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What is the relevance of management
education as it is being imparted today?
This is a difficult question to answer since the concept of relevance itself is
a multifaceted concept and any meaningful discussion on the relevance of
management education would require one to look at the
topic from multiple perspectives. Furthermore, B-Schools and management institutes
have numerous stakeholders and the meaning of relevance would change from one stakeholder
to the other. For example, what is more important
for students to acquire; is it practical and
experiential knowledge or academic knowledge.
Though practical knowledge scores on being of direct
and immediate relevance to practice, it generally
does not fare well when it comes to emphasizing
the timelessness and generality of knowledge which can be acquired only through
academic scholarship. Similarly, the issue of
relevance would also tend to focus on what should be
the nature of research; should research be driven
by real-world problems, seeking solutions to
specific situations or should it help advance the disciplines from which management
education tends to draw. These are some of the issues
that can possibly be discussed with reference to
the relevance of management education. This
article tries to examine some of these issues. In
particular, the issue of relevance of management
education has been examined in this article from
two perspectives: Firstly, what should be taught
and learnt, and secondly, who should teach.
Answering this question would essentially
require one to assume that the discipline of
management studies is more of a science and less of an art
and, therefore, it can be taught and acquired easily
in the campuses of B-Schools and management institutions. It is on this premise that
business schools and management institutions operate
and have been able to grow and establish themselves
in the arena of professional education. But having accepted the viewpoint that management can
be taught, what is more important is to discuss,
what should the nature of teaching and learning at
B-Schools and management institutions. As of now, there is great uncertainty about what should
be taught and what should be learned by management students. And by going through the current
debate on this issue amongst management thinkers
and practitioners, it is difficult to arrive at a
conclusive answer. It would, therefore, be appropriate
to examine some of these issues and concerns
raised by some prominent management thinkers and practitioners on the issue of what should be
taught and what should be learnt by management students in B-Schools and
management institutions. Some of the questions that have
been raised and discussed in the published
literature center on the following areas |
