Management Decision

Can management be taught?: If so, what should management education

curricula include and how should the process be approached?
Dean Elmuti
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Dean Elmuti, (2004),"Can management be taught?", Management Decision, Vol. 42 Iss 3/4 pp. 439 - 453
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Can management
Can management be taught? be taught?
If so, what should management education
curricula include and how should the
process be approached? 439
Dean Elmuti
School of Business, Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences,
Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois, USA
Keywords Managers, Education, Learning, Skills
University At 06:20 30 January 2016 (PT)

Abstract The topic whether management skills are communicable has been the topic of scholars’
debates and broad examination through literature in the last decades. However, there is less
literature focusing on solutions for successful management education. This paper, not only takes
up a position that management can be taught and learned, but also examines how the learning
process is approached. The paper discusses characteristics of successful management
educators and determine their impacts on management development. The paper determines the
qualities and skills that modern managers must develop, especially in this time of globalization
and rapid change in the business world. It suggests educating managers in “soft skills” such as
interpersonal and intrapersonal skills and not merely concentrating on the “hard skills”, such as
analytical skills. Additionally in this work, the need for managers with international exposure and
cross-cultural experience is emphasized. Finally, a proposal for management education curricula
is tabled and address the issue of limits of management education is addresed.
 Introduction
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One of the keys to successful management is the ability to understand and apply
modern management principles and techniques effectively. Managers must develop
an in-depth knowledge of past and present models, theories and processes to manage
effectively and intelligently. Contemporary management practice is pervasive in every
aspect of human life within all types of organizations. Management education is the
mechanism for transferring the knowledge contained within management subjects
from the holder of that knowledge (the academics in higher education) to the persons
desirous of receiving that knowledge (the students).
Managers and management are playing more and more important roles in modern
economies. In this paper, we reach the answer to the question: can management be
taught? If so, what should be taught and how should it be taught? Another main issue
discussed in this paper is what characteristics must effective managers and good
educators own for success in their teaching career. First, we define and distinguish
key terms. We then discuss the benefits of management education and the mutual
impact of education on management and vice versa. At this stage of our analysis, we
deepen the argumentation by looking closer at scholars, their methods, and their
limitations. Finally, from these factors and answering these questions we draw some
conclusions about possible improvements to management education in the future. Management Decision
Vol. 42 No. 3/4, 2004
pp. 439-453
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
The author would like to thank the following students for their effort and contributions to this 0025-1747
paper: C. Von Gradowski, A. Groothuis, E. Schmidt, J. Sequeira and H. Tran. DOI 10.1108/00251740410523240
MD Management and leadership
42,3/4 In this paper, we understand management as the “planning, leading, and controlling of
resources to achieve organizational goals effectively and efficiently”, following Jones
et al. (2000, p. 5). Drucker (1974, pp. 40-41) defined management by three general
tasks which management has to perform in order for an institution to function and to
make its contribution:
440 (1) defining the specific purpose and mission of the institution;
(2) making work as well as the worker productive; and
(3) managing social impacts and social responsibilities.
Sayles (1989) regarded managers as concerned with organizational functionality,
efficiency, and effectiveness.
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Although the distinction to leadership can sometimes be very subtle, as Robbins

(2001, p. 314) argued, we find that management per se does not include interference
with other individuals. Leadership is the ability to influence a group toward the
achievement of goals. Drucker simplified the term leader as, “someone who has
followers”. Considering the fact that leadership may also include the so-called
informal leadership (i.e. leadership without hierarchical or educational justification),
management has much clearer and stronger demarcations. Harvard Business School
teacher Kotter (1998, pp. 39-40) argued that management deals with coping with
complexity and that good managers bring about order and consistency by drawing up
formal plans, designing rigid organization structures, and monitoring results against
the plans. Leadership, in contrast, copes with change. Leaders establish direction by
developing a vision of the future, then aligning people by communicating this vision
and inspiring them to overcome hurdles.

Management education
We, however, focus our disquisition on management education, managers, related
skills and scholars. Hogan and Warrenfeltz (2003) regard education as the “end
product of learning”. Thus, management education would be shaping mental models
and acquiring skills. In general, we find that management education views
management as a discipline that can be learned through classroom (off-site) and other
applied pedagogical techniques, normally in degree-granting institutions. Thus, it
tends to focus on the delivery of a broad range of conceptual knowledge in the various
fields and functional disciplines of management. University-based programs of this
kind are typically offered in two formats: programs tailored for a company, and
formal course work that employees pursue mostly on their own but under corporate
sponsorship. Raelin (1995, pp. 20-30) suggested that management education
emphasizes a broadening of knowledge through exposure to academic content and
networking with fellow program attendees. According to Holman (2000), there are
four contemporary models of management education: academic liberalism,
experiential liberalism, experiential vocationalism, and the experiential/critical school.
It is argued that these four models encompass the current positions about nature,
value, and purpose of management education in discussion.
 Benefits of management education to society Can management
According to Longenecker and Ariss (2002), management education is beneficial to be taught?
organizations because an effective management education program can help
organizations create competitive advantage through:
.
exposing managers to new/better ideas and business practices which are needed
in rapidly changing environments; 441
.
motivating managers to improve performance (both theirs and that of their
operation) and actually helping them develop and improve their skills;
.
providing opportunities for reflection, introspection, and self-appraisal; helping
managers identify specific performance problems and deficiencies;
.
increasing a manager’s confidence, reducing a manager’s stress level and
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challenging managers to think differently about their business situation and

themselves; and
.
encouraging managers to think about their career development and setting a
good example for subordinates who see their leaders trying to learn and
improve themselves through participating in management education programs.
To society, management education plays several roles (Holman, 2000):
.
indirect cultural role which produces capable and cultivated citizens who are
able to lead personally fulfilling lives and to help sustain a democratic and
learned culture;
.
vocational role which provides students with the necessary knowledge and skills
to sustain a competitive economy;
.
academic role which has a function of increasing knowledge and understanding
about management and management education;
.
critical role which enables critiques of management, management education and
society to be developed and advanced without fear of persecution or loss of
financial support.
As management education benefits organizations and the society, it is needed. The
matter is whether it can be taught, and if so, what and how it should be taught.

Roles of managers in the modern society

In his 1973 book, The Nature of Managerial Work, Mintzberg indicated that
managers perform ten different, highly interrelated roles that could be divided into
three sets of roles:
(1) Interpersonal roles. These include figurehead, leader, and liaison roles, stem
from a manager’s status and authority in an organization. Activities associated
with these roles directly involve implementing interpersonal contact and
developing relationships among people.
(2) Informational roles. These include monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson
roles, relates to the receiving and transmitting of information. Because of his
position in the organization, a chief executive officer has unique access to
external information and all-embracing access to internal information.
Mintzberg (1973, p. 65) argued that information from interpersonal
MD interaction was incidental and was not used at the time of making significant
decisions. That is why the second sets of managerial roles were determined.
42,3/4
(3) Decisional roles. These include a entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource
allocator, and negotiator roles. Decisional roles might be the most crucial part
of a manager’s work as performing the roles justifies the manager’s great
authority and his powerful access to information. Mintzberg emphasized that
442 these roles involved the manager in the strategy-making process in his
organization.
In order to play these roles effectively, managers need some sets of skills (Robbins,
2001). They are as follows:
.
Technical skills. The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.
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People can learn the special knowledge and practices in their field of study
through formal education in schools, and not all technical skills have to be
learned in schools or formal training programs. Many people develop their
technical skills on the job.
.
Human skills. The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people,
both individually and in groups. Since managers get things done through other
people, they must have good human skills to communicate, motivate, and
delegate.
.
Conceptual skills. The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations.
Different managers at different levels in the hierarchy of management within an
organization do not need the same combination of the three sets of skills. In general,
managers at lower levels need to have more technical skills while the counterparts at
higher levels should have stronger conceptual skills.

The communication of management through management education

Can management be learned?
After clarifying the importance of the management education for society, the core
idea of this paper is critically discussed; namely, whether management can be taught
or not. The decision is based on the investigation of both managers’ and scholars’
perspectives. The definitions of terms “learning” and “teaching” enable the
representation of both perspectives.
Learning is defined in two ways. “The tradition of phenomenology and Gestalt
psychology assumes that people construct mental models of the world and then use
the models to interpret reality and guide their behavior. Learning is equivalent to
constructing new or enhanced mental models” (Hogan and Warrenfeltz, 2003, p. 76).
On the other hand, “the tradition of behaviorism, defines learning as a change in
behavior after an experience” (Hogan and Warrenfeltz, 2003, p. 76). In this work,
learning is regarded as the active, goal-directed construction of meaning, which
includes learning oriented to problem solving and decision making; learning that
builds on student’s prior knowledge and experiences; and learning embedded in real-
life tasks and activities for thinking and communicating. Commenting on the
managers’ perspective, managers are the students who are active participants in their
own learning. This perspective shows that the success of management education
depends on the individual differences of the learner, and on the selected approach.
 Historically, there has been debate whether being a good manager is a skill, trait, Can management be
or inherent behavior. Originally, the theory that the effectiveness of the manager is taught?
determined through inherited qualities which cannot be communicated was the
dominant way of thinking. At present, scholars have come to the conclusion that
management can be learned and taught. Moreover, even if not everyone has the
potential to belong to the most effective and successful managers such as Jack Welch,
every manager still can improve her or his skills through education. Some aspects of 443
management which are part of the innate qualities are the ability to engage people
personally, intensity, quantitative intelligence, emotional intelligence, and strong
competitiveness.
On the other hand, the skills which can be learned are communication, analytic
skills, and it is important to mention that some people have an inclination to learn
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some competencies faster or better than others, and that some people reflect more
charismatic characteristics than others. Most responsive individuals are those with
high achievement and ambition needs; a strong capacity for strategic thinking; a
strong degree of pragmatism; a baseline of effective communication skills (both in
terms of persuasion and inspiration); a measure of emotional intelligence, and a
genuine learning orientation (Doh, 2003, pp. 54-67). Furthermore, the learning
process is more effective when it is internalized earlier in life, that is, younger
individuals learn faster and more effectively. Learning becomes most powerful when
it connects interesting ideas to lived experiences.
The scholars need to teach, but mostly the participating managers need to learn.
The higher the intrinsic motivation, the more effective is the education. To put
differently, “managers are not vessels to be filled with knowledge, but active learners
who must be fully engaged in the process” (Mintzberg and Gosling, 2002, pp. 64-75).

Characteristics which must be owned by effective managers

As a subsidiary focus of this paper, we discuss which qualities the modern effective
managers must possess, what the curriculum of management education should
include, and how the education process should be approached. Business schools
nowadays teach mostly functions of business. They accept inexperienced people and
provide them with analytical decision-making skills, while the demand is asking for
more. Companies such as Alcan, BT, Fujitsu, Motorola, and the Royal Bank of
Canada Financial Group are in need of managers not only possessing analytical
decision-making skills, but also “soft skills”. Or, another way of saying this is, they
instead want individual specialists – collaborative managers with open perspectives
on business and on life in general (Mintzberg and Gosling, 2002, pp. 64-75).

The five dimensions model

But which characteristics do collaborative managers possess? The Five Dimensions
Model is used to illustrate the results. The five dimensions of the model are:
(1) managing self;
(2) managing relationships;
(3) managing organizations;
(4) managing context; and
(5) managing change.
MD All the five dimensions represent managerial skills based on different areas. We
42,3/4 critically discuss, in order, the areas mentioned above (Mintzberg and Gosling, 2002,
pp. 64-75).

444
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Managing self
The dimension of managing self deals with intrapersonal skills. These determine how well
the individual knows her or himself and how effectively he recognizes and controls his
own feelings. This intrapersonal skills dimension is of great importance because before the
manager learns to organize and control the resources of the organization, she or he first
has to learn to deal with her or his own personality. Intrapersonal skills include three
natural components. The first can be described as core self-esteem or emotional security.
People with core self-esteem are self-confident, they have stable, positive moods, they are

not easily frustrated or upset, and they bounce back quickly from defeats, reversals, and
disappointments. Individuals who lack core self-esteem are self-critical, unhappy, easily
frustrated, and need frequent reassurance and positive feedback. The second component of
intrapersonal skills refers to attitudes toward authority. Persons with positive attitudes
follow rules and respect procedures; those with negative attitudes ignore rules and violate
procedures. The third component is self-control. It is the ability to restrain one’s impulses,
stay focused, maintain schedules, and follow routines. This dimension is the foundation on
which management careers are built. Successful managers receive high scores on
measures of intrapersonal skills.

Managing relationships
The second dimension, managing relationships, is concerned with interpersonal or
collaborative skills. People with these skills seem charming, poised, socially adept,
approachable, and rewarding to deal with. Collaboration is considered across
individuals in groups, across divisions in corporations, and across corporations in
alliances. This dimension has four components:
(1) disposition to oneself in the place of another person;
(2) skill to correctly anticipate another person’s expectations;
(3) skill to incorporate those expectations in one’s subsequent behavior; and
(4) self-control to stay focused on the other person’s expectations.
Interpersonal skills involve initiating, building, and maintaining relationships over period
of time with people who differ from oneself in terms of age, culture, and gender.

Managing organizations
The third dimension, managing organizations, deals with analytic skills. Managers
need to make rational decisions. The decision-making can be affected by
overconfidence, optimism, hindsight, overreaction to chance events, selective
perception, and personal experience – inherent defects in human rationality which are
subject to judgmental biases in decision-making. The view that there are strong biases
inherent in human cognition is a major objection to claims that education of managers
is beneficial. It constitutes a pungent challenge to management education. There is the
possibility, however, that through educating managers about judgmental biases they
may well able to recognize and overcome their biases. Also, by using improved
decision-making processes, managers may avoid these traps (Donaldson, 2002).
 Managing context Can management be
The fourth dimension, managing context, deals with international development of taught?
managers and is based on the assumption that being exposed to other people’s worlds
brings insight to one’s own world, and thus helps to make one more wise to the world.
Organizations need managers with truly balanced international experiences, especially
knowing the trend toward globalism.
445
Managing change
The fifth and the last dimension, managing change, deals with personal and
organizational change. The way the manager reacts to the change can be a key factor
for the success in the ever-changing world of business. Those who react swiftly to the
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changing business environment make better managers. Sometimes individuals need to

undertake changes in their world of work themselves or to approach an ongoing
change activity in a new way.

Can management be taught?

After arguing that management can be learned by students the next step is to ensure
that management can be taught. Most papers avoid the question and writers often do
not even mention it, while they assume it or regard it as an axiom.
Doh (2003, pp. 59-60) discovered, through his interview with leading scholars, the
basic insight that most aspects of management can be taught. For example, Jay
Conger, professor at the London Business School, in his response to Doh, is of the
opinion that many skills can be taught, and to some extent, management perspectives
may be developed and enhanced through education. On the other hand, he claims that
human dispositions are a product of life, family and possibly genes. Genes cannot be
“taught”. Mike Hitt, professor at the Arizona State University, argues that the kind of
knowledge which one seeks consists of explicit and tacit components. According to
him, the explicit components, including the knowledge of steps necessary to develop
a strategy and vision, are easier to teach and some of the tacit dimensions may be
communicated through experimental teaching, case discussions, or on-the-job
learning. Chris Bartlett, professor at the Harvard Business School, divides knowledge
into skills and attitudes in his reply to Doh. He states that the knowledge can certainly
be taught. The acquisition of skills, Bartlett continues, can be accomplished through
coaching, mentoring, and fine-grained skills, which include the ability to
communicate, to see patterns, and to work effectively through others. He emphasizes
that some attitudes can certainly be coached, but he does not believe that all attitudes
are susceptible to coaching.
On the other hand, Mintzberg and Gosling (2002, p. 65) argue that managers
cannot be created in a classroom, but managers can profoundly improve their
capabilities through practice. Their reasoning has to do with the statement that
management is a practice, comprising a great deal of art and craft as well as a certain
degree of scientific insight. They conclude that management education means little to
those who have no practical experience. In accordance with the general opinion of
most scholars, we conclude that management can be taught. But we also need to keep
in mind that some aspects can be taught more easily than others.
MD What should be taught?
42,3/4 With regard to the required skills mentioned earlier, we will make suggestions as to
the contents of management teaching. These are often called hard skills, which are
concerned with technical and functional skills about subjects like operating
management, finance or accounting, and are generally seen as needed basics. But that
view is not quite satisfying, as Mintzberg (1992) indicates in his statement “the more
446 Harvard and similar business schools succeed in what they are engaged in, the more
US business fails”. This implies that efforts are needed with regard to the so-called
soft skills. This discussion started in the mid-1980s and as Nodoushani and
Nodoushani (1996) say, the time had come for business schools to rethink the purpose
of their establishment. Evidence for the needed broader view can be seen in the fact
that in a group of the most influential management thinkers not one of them was
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trained in a business school (Nodoushani and Nodoushani, 1996). Obviously, this

paper can only make a few suggestions as to the subjects or themes needed within the
context of management teaching.
First, more emphasis is needed on ethical problems. One task is that the causes
leading to the development of scandals at Enron and WorldCom need to be attacked.
Management education has to build up a general awareness of ethical dilemmas and
the real trade-offs, which include outcomes for society and the general public and not
simply deal financial best-case approaches.
Second, more emphasis on cultural issues should be added to the syllabi. This
relates not only to organizational culture, but also to the understanding of foreign
cultures. As Mintzberg and Gosling (2002, p. 66) declare, managers need a more
profound understanding of globalization which should be as authentic as possible, for
example through cross-cultural experience. This is especially true for countries which
do not have much contact with neighboring cultures by which they are surrounded as
is the case in the US. Therefore, the International Masters in Practicing Management
(IMPM) program, a new management education curriculum developed by Mintzberg,
takes place in five different countries which every participant is required to visit.

Third, practicing managers need to go through a process of intensive reflection. The

IMPM dedicates a whole 2 week module to this concept which fully involves action
learning (Reingold, 2000, p. 286). Reynolds (1998) stresses that there is a difference
between reflection and critical reflection. While reflection focuses on the immediate,
presenting details of a task or problem, he argues, critical reflection involves an analysis of
power and control with regard to those factors, which one usually takes for granted.
Mintzberg and Gosling (2002) report that the result of unexpected activities in the process
of reflection is often a sense of revelation, which is seen in such statements made by
participants: “It was great meeting myself!”. Moreover, the IMPM requires their
participants to write a reflection paper after each module. So, the managers revisit the
material of the module and link what seems relevant to their context.
All of these skills and themes can be implemented within management education
programs. This implies that they can be implemented in all classes. In the short run,
there is no need to develop new subjects which would also be favorable, but take
longer to be realized.
 Who teaches management education? Can management be
Among formal education techniques, higher education is the most popular. Business taught?
school classes are taught by professors who specialize in one or a few specific areas.
There are generally two different types of management educators employed by higher
education institutions. The first, most common kind of management educator is the
career academic. These are people who most likely obtained a doctorate in their early
20s. They have gained promotion through the university by means of research and a 447
body of work that includes publication in academic journals. Oftentimes, these types
of teachers have no experience in a workplace setting, as many of their students do.
The second type of educator is one who has entered the academic world later in life
after gaining experience in the business world. Those who teach later in life are very
rarely interested in research (Monks and Walsh, 2001).
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Characteristics of successful educators

Whichever of the categories an instructor falls into, in order to be an effective teacher
a management educator needs to be credible to the participants, be practical and
experience-based, use a blend of methods, and teach at a pace that is stimulating to
the manager (Longenecker and Ariss, 2002). Creativity involves employing different
methods, materials, tools, and modes of assessing (Simplicio, 2000). Furthermore, a
good teacher always knows what other good educators are doing, so different
techniques may be brought into his/her classroom. Self-improvement is also a key
characteristic (Simplicio, 2000). Good teachers must realize their weak points and
improve on them continuously.
Whitehurst (2002), Assistant Secretary for Education Research and Improvement
in the USA, identifies six different characteristics that are important to an educator:
(1) general knowledge and ability;
(2) certification and licensure (or degrees obtained);
(3) experience;
(4) subject-matter knowledge;
(5) intensive and focused in-service training; and
(6) alignment between teacher training and standards (i.e. how the curricula stands
up to the standards of accreditation).
High levels of these characteristics combined make management educators quality
teachers.

How management education is taught

Managers learn from many different experiences including challenging job assignments,
relationships with others, difficulties and hardships, vicarious learning, and performance
appraisal (Longenecker and Ariss, 2002). There is evidence that process, involving both
the application of content and how the classroom learning is administered, is extremely
important to those who are being taught management at a higher level (Monks and Walsh,
2001). Lecturing and assessing via the test is the classic method of teaching. Other
methods used in management education include the case studies, guest speakers, tutorials
based on current issues, business games, company-based research projects, and consulting
projects (Jennings, 2002). Whether it
MD is through lecture or other more creative ways of teaching, the management student
42,3/4 needs to be taught in a process-based way. Looking at the influence of past scholars
will give a better idea as to how management is taught.

Scholars’ influence on management

The relations and effects between management education/science and its practice have
448 been both mutual and plenty. Any attempt to list and describe them would inevitably
lead to a historically founded paper on its own. Therefore, we choose eight well-
known examples that best serve our purpose.

Fisher Black (1938-1995) and Myron Scholes (1941-?)

Although these two did not work on topics traditionally regarded as part of
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management education, they have actually created a whole new branch of it. With the
Nobel Prize laureates’ Stock Option Pricing Model, the use of stock and other options
became useful to resource management. Till date, human resources make use of it for
rewarding policies, financial managers use it for hedging and investment, and almost
every graduate business program teaches it. The invention of the model required
academic knowledge and mathematical skills that can hardly be found outside
universities. Myron Scholes even decided to work for Salomon Brothers instead of
becoming a professor.

Alfred Chandler (1918-?)

“For demonstrating the environmental forces that shape strategy and structure”,
Harvard’s Alfred Chandler became one of the most influential scholars of
management science (Organ, 2000, pp. 1-3). Organizational strategy forming as of
today still uses the results of Chandler’s research, “strategy before structure remains
the rule” (Cortada, 2001).

W.E. Deming (1900-1996)

Deming described the nature, causes, and effects of quality in times when American
managers would not listen to him. Yet, Japanese managers did and started their
famous quality movement in accordance with Deming’s thoughts. It soon became
obvious and broad belief that inherent system faults and senior management errors
cannot be erased by management by objectives or incentives (Peters, 1993, pp. 9-13),
but requires a quality-based approach. The Deming Prize and TM implementation in
the majority of large American companies clearly demonstrate this scholar’s impact
on management.

Peter F. Drucker (1909-?)

Peter Drucker became known as the originator of management by objectives, he
emphasized the difference between efficiency and effectiveness, and many of the terms
and metaphors by which we apprehend contemporary society – global economy,
knowledge worker, information society, postmodern – are concepts conceived of or
developed by Drucker (Beatty, 1998). He served as a consultant to many of the largest
Fortune 500 companies and to scores of non-profits; he advised several governments,
including Japan and many of the US administrations since President Eisenhower. In
management, one would have to include his introduction of concepts like the
 identification of the significance of knowledge workers, and his early and clear- Can management be
sighted understanding of the role and responsibilities of multinational corporations taught?
(Harmon, 2003).

Douglas McGregor (1906-1964)

Best-known for his theory X and theory Y regarding achievement motivation, the 449
MIT and Harvard professor and social psychologist Douglas McGregor (MIT Sloan
School of Management, 2002) deeply influenced human resources management and
leadership theory. Till date, his rigidity of differentiating X from Y has become
criticized by both practitioners and scholars. However, “people can be self-directed
and creative at work if properly motivated” (Wertheim, 2003), just as the most current
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concept of “empowerment” demands.

Henry Mintzberg (1939-?)

Mintzberg coined the term “emergent strategy” and argued that intent and outcome
usually differ. Further, most of the intended gets lost along the way and, therefore,
strategy required both intent and consistent actions (Jarvis, 2003). Another aspect of
this scholar’s work was his continuous critique of MBA programs, which even led
him to the expression, you can’t create a leader in a classroom (Reingold, 2000).

Michael E. Porter (1947-?)

More than just another Harvard Business School professor on our list, he had his
“shot to fame with competitive strategy and competitive advantage” (Peters, 1993, pp.
9-13). His three basic concepts of cost leadership, focus strategy (market niche), or
differentiation strategy are used descriptively and prescriptively by strategy
consultants. Numerous companies even make use of these terms when defining and
publishing their mission statements. The fundamental distinction made by Porter in
Competitive Strategy between a low-cost oriented strategy and one that produces
unique value for customers through differentiation may seem obvious at present, but it
had not been clearly articulated prior to 1980 (Bachman, 2002). Also his five forces
model has gained popularity for strategic analysis by management and outsiders.

Herbert A. Simon (1916-2001)

Herbert Simon revolutionized decision-making process theory. This revolution is in
the concept of “decision making” in organizations and under uncertainty, which he
claimed is far away from the “rational man” often assumed in mainstream
microeconomics. He was certainly not the first one to come up with this critique, but
he is by far the best known in this regard – and won a Nobel Memorial prize for it in
1978 (History of Economic Thought, 2003).
Most of these famous scholars have dealt with organizational and strategic issues,
yet some covered completely different areas of management and business. All the
above scholars have in common that they opened new ways for management, which
managers around the world have studied and made use of. We clearly find that
management theory scholars did influence management practice significantly.
MD Limitations of management education
42,3/4 A recent study by the Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership points out,
“despite a steady increase in the amount of formal management education over the last 20
years, organizations are still dissatisfied with the level and spread of management, even
more so of leaders skills and with the poor quality of such skills” (Essery, 2002).
Specifically, management educators are not meeting companies’ needs for producing
450 managers who are not proficient in strategic thinking, communication, leading teams,
motivation, and creative/entrepreneurial thinking (Essery, 2002).
There is always a gap between what is taught and what is learned by the student.
Perhaps more importantly, there is always a gap between what is taught in formal
education and what the working world wants. Sometimes this gap can be attributed to
the natural gap between practice and theory. Especially with lifetime academics who
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devote their existence to research, it is inevitable that theory will be placed above
practice in some cases. Other times this gap between the needs of companies and what
management education is teaching managers is attributed to outdated methods in
business schools. Drucker (1998) claims, “Much of what is taught and practiced in the
name of management are hopelessly out of date”. The business world is changing
rapidly and business schools do not seem to be acknowledging this as quickly as
companies are (Leavitt, 2000). “Qualities have changed”, says Stanford Business
Professor Harold Leavitt, “both business schools and practicing managers used to act
as though managing were . . . a rational process. While business schools still hold to
the old assumptions, business is rapidly abandoning them”.
Another limitation is presented when it comes to teaching ethics. “We teach them
analytical tools and data management. Now it may be time to stress additional
elements of decision-making, such as the use of values,” says Dean Robert Joss of
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (Tyson, 2002). There has been a push to
teach morality in decision-making, especially since the apparent influx of unethical
decision making by corporations in the past few years. That said, how much can
management education continue to preach from the angle of the bottom line being
most important with ethics as really an afterthought and expect to produce ethical
management? This contrast creates a limitation of education that cannot be ignored.
Monks and Walsh (2001) suggest three different restrictions to management
education. One is that the increasing number of people seeking management
education and the above noted interest in process is only making the problem of
giving a quality education harder. Second is the fact that courses are taught as
separate, distinct subject areas (Monks and Walsh, 2001). Real world problems are
almost always more complicated than to be classified into one area. Finally, they
suggest that assessment of knowledge has its boundaries. Oftentimes management
students’ casework is assessed as having either right or wrong answers, yet in the
working world there will very rarely be just one neat, tidy answer.
Furthermore, a study by Anthony et al. (2001) suggests that what is learned in
management education is perceived to be less important than other life experiences to
those being educated. Managers perceived that they learned more through
involvement with an organization, associations with others, and experience than they
did through formal management education. Still, another survey by Bernardin et al.
(1998) showed that current managers do not see the relevance of much of the research
done in the academic community compared to what is done in the working
 world. This brings up the question, how important is formal management education if Can management be
managers learn more from all other types of learning processes? The return on
taught?
investment is so hard to measure how important is management education?

Conclusion
Despite its limitations, the truth is management education is needed. In fact, it is
crucial to many managers that they be formally trained in management. Management 451
education gives future and current managers the ability to do crucial “hard” skills and
gives them analytical reasoning behind many of the decisions that they will have to
make. This is, no doubt, an important part of being a manager.
However, management education, as it stands, is lacking in certain facets, most
noticeably in “soft” skill and practical education. Methods are outdated in many
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schools at present and must be updated to keep up with constant changes in the
business world. Moreover, some of the research done is so analytical in nature that
those in the business world cannot understand it, let alone have use for it. This only
deepens the issue that management education is not teaching what the business world
wants in its managers. For example, international exposure is a must in many
companies. The trend of globalism is pushing us towards a manager who must be
internationally savvy. It is critical for management educators to better educate
managers in international ways. In fact, we suggest that international exposure of
some sort is a must in all management education programs due to the demand of the
working world today. In order to change this and other problems involving academia
not meeting the needs of industry, collaboration and alliance between business
schools and companies must be further developed and maintained.
In the end it all comes down to the teacher. Those teachers who are building the
managers of tomorrow must be qualified and credible scholars. Since teachers’ low
salaries are part of the problem of finding excellent scholars, we can only hope that
salaries rise and more retired, successful ex-managers who are motivated by things other
than money impart their knowledge in the classroom to future managers. Continuous self-
improvement must be used by all teachers. In other words, all teachers must constantly be
changing and looking for better and more creative ways to teach management, especially
when it comes to applying practical methods and “soft” skills.
In the end, the answer to the question, “Can management be taught?”, is yes.
Management can be taught to certain people. However, not all people are suitable to be
taught management just as not all are suitable to teach it. As more and more people look to
further their management career through higher education, such as MBAs, we can only
hope that these programs will continue to improve themselves by looking at some of their
deficiencies, acknowledging them, and correcting them. These improvements will allow
management education to be even more beneficial to society.
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Application questions
(1) What are the benefits of management education to society?
(2) What are the roles of managers in the modern society?
(3) What are the characteristics which must be owned by effective managers?
(4) Can management be taught? What should be taught?
(5) Who teaches management education? What are the characteristics of successful
educators? How management education is taught?
(6) What are the limitations of management education?
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