The Future of Management Education
Never has there been as much interest in and demand for management education, and perhaps never have there been such large consequences for so many lives when it succeeds or fails. Management education in the public’s perception has, over time, moved from the sole pursue of the capitalist to its true nature — the professional organization of people and resources to address any task or challenge.
We see this in the number of nonprofits seeking professional management, to governments employing people with MBAs, and even to large populations voting in droves for politicians perceived as good managers. As such, it is now an established fact that good management brings great benefits to society and to the world at large.
The expanded recognition of the definition has also caused a bit of self-reflection — one clearly does not need a professionally accredited education to be called a manager, or in fact, to be a good manager. The big assumption in management education is that a professional management education, in whatever form, leads to better management and creates better managers.
But ask any recruiter and you will note disillusionment in the power of formal management education to produce individuals well suited, or even well trained, for management roles.
A large part of this devaluation has come from an incredible number of management schools and faculty members passing themselves off as fit to teach the subject, under the guise of paper-based qualifications and copied curriculums. But much of it is also deeply linked with how management education has fundamentally evolved, and a reflection of its failure to adequately reform to meet its stated goals.
This leads to the question: Would the same person be better suited for management if he or she had worked in a two-year internship rotation in a good company vs. had attended a good two-year MBA program? Even more daunting questions: What is the value of a three-year BA program? Does one year of study in Europe really grant an individual “mastery” over business management? Or would it have been better to instead have paid those large fees to a great company to employ you?
There is a long history to all this — i.e., how management education within the scope of our universities has struggled between being a science, a vocation, a behavioral system, and a philosophy.
During this time various schools of thought and practice have marginally tried to evolve, differentiating themselves in teaching methods, fundamental curriculum design, industry integration, and the manner in which faculty members find themselves promoted and compensated.
Unfortunately, this drive for evolution has not been system-wide, and even the best (with rare exception) seem to be simply stumbling along. The best often add most of their value through brand naming, network creations, and giving a time-out for internships and job searches, rather than transforming their students through the education process.
Thus, the future of management education in all its forms depends chiefly on its ability to create superior managers as compared with real world experience given the same nature and nurture as before — and not just at the most premier institutions, but in the vast majority of schools. For that to occur there needs to be profound changes in how management education is perceived, and in the structure of the institutions that seek to impart it. The need is urgent — as a collective the system is eroding the goodwill and branding that proved so hard to create over the past few decades.
A proper treatment of reforms would, at the very least, require a comprehensive book, or in modern times a multiple-episode series of ten-minute videos.
Unfortunately, culture and fundamental change for even the most nimble institutions can take an achingly long time; however, the most important journey for individual institutions to begin taking is to quickly and firmly find and define their place in the changing world. A core part of that will include defining how they actually view management education and to effectively communicate that to all their stakeholders.
While most institutions endeavor to teach innovation in their classrooms, they are extremely frightened to innovate themselves beyond the margins. Many of these bold innovations will fail, and take down with them decent institutions — but, overall, there will be great benefit. Those that succeed in redefining themselves will have created paths forward, earned themselves a place in history, and perhaps along the way will have created a rather splendid future for management education.
Personally, I believe the more the definition of management education moves toward practiced philosophy, the better managers we will create — but each their own. Time, however, is not our friend. Given the plethora of problems societies and the world at large face, we need those great managers, and we need them as of yesterday.
