Fritz J. Roethlisberger Memorial Award Goes to “Let’s Burn Them All: Reflections on the Learning-Inhibitory Nature of Introduction to Management and Introduction to Organization Behavior Textbooks”

The 2015 Fritz Roethlisberger Memorial Award given to the 2014 Journal of Management Education article that best exemplifies innovation in the way we understand how individuals interact in organizations, and thus educate them, has been awarded to Robert Snyder, Professor of Management at Northern Kentucky University, for his article “Let’s Burn Them All: Reflections on the Learning-Inhibitory Nature of Introduction to Management and Introduction to Organization Behavior Textbooks.” In choosing this article, the Roethlisberger Selection Committee looked beyond classroom methodologies to address more lasting contributions to the field.

This year’s award explicitly recognizes the role of textbooks as a means to influence and legitimize a particular worldview. Accordingly, the Committee would also like to acknowledge the contribution of a second article, “Shades of Red: Influences of the Cold War on Canadian and US Textbooks,” by Jason Foster (Athabasca University), Jean Helms Mills (Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax) and Albert J. Mills (Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax) as Honorable Mention. These authors contend that textbooks become “instruments of persuasive rhetoric” (Fineman & Gabriel, 1994) and that “authors are not passive conduits” but rather “active participants” in creating, reproducing, and legitimizing management paradigms (Mir, 2003, p. 737).

This annual award, sponsored by the OBTS Teaching Society for Management Educators and SAGE Publications, recognizes a JME article to honor Fritz J. Roethlisberger, a distinguished scholar whose body of work greatly influenced our understanding of human behavior in the workplace. Roethlisberger was one of the first researchers to understand the impact of social systems and the resulting social dynamics in organizational settings, often to the chagrin of command and control managers. The Roethlisberger Memorial Award goes to the article that exemplifies not just scholarship and innovation but in the case of this year’s winner, a revolutionary shift in thinking—“Let’s Burn Them All”—that makes a significant contribution to management and management education. By focusing on textbooks, the Roethlisberger Selection Committee explicitly acknowledges the influence of the books we use and the paradigms we espouse on the education of our students and the ramifications for society.

Snyder’s thought provoking article, “Let’s Burn Them All,” challenges much of 20th-century mainstream research that dominates the vast majority of introductory management and organization behavior textbooks. Snyder admonishes business for being one of the last professions to adapt the knowledge being generated by neuroscience research. He critiques textbooks that fail to include the “counterintuitive” (and countertheoretical) insights into human behavior provided by neuroscience via brain-imaging technologies. Snyder identifies numerous findings from neuroscience that either enlighten contemporary theory or refute earlier findings. He chides current authors for the ineffective presentation of textbook material and challenges the use of arcane and academic language in textbooks that, while theoretically correct, disinterests students.

Foster, Helms Mills and Mills’ article, “Shades of Red: Influences of the Cold War on Canadian and US Textbooks,” challenges the assumption of a unified “North American” approach to management. They contend that the foundation of American management books emerged at the height of the Cold War from which authors asserted that unbridled capitalism and free enterprise with little or no government involvement was the only economic system consistent with a democratic society. Not only was government intervention or regulation unpatriotic, anything less opposed the interests of American democracy. Canadian textbooks, however, offer a more nuanced and balanced approach recognizing the role of different types of businesses such as Crown corporations owned by the government. Canadian textbooks consistently acknowledge the necessity of some government regulation in stark contrast to American authors’ concerns over even minimal intervention. As a result, American business schools teach “free enterprise” in ways that bias students against an understanding of the legitimate and necessary role of government to protect the general welfare of society from the excesses of capitalism, when the profit motive becomes short-sighted and too narrowly focused on shareholders’ best interest at the expense the larger community and multiple stakeholders.

Linda Dunn Jensen of San Jose State University and I co-chaired the Roethlisberger Selection Committee, a role we shared as a result of winning the 2014 Roethlisberger Memorial Award. Committee members who undertook this marathon reading odyssey and to whom we are truly indebted include the following:

The Committee also wants to recognize the Associate Editors who worked with the authors during the publication process. Professor Tom Hawk, Emeritus Faculty at Frostburg State University, served as the Associate Editor for “Let’s Burn Them All” and “shepherded the various drafts through the labyrinth review process” according to Rob Snyder. Michael Cohen (Deakin University, Australia) was the Associate Editor for the “Shades of Red” article. The co-chairs would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Kathy Lund Dean, co-editor of the Journal of Management Education who helped structure what initially seemed like an amorphous and unmanageable process to select a best paper. Her insight contributed greatly to selection of this year’s winner and honorable mention.