attitudes and performance. However, students may have a difficult time understanding how and why emotions can influence organizational outcomes. Thus, the objective of this in-class exercise is to demonstrate how quickly and easily leader emotional displays stimulate contagion among group members. In addition, this exercise allows students to reflect on the influence of emotional labor and displayed versus felt leader emotional displays in organizations. Specifically, the exercise uses exaggerated leader emotional displays, and students get the opportunity to experience and reflect on how both authentic and inauthentic emotional displays are contagious. After reviewing the literature concerning emotional contagion, emotional labor, and emotional regulation strategies, this exercise is described in detail and class discussion points are presented. Finally, the article ends with advice on how to incorporate this experiential exercise in other undergraduate and graduate management courses and how instructors might use our findings.
In 2006, our School of Management began the serious path of assessing both the "hard skills" (such as accounting, finance, and strategy) and the "soft skills" (such as leadership, team work, and ethics) of our MBA Program. The data generated from examining the "soft skills" that we want students to learn within our Organization Behavior courses quickly noted performance gaps between what the faculty hoped our students were learning and what students demonstrated that they knew. In this article, we will describe our assessment methods in detail, exploring three methods of assessment that we developed to assess "soft skills", specifically: using a commercially available 360-degree instrument, building our own instrument based on well-established theory, and reaching out to experts. We share how we transformed various course-embedded deliverables into useable data and how we "closed the loop" and changed the curriculum within our MBA Program. We provide processes and instruments that could be used by other institutions struggling to make measureable (assessable and actionable) any of their own soft-skill MBA competencies.
The development of student thinking skills is a major goal of business education. As with other such goals, student outcomes assessment must be undertaken to measure goal achievement. Thinking is difficult to teach; it is also difficult to assess. The purpose of this article is to improve management educators’ understanding of student thinking skills, how they can be developed, and how they can be assessed, thereby enabling business schools to graduate students who can think effectively. The article begins by reviewing major conceptual perspectives on higher order thinking and how related skills have been assessed in higher education. It then provides an account of business student thinking skills that highlights the role of thinking-relevant knowledge and the need to have students integrate and apply their thinking skills in practical situations. After explaining how the business school context and thinking skills content shape assessment efforts, the article identifies shortcomings in how business students are being taught to think, shortcomings that persist in part because of deficiencies in assessment practices. It proposes ways of improving the teaching and assessment of thinking in business schools.
The capstone strategy course is used in many management education programs to provide practical business relevance as a means for students to transition to the business world. We conducted an empirical study to determine to what extent capstone strategy courses are teaching the following four skills that prepare students to meet business job demands: theoretical, practical, applied, and reflective. We found that professors teach applied skills the most, whereas they teach reflective skills the least. However, there was considerable variation in professors’ assessments of the extent to which each skill is taught in their capstone strategy classes. This finding suggests that there is a wide variety of course configurations taught across business schools. We also found that students were learning these skills differentially based on whether they had a business undergraduate background and business work experience. However, all students were learning reflective skills the least. We conclude that providing students with the four skills will go a long way toward ensuring that future managerial decisions are grounded on thoughtful iterative analyses that take into account ambiguities, multiple perspectives, and long-term, systemic implications.
The study of emotion in organizations has advanced considerably in recent years. Several aspects of this research area make calls for its translation into business curricula particularly compelling. First, potential benefits to students are significant. Second, important contributions to this scholarship often come from the classroom. Third, emotions are part of the learning process and, when aroused, improve learning and retention. Finally, given that the study of emotion in organizations has become central to our understanding of behavior at work, it is simply time to integrate current scholarly research into education and practice. For all these reasons, this article has two aims: to introduce business educators to the domain of emotion in organizations for classroom use and to provide teaching resources to those starting to integrate emotion into existing courses. References are provided for further reading where discussion is necessarily abbreviated. Encouragement for greater participation in the scholarship of teaching and learning in this area is also provided.
Electronic response systems (ERS) are a means to foster class participation by students who are reluctant to participate in class. In this study, we identify individual characteristics that relate to students’ preference for anonymous classroom participation, and we also examine the extent to which preference for anonymity is related to their reactions to ERS. We find that extraversion is negatively related and both performance-avoid orientation and power distance orientation are positively related to preference for anonymity. Preference for anonymity is in turn positively related to both the attitude toward ERS and the perceived usefulness of ERS. These results are of importance to instructors interested in identifying instructional approaches that promote the participation of diverse students by providing opportunities for anonymous participation in the classroom.
In this article, we present a proposal for fostering learning in the management classroom through the use of student-produced video assignments. We describe the potential for video technology to create active learning environments focused on problem solving, authentic and direct experiences, and interaction and collaboration to promote student learning. We argue for the use of a student-produced video assignment as a way to achieve these outcomes and present an adaptation of a project known as the Newsroom Assignment. We present details on how instructors can implement the assignment, with suggestions for future research on the use of student-produced video projects in management courses.
This article draws on insights taken from Lacanian psychoanalysis to rethink and resituate notions of the self and subjectivity within the theory and practice of experiential leadership development. Adopting an autoethnographic approach, it describes the author’s own experience as a participant in a program of equine-assisted learning or "horse whispering" and considers the consequences of human–animal interactions as a tool for self-development and improvement. Through an analysis of this human–animal interaction, the article presents and applies three Lacanian concepts of subjectivity, desire, and fantasy and considers their form and function in determining the often fractured relationship between self and other that characterizes leader–follower relations.
It has become common practice for management students to participate in some sort of self-assessment or multisource feedback assessment (MSF; also called 360-degree assessment or multirater assessment) during their management degree program. These assessments provide students invaluable feedback about themselves and assist students in their personal and professional development. This article draws on a conceptualization of the self as multifaceted to examine the benefits and limitations of self-assessment and MSF. Specifically, although an aid to students’ learning, self-assessment tools predominantly treat the self as an individual self, thereby ignoring the relational and collective aspects of the self. Moreover, self-assessments that people make tend to be inflated, unreliable, and biased. MSF improves on self-assessment by including others’ assessment of the self; however, it also possesses three limitations in its current treatment: MSF (a) conceptualizes the self as an individual self, (b) ignores the importance of context, and (c) relies primarily on a self-other rating agreement. These limitations are explored, and remedies are offered to better account for the multifaceted nature of the self.
A review of the literature was conducted on student incivility in higher education, with an eye toward implications for instructors in business. The incivility construct is defined in the context of numerous associated concepts that have been studied in the higher education literature. Evidence is shared about the prevalence of student incivility and its causes, both student- and instructor-related, with a targeted focus on establishing what is known (and not known) based on prior empirical research. Ultimately, practical strategies for instructors as well as meaningful, theoretically grounded directions for future research are outlined.
Business school courses often require team projects, both for pedagogical reasons as well as to prepare students for the kinds of team-based activities that are common in organizations these days. However, social loafing is a common problem in teams, and peer evaluations by team members are sometimes used in such team settings to assess individuals’ contributions. We propose that high and low team performers differ in terms of their ability and motivation to make distinctions in their teammates’ performance, and consequently they differ in how they evaluate their teammates’ performances. Specifically, we predict that high performers will provide evaluations of teammates that distinguish between those who did well and those who performed poorly, and thus high performers’ ratings will exhibit greater variability. In contrast, we predict that low performers will fail to distinguish among teammates’ levels of performance, and thus will provide evaluations that are lower in variability. Using latent growth modeling, we demonstrate that high and low performers do indeed differ as predicted in the variability of the points they allocate to teammates. The pedagogical implications of this positive relationship between team members’ performance and variability in points allocated are discussed.
Over a five-year period, we made a persistent observation: Course structures and routines, such as assignment parameters, student group process rules, and grading schemes were being consistently ignored. As a result, we got distracted by correcting these structural issues and were spending less time on student assignment performance. In this article, we detail possible causes of our students’ inattention to course structures and the resultant negative impact on their performance. We found evidence that excellent student performance, and thus desired learning outcomes, may be fostered by offering certain kinds of structure to our students, in certain ways. In our discussion, we apply four distinct analytic frames—cognition and information processing, student engagement, age cohort, and technology use—to examine the relationship between structure and performance. Armed with these insights, we explore four levels of structures that could enhance student performance: precourse foundations, course/classroom, assignment, and instructor. We provide an integrative performance-enhancement model and evidence of structures that we have found facilitate excellent student work.
In this article, we argue for advancing grounded curricula, which explicitly link theory and pedagogy, and executing them in authentic and multidisciplinary settings as a means to facilitate student growth into integrative learners. We describe the development of a student-centered learning experience that combines elements of critical management education, situated learning, and design thinking. The commonalities between a critically based pedagogy and design thinking create a context for collaboration that enables students to acquire attributes consistent with integrative learners: critical reflection, multiliteracy, the ability to negotiate identity, engage in constructive critique, become skilled in knowledge transformation, and create tangible and implementable outcomes. Drawing from 13 years of pedagogical experimentation, this article contributes to the domain of management education by providing greater specification to the concept of integrative learning, as well as articulating a novel and effective pedagogy based in design thinking. We present our story in three acts, showing how our methodology can enable transformative student learning and offer faculty invigorating teaching experiences.
Business is progressively integrating technologies and R&D with corporate and business strategy. This trend is creating increasing demand for executives and managers who have sufficient technology-centered knowledge to work effectively in interdisciplinary environments. This study addresses how management education could address the growing need for such pluralistic training by embracing development of undergraduate science curriculum attuned to the needs of business students. We found that science courses are part of the required curriculum at 80% of BusinessWeek’s "top business schools." To assess what content and learning objectives might best meet the needs of business students, we conducted a survey of educators from business, science, and arts and sciences in general and examined curriculum developed explicitly for business students at two freestanding business institutions. These results suggest that science courses could better serve business education by providing a broad picture of scientific principles and their presence in everyday life, promoting critical thinking and inductive reasoning, and enabling understanding of scientific research, technical innovation, and product development as well as their ethical and social implications. Development of such courses would require collaboration between management and science educators to ensure that the scientific content of the courses meet the highest standards of evidence-based science education and the business context is grounded in rigorous management principles and practices.
This conceptual article seeks to develop insights for teaching reflexivity in undergraduate management classes through developing processes of critical reflection. Theoretical inferences to support this aim are developed and organized in relation to four principles. They are as follows: first, preparing and making space for reflection in the particular class context; second, stimulating and enabling critical thinking through dialogue, in particular in relation to diversity and power issues; third, unsettling comfortable viewpoints through the critical reappraisal of established concepts and texts; and fourth, supporting the development of different, critical perspectives through ideological explorations and engagement with sociological imagination. The article provides an elaboration of these principles and the issues associated with them as resources for critical management educators seeking to help their students develop their reflexive abilities. In addition, the article develops theoretically informed lines of inquiry for empirical research to investigate the proposed approach, which could help to further develop and refine theory and educational practice.
Most instructors at least occasionally experience grading student work as a frustrating, time-consuming task. The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) instrument can be a powerful self-awareness tool for management educators seeking to enhance their grading techniques. Evidence suggests that many management professors prefer Extraversion (E), Intuition (N), Feeling (F), or Perceiving (P) on the four dichotomies of the MBTI instrument. However, these same preferences often make the grading process cumbersome, because grading can require critical, detail-oriented, and time-constrained responses. Using a key insight from type theory—that individuals can develop the talents consistent with their nonpreferred preference on each dichotomy—this article explores strategies to help those of us with E, N, F, or P preferences develop skills from our MBTI Introversion (I), Sensing (S), Thinking (T), or Judging (J) peers, thus making for a more effective grading process. After discussion of grading "gifts" offered with I, S, T, and J preferences, we share specific techniques and tools honed over many years that have helped improve our grading processes.
Although most business students participate in team-based projects during undergraduate or graduate course work, the team experience does notalways teach team skills or capture the team members’ potential: Students complete the task at hand but the explicit process of becoming a team is often not learned. Drawing from organizational learning and group/team theory, this article presents a "learning team model" that emphasizes feedback at the team—not individual—level of analysis by establishing a team feedback tool that can be easily and regularly used to improve performance. In addition to the feedback tool, a structured process is presented in which students learn to become a team.
This article reports the results of two studies that examined (a) students’ intentions to use a web-based course management system, (b) their actual use of a course management system, and (c) the effect of their use of a course management system on classroom performance. We found that students’ attitudes toward the course management system, perceptions of support, and perceptions of their capacity to control their actions each were associated with their intentions to use the course management system. Subsequently, intentions directly influenced actual use of the course management system and greater usage of the course management system had a statistically significant, albeit modest, positive effect on students’ performance in the course. Practical applications of the findings are discussed.
Business students typically do not read James Madison’s Federalist #10, a seminal work in political theory on the causes of and remedies for factions. I make the case that they should and offer suggestions for teaching and assessment. Factions are a subset of stakeholders that have interests adverse to the organization. Madison cogently argues that the causes of factions are rooted in human nature; therefore, managers should embrace diversity and not try to eliminate factions by surrounding themselves with "yes men." Rather, he urges managers to focus on organizational design to channel ambition in a positive way and constrain the more corrosive effects of factions. Madison emphasizes a critical lesson for negotiation by focusing on adverse interests rather than positions or characteristics. Beyond these management lessons, Federalist #10 exposes business students to the foundations of American politics and helps to inform the ongoing debate about the relationship between business and government. Finally, Federalist #10 takes business students out of their comfort zone, changing their reading workout and strengthening their ability to learn management lessons from the broader world around them.
This article reports on the application of Research-Informed Curriculum Design (RICD) for the development and implementation of an MSc Program in Project Management. The research focused on contemporary issues in project management and provided an analysis of project management approaches, tools, and techniques currently used in organizations. Research methods included a literature review, questionnaire survey, focus group studies, and in-depth interviews with project managers. The research findings led to better understanding of current practice from project managers’ perspectives and informed the curriculum design of the program. Feedback was obtained from external examiners, project managers, alumni, and current students. Evaluation indicates that the RICD approach has produced a successful program and ensured it is relevant to industry and vocationally attractive to students.
This article forms part of an exploration into how graduate students experience group work. A single case, embedded study was completed in 2011, which reveals insight and understanding into the manner in which part-time MBA students experience group work assignments and how these experiences contribute to their perception of positive group work outcomes. The fundamental underpinnings of the case study findings suggest a practical pedagogical shift for educators of part-time graduate students engaged in group work. Specifically, this article proposes a situational group work model, which can be defined as a pattern or mapping that identifies crucial situational factors involved with student group work on the part-time graduate level. The central focus of this article is to understand this new model, which is rooted in group work experiences from the students’ point of view. The model also explicates the manner in which instructors and other students facilitate the perception of a positive group work outcome for students. Using authentic MBA student voices, this article seeks to empower group work practitioners and educators with knowledge to improve group practice and also to better inform facilitators of group work in the graduate classroom.
Many capstone strategic management courses use computer-based simulations as core pedagogical tools. Simulations are touted as assisting students in developing much-valued skills in strategy formation, implementation, and team management in the pursuit of superior strategic performance. However, despite their rich nature, little is known regarding the relationship between team-level attributes and simulation performance. This research reports the findings of a multiyear study that uncovered a clear link between specific team cultural values, as measured by the Competing Values Framework, and simulation performance. It then explores how these findings may influence the pedagogical use of simulations in the strategy classroom in areas ranging from using culture as a performance tool to diagnosis and training.