Abstract
Introduction to management courses present particular challenges for faculty, students, and business program curriculum. In many programs, Principles of Management or Introduction to Organizational Behavior courses are the only management classes (other than Strategy) that business students complete in their undergraduate or graduate program. As such, introductory courses are learners’ first, and in some cases principal, impression of what business management is and should be, thus playing a central role in creating a vision of what is “good” managerial behavior.
In addition, introductory courses must serve as a primer to both content and process in the field of management (Wright & Gilmore, 2012) while also being attuned to the developmental level and experiences of students undertaking an introductory course (Miller, 1991). Knowledge and skills are acquired at different levels in a hierarchy of learning (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956) and do not always correspond to the competencies necessary for managers when responding to societal challenges (Laasch & Moosmayer, 2015).
The role of business managers is argued to be a crucial social activity (Khurana & Nohria, 2008), with bad management blamed for damage to society and business schools castigated for poorly educating managers (Amann et al., 2011). Yet business education has also been praised as a potential solution to societal challenges, a force for good and for the transformation of managerial as well as business conduct (Painter-Morland, 2015). This duality of purpose and outcome places significant emphasis on the importance of the introduction to management experience.
While a number of Journal of Management Education (JME) and other journal articles have addressed specific elements of introductory management education, to date there has been no JME Special Issue on introductory courses as a curricular concept and approach. Given the nature of organizational challenges in an increasingly complex business environment and evolving societal expectations for managerial behavior, the design and delivery of introductory courses requires more attention.
Possible Topics for Submission
The ideas shown below are suggestions only; we encourage submissions that are not covered by these questions, but which are in line with the larger theme of this special issue.
How might university faculty approach introductory management curriculum redesign and address accreditation issues in response to generational shifts in student populations, changes in higher education and the business environment?
How might an introductory management curriculum bridge a perceived skill gap between education and real-world managerial applications? Is this disconnect between theory and practice getting wider or narrower? What empirical methods might be used to examine this? What are the practical implications, if any, of previous studies?
Undergraduates often face challenges when learning management concepts because they have insufficient life/work experiences to apply theory to practice and to move conceptually from practice to theory. How might introductory courses address this developmental challenge?
How have the liberal arts been integrated with management education in introductory coursework—or how might they be—and with what outcomes?
Where in the curriculum should introductory management courses be positioned and how should they be linked to other courses? What classroom activities that dominate today’s undergraduate management courses involve comprehensive pedagogies?
How do teaching methods affect learning outcomes for the introduction to management? What alternatives are there to the classroom, such as on-the-job introductions, experiential formats, and so on? What are their respective strengths and weaknesses in promoting learning?
What are the differences in the introduction to management curricula between graduate, undergraduate, and executive students? Should course designs differ between management and nonmanagement majors and, if so, how?
What nonmainstream “management as unusual” contents are or should be covered? How have initiatives such as the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education affected introductory management course curricula?
We seek submissions across JME’s four sections: Research/Conceptual articles, Essays, Instructional Innovations, and Instructional Change in Context. Submissions should be original, not submitted to or published in any other sources, and follow JME submission guidelines available online at http://jme.sagepub.com. Prospective authors and potential reviewers are invited to contact the co-editors of the special issue to discuss paper ideas and concepts before submission. All submissions are due to the JME submission portal (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jome) no later than August 1, 2016.