Showing papers in "Academy of Management Learning and Education in 2015"
TL;DR: In this paper, an action-based entrepreneurship training was developed based on action regulation theory, where action plays a central role in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education, and the training put a particu...
Abstract: Action plays a central role in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education. Based on action regulation theory, we developed an action-based entrepreneurship training. The training put a particu...
214 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the pedagogical potential of critical leadership studies: an emergent, alternative paradigm questioning deep-seated assumptions that power and agency should be vested in the hands of a few leaders and exploring the dysfunctional consequences of such power dynamics for individuals, organizations, and societies.
Abstract: Conventional approaches to teaching leadership in business schools have overrelied on transformational models that stress the role of charismatic individuals, usually white men, in setting compelling visions to which all organizational actors are expected to subscribe. Such approaches pay insufficient attention to the dynamics of power, the influence of context, and the significance of follower dissent and resistance. This article examines the pedagogical potential of critical leadership studies: an emergent, alternative paradigm questioning deep-seated assumptions that power and agency should be vested in the hands of a few leaders and exploring the dysfunctional consequences of such power dynamics for individuals, organizations, and societies. It also recognizes that follower compliance and conformity, as well as resistance and dissent, are important features of leadership dynamics. Informed by our own experience of trying to teach leadership more critically, this essay highlights a number of guiding principles that we have used in the classroom to encourage a more questioning approach from our students in their study of leadership.
144 citations
TL;DR: The burgeoning economic inequality between the richest and the poorest is a cause of concern for social, political, and ethical reasons as mentioned in this paper, and businesses are both implicated and affected by growing inequality.
Abstract: The burgeoning economic inequality between the richest and the poorest is a cause of concern for social, political, and ethical reasons. While businesses are both implicated and affected by growing...
128 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the relationship between family members and learning through an interpretive and inductive study of 18 respondents from family businesses in Canada, and reveal gradual participation to build legitimacy is revealed as a multi-generational learning phenomenon, involving multiple forms of co-participation influenced by family members from the past, present and future.
Abstract: Continuity is about connection and cohesion over time. A defining question in the study of family business is how the family and the business can endure and survive across generations. Learning about continuity is fundamental in addressing that question. This study explores how family business members learn about continuity. It draws on concepts of communities of practice and legitimate peripheral participation derived from Lave and Wenger’s (1991) situated learning perspective. These are used as theoretical lenses to explore the relationship between family members and learning through an interpretive and inductive study of 18 respondents from family businesses in Canada. This study shows learning in the family business context is about continuity, but the process of learning in which the family engages is uneven, non-linear, and unpredictable. To deal with these complexities and learn about continuity, family members participate in multiple ways, often gradually over time. In this study gradual participation to build legitimacy is revealed as a multi-generational learning phenomenon. It involves multiple forms of co-participation influenced by family members from the past, present and future.
68 citations
TL;DR: The purpose and quality of management and business education in universities have been subjected to an onslaught of vitriolic criticism as mentioned in this paper, and most of this conversation emanates from the global north or the global south.
Abstract: The purpose and quality of management and business education in universities have been subjected to an onslaught of vitriolic criticism. Most of this conversation emanates from the global north or ...
68 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the narrowness of evidence-based management may limit our ability to understand the diversity of problems in management studies and propose an alternative direction that promotes intellectual pluralism and flexibility, the value of multiple perspectives, openness, dialogue, and the questioning of basic assumptions.
Abstract: Evidence-based management has been widely advocated in management studies. It has great ambition: All manner of organizational problems are held to be amenable to an evidence-based approach. With such ambition, however, has come a certain narrowness that risks restricting our ability to understand the diversity of problems in management studies. Indeed, in the longer term, such narrowness may limit our capacity to engage with many real-life issues in organizations. Having repeatedly heard the case for evidence-based management, we invite readers to weigh the case against. We also set out an alternative direction—one that promotes intellectual pluralism and flexibility, the value of multiple perspectives, openness, dialogue, and the questioning of basic assumptions. These considerations are the antithesis of an evidence-based approach, but central to a fully rounded management education.
66 citations
TL;DR: This paper analyzed the relevance of social background and capital for choosing English as a medium of instruction (EMI) for students with a non-native English learner with a Bourdieusian perspective.
Abstract: Taking a Bourdieusian perspective, we analyze the relevance of social background and capital for choosing English as a medium of instruction (EMI). Our work focuses on students with a non-native En...
60 citations
TL;DR: The authors examine how and why business schools might be complicit in a growing disconnect between leaders, people who are supposed to follow them, and the institutions they are meant to serve, and show that business schools are complicit in this disconnect.
Abstract: This article examines how and why business schools might be complicit in a growing disconnect between leaders, people who are supposed to follow them, and the institutions they are meant to serve. ...
59 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an analysis of qualitative data related to managers' experiences of working with an employee with a mental health issue that identifies forms of knowledge used and needed in these situations.
Abstract: Mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety are prevalent and costly on both social and economic levels. Because a large proportion of the costs are borne by employers, organizations need to develop effective responses. We frame dealing with employee mental health issues as a reasonably common, but complex, managerial job demand that requires adequate preparation. Hence, we position the development of applied management knowledge (AMK) for effectively managing employee mental health issues as a critical objective for management education. Our study presents an analysis of qualitative data related to managers' experiences of working with an employee with a mental health issue that identifies forms of knowledge used and needed in these situations. Our findings indicate that managers reference specific forms of conceptual and procedural knowledge when (1) becoming aware of the employee's mental health issue; (2) exploring the workplace implications and developing an action response; (3) implement...
47 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider criticisms of business school education and the values it propounds in the context of wisdom and ask whether the perceived wisdom relating to what business should be is "wise".
Abstract: We consider criticisms of business school education and the values it propounds in the context of wisdom. We ask whether the perceived wisdom relating to what business should be is “wise,” and whet...
44 citations
TL;DR: This article studied the changing explanations of success and failure over the course of a firm's history, building on a discursive approach that highlights the role of narrative attributions in making sense of corporate performance.
Abstract: We study the changing explanations of success and failure over the course of a firm’s history, building on a discursive approach that highlights the role of narrative attributions in making sense of corporate performance. Specifically, we analyze how the Nokia Corporation was framed first as a success and later as a failure and how these dimensions of performance were explained in various actors’ narrative accounts. In both the success and failure accounts, our analysis revealed a striking black-and-white picture that resulted in the institutionalization of Nokia’s metanarratives of success and failure. Our findings also reveal a number of discursive attributional tendencies, and thus, warn of the cognitive and politically motivated biases that are likely to characterize management literature.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the importance of preparing the next generation to lead the family business and the need to ensure the continuity of the family's business continuity, given the complex interconnected systems of family and business.
Abstract: Preparing the next generation (“next-gens”) to lead the family business is imperative to firm continuity. Yet given the complex interconnected systems of family and business, next-gens can often st...
TL;DR: Morris, Morris, Kuratko, and Cornwall as mentioned in this paper discuss entrepreneurship programs and the modern university in their book "Entrepreneurship Programs and the Modern University: A Review".
Abstract: Review of the book: Entrepreneurship Programs and the Modern University by M.H Morris, D.F. Kuratko and J.R. Cornwall
TL;DR: The intellectual link between management research and popularization media and the process of popularization is explored in the sociology of science and management research.
Abstract: We explore the intellectual link between management research and popularization media. In the “dominant view” of popularization in the sociology of science, the process of popularization is underst...
TL;DR: This article proposed that hampering critical reflection is a form of narcissism, which they define using Ovid's "Narcissism" and connect with claims that students are struggling with critical reflection.
Abstract: In this paper, we connect with claims that our students are struggling with critical reflection. We propose that hampering critical reflection is a form of narcissism, which we define using Ovid’s ...
TL;DR: In this article, an approach to educating family business owners that builds on the authors' experience as consultants to complex family enterprises for over 30 years is presented, which is seen as an education as an es...
Abstract: This essay lays out an approach to educating family business owners that builds on the authors’ experience as consultants to complex family enterprises for over 30 years. Education is seen as an es...
TL;DR: Disrupt or Be Disrupted as discussed by the authors is a landmark book edited by Brooks Holtom and Erich Dierdorff whose subtitle promises "a blueprint for change in management education." The volume greets the reader with the boast that the MBA program, the flagship of business schools, was the greatest educational innovation of the twentieth century, and bids farewell with the warning that "we must choose to disrupt, renovate, and renew our current approaches to graduate management education, least we allow ourselves to drift into continued complacency and, ultimately, irrelevance" (p. 371).
Abstract: There are two bold pronouncements at each end of Disrupt or Be Disrupted, a landmark book edited by Brooks Holtom and Erich Dierdorff whose subtitle promises “a blueprint for change in management education.” The volume greets the reader with the boast that “The MBA program, the flagship of business schools, was the greatest educational innovation of the twentieth century” (p. vii) and bids farewell with the warning that “we must choose to disrupt, renovate, and renew our current approaches to graduate management education, least we allow ourselves to drift into continued complacency and, ultimately, irrelevance” (p. 371). Anyone even vaguely familiar with the rhetoric of contemporary business schools, the controversies surrounding and uncertainties within them, will recognize this “rise and fall” storyline. It is the kind of threatening, downward narrative arc that charismatic leaders trace to build urgency and support for their own visions. What happens between those sentences, fortunately, could not be farther from advocacy for a singular and universal path to salvation, enlightenment, or growth. Holtom and Dierdorff bring together contributions from an all-star lineup of management education scholars, many with recent experiences as deans. The message they deliver is both multifaceted and complex, as well as informative and empowering. The volume provides a detailed map of the challenges facing management education worldwide and illustrates multiple possible ways of addressing them, accounting for the resources needed and trade-offs necessary to make different choices. Disrupt or Be Disrupted is sponsored by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which owns and administers the most widely adopted admission test for aspiring management students, and its ambition is clearly spelled out. It aims to mark “another quarter century step in the development of the field” (p. 15) of management education, an inflection similar in magnitude but different in direction to those provoked by reports commissioned over 50 and 25 years ago, respectively, by the Ford Foundation (Gordon & Howell, 1959) and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB; Porter & McKibbin, 1988). These landmark reports feature prominently in seminal work on the trajectory of management education over the past century. Scholars have argued that their recommendations, the 1959 ones in particular, set business schools on a quest for academic legitimacy that eroded their social standing in the long run (Augier & March, 2011; Khurana, 2007). The rise of disciplinary research, of a rational approach to management, and of a utilitarian view of its function, critics contend, has proven damaging to students, society, and management academia itself (Ghoshal, 2005; Mintzberg, 2004; Pfeffer & Fong, 2002). That work has helped us understand how business schools arrived at a place of such controversial popularity. These days, degrees in business are the most popular in the United States, representing 20 and 25% respectively of all bachelor’s and master’s degrees granted (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). Competition for MBA slots at elite institutions is fierce. And yet, scholars and practitioners alike voice serious concern that management education is inadequate, irrelevant, or harmful (it is indeed one of few concerns they appear to share). In Disrupt or Be Disrupted, the authors acknowledge how we got here, but their overarching focus is on how to move forward. If there is one universal message delivered throughout the book, it is about the importance of differentiation for individual schools if the field of management education is to survive and thrive. The collection is written with business school deans and decision makers in mind, and offers them evidence-based instruments to chart their schools’ unique courses amid an ever-more crowded and competitive domain. It is a powerful testimony of the richness, value, and usefulness of scholarship on management learning and education, as well as of its current limitations. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2015, Vol. 14, No. 1, 133–149. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amle.2014.0396
TL;DR: Not everything that is important for success can be learned from a lecture or assessed on an exam as discussed by the authors. In fact, the informal elements of a learning environment may be just as important as the formal on...
Abstract: Not everything that is important for success can be learned from a lecture or assessed on an exam. In fact, the informal elements of a learning environment may be just as important as the formal on...
TL;DR: The third edition of Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility, Third Edition as discussed by the authors is a comprehensive CSR and strategy text that supports courses taught either as standalone electives or as core components of the business school curriculum across all discipline areas.
Abstract: Blending theory with practical application, Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility, Third Edition is a comprehensive CSR and strategy text. As such, it supports courses taught either as standalone electives or as core components of the business school curriculum across all discipline areas. Integral to the book’s unique format is its mix of theory and practical application divided into two parts. After five chapters that provide an overview of the field, core concepts, and practical challenges, the second half of the book illustrates the extensive and dynamic nature of CSR via 21 detailed issues and case-studies. The cases capture contentious debates across the spectrum of CSR topics that culminate with a series of questions designed to stimulate further investigation and debate.
TL;DR: The way we deal with power in business schools is limited by our utilitarian focus, avoiding its visceral nature as mentioned in this paper, and the way we develop individuals for powerful positions in business education is limited.
Abstract: Power in business schools is ubiquitous. We develop individuals for powerful positions. Yet, the way we deal with power is limited by our utilitarian focus, avoiding its visceral nature. In relatio...
TL;DR: The journal peer-review system has a profound effect on scholarly careers, and yet, it is “far from perfect” (Miller, 2006: 425). Over 10 years ago, Harrison (2002) proposed that we should adopt a...
Abstract: The journal peer-review system has a profound effect on scholarly careers, and yet, it is “far from perfect” (Miller, 2006: 425). Over 10 years ago, Harrison (2002) proposed that we should adopt a ...
TL;DR: The business education industry is self-satisfied, self-perpetuating and poorly policed; that leadership programs tend to proliferate without objective assessment; and that little original thought has been given to what leader learning in the second decade of the twenty-first century should look like as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Following Enron, WorldCom, Lehmann Brothers and other examples of organisational failure, much has been made of what appears to be a failure of leadership in institutional life. Of course the reasons for this failure can be attributed to many factors, but Business Schools have been consistently singled out for contributing to a moral malaise. The argument is that they typically reinforce the notion that ends justify means and that delivery on-time and on-budget is all that really matters. Leadership development programmes, especially MBAs, have been criticized for over-emphasising methodologies and models at the expense of more human qualities such as judgement, wisdom and morality. Although the argument that business education adversely affects the personal moral philosophies of students is disputed by some, a historical overview of university-based business schools in the United States by Khurana (2007) concludes that they have poorly served the ethical practice of management. Following the economic events of 2008, criticisms of business schools haves, if anything, intensified (Podolny, 2009; Starkey & Tempest, 2009). Meanwhile in a blistering attack on business school myopia, Kellerman (2012: 169) pronounced that “the leadership industry is self-satisfied, self-perpetuating and poorly policed; that leadership programs tend to proliferate without objective assessment; that leadership as an area of intellectual inquiry remains thin; and that little original thought has been given to what leader learning in the second decade of the twenty-first century should look like.”