Journal of Management Education

In this essay, we explore why there has traditionally been so little emphasis on teaching preparation in business doctoral programs. Program administrators and faculty typically espouse support for teaching development; yet the existing reward systems are powerfully aligned in favor of a focus on research competency. Indeed, through the lens of a performance diagnostic model, it is entirely predictable that doctoral programs have not offered more teaching development opportunities, as administrators often do not have the requisite motivation, ability, opportunity, or resources to develop comparable teaching competence. However, given that the average graduate will take a professorial position with greater than 50% of responsibilities devoted to teaching, most external observers would conclude that there is a curious dearth of teaching preparation in contemporary business doctoral programs. However understandable the dearth of teaching development, we argue that those reasons are no longer acceptable, and the present essay is predominately a call for change. Suggestions for enhancing the depth and nature of teaching development are offered, and we include some examples of progressive initiatives underway in the hopes of provoking a more intense conversation on the teaching preparation of the next generation of business professors.

This article explores how part-time students in an online international management course perceived various features of the course-learning design and whether international perspectives were built into their learning experiences. The focus of the study was on cross-cultural differences across groups of learners in the United Kingdom, in other European countries, and in Russia and studying the course in different languages. Using a mixed-method approach, the study’s results challenge the distinction between “internationalization at home” and “internationalization away” perspectives on curricula, due to growing numbers of students studying online from their home countries. Study participants reported high degrees of engagement with international perspectives, but their experience can be best described as “internationalization at a distance,” where traditional campus-based acculturation effects were not observed. The article concludes with a discussion of opportunities for management educators to develop a “glocal” approach to online course curriculum design, intentionally blending global perspectives with locally relevant knowledge and managerial skills.

In light of the prominent role of socio-materiality in contemporary social scientific, and particularly educational research, this article uses two practice-based theories to investigate the experiences of German business management professionals on a U.K.-based DBA delivered in Germany. We specifically take concepts from cultural historical activity theory and actor network theory to explore the evolving relationships between professional and academic identities as revealed in qualitative interviews with individual students and supervising faculty. The discussion underlines the potential of these theories to produce rich understandings of the identity formation of researching professionals. We conclude that professional doctorates should be seen not just as specific forms of advanced professional training but as complex and indeterminate processes. Findings suggest that earning a professional doctorate degree often feels like a journey leading to some form of metacognitive shift from a problem-solving mindset to a more critical appreciation of different ways of knowing.

This article presents a rubric for evaluating student performance on written case assignments that require qualitative analysis. This rubric is designed for three purposes. First, it informs students of the criteria on which their work will be evaluated. Second, it provides instructors with a reliable instrument for accurately measuring and grading student performance on written case assignments. Third, if the rubric is used multiple times during the semester, student progress can also be measured. In addition, we piloted an instrument, with statistically confirmed reliability, for measuring students’ perceptions of the benefits of the rubric.

The Kobayashi Maru is a training simulation that has its roots in the Star Trek series notable for its defining characteristic as a no-win scenario with no “correct” resolution and where the solution actually involves redefining the problem. Drawing upon these characteristics, we designed a board meeting simulation for an experiential course in nonprofit governance, which places students in a high-stakes decision-making situation closely modeled on real events. To do so, we uniquely integrated principles from acting literature with theory and research in training and development. The Kobayashi Maru Meeting is a simulation with high physical and psychological fidelity—that is, one that closely resembles the “look and feel” of real-world board governance. The topics are deliberately sensitive to personal, organizational, and societal values to create high engagement and deep learning and to highlight the importance of good governance for organizational leadership. Results from multisource, multimethod data suggest that the simulation enhanced students’ decision making, critical thinking, and communication skills, as well as their ability to deal with their own and others’ reactions in intense circumstances. Beyond board governance, the simulation creates an authentic learning experience that can be adapted to multiple learning contexts including leadership, ethics, decision making, and communication.