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The article presents abstracts pertaining to management education and development including "Creating High Impact Learning Environments," by Ellen Auster and Krista Wylie, "Evaluating the Effectiveness of OB Teaching Methods: A Results Oriented Approach," by James Shaw, and "The Masks We Wear: Acting in the Classroom," by Yehuda Beruch.

While interest in the subject of values has grown markedly over the last decade, reflected in a flow of conceptual and empirical papers in the management and organization literature, the subject of human values has not received serious attention in management curricula. The purpose of this paper is to describe the design and development of a course on values and management and to provide the reader a guide in developing his or her own course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores antecedents of knowledge creation in a globalized business school industry. We focus on linguistic socialization of researchers as a contingency factor which influences the ability of academics to extract value from the quality of their professional socialization and from social capital embedded in their knowledge network (1). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the need for greater balance in business education and professional practice between intuitive or nonlinear thought, and the linear thought of logic and reason. A self-report instrument for measuring this balance is presented, tested, and validated after administration of the instrument to 293 undergraduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argyris (1962) argued that less emphasis was needed on learned managers and more on learning managers and that learning about the process of learning is a 'timeless wisdom'. Central to a self-awareness and personal understanding of one's own learning processes are theories and principles drawn from cognitive psychology and specifically individual differences in information processing (cognitive style). To explore this issue in the broader context of management education this paper will: (i) describe the axioms upon which management education is based; (ii) briefly explore the scope of management education's pedagogical axiom; (iii) describe and analyze a number of principles from cognitive theory upon which management education's pedagogical axiom may draw; (iv) describe a conceptual framework for cognitive style; (v) explore the opportunities and challenges that a cognitive style principle may present for the practice of management education. It is argued that management education's pedagogical axiom has embraced experiential learning theory, but that it plays down the significance of information processing theories. One implication of this is that whilst conventional approaches may acknowledge individual differences in the ways in which learners engage in an experiential learning cycle they may overlook differences in the ways in which learners represent, process and organize information in memory. In adopting such a stance management educators run the risk of ignoring important cognitive aspects of individual difference. This paper will suggest ways in which individual differences in verbal-visual, wholist-analytical and rational-intuitive processing may be acknowledged and accommodated in management education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vital part of successful organizational life is the communication abilities of its employees. As a result of this, course work in organizational communication has increased in the past five years in colleges and universities. While courses in organizational communication are on the increase, little has been done to test the effectiveness of those courses. Also, little effort has been made in examining the trait called communication apprehension from an organizational perspective. Much research about this trait has been conducted on an interpersonal and small group level; however, much of this empirical work can find a place in organizational communication. The authors of this paper define communication apprehension as an anxiety syndrome with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons (McCroskey, 1970). Phillips (1968) refers to a similar variable "reticence" which is when a person has so much "anxiety about participation in oral communication it outweighs his projection of gain from the situation" (p. 40). The focus of this paper is to explore experience-based learning within business communication courses. Additionally, the variable communication apprehension will be examined from a pre-test, posttest experimental design in these organizational classes to determine if experience-based learning in organizational communication classes reduces communication apprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a pedagogical technique that has been used successfully in Executive MBA programs: the live-case intervention. This method consists of a CEO bringing to the classroom a strategic issue that he/she is currently struggling with to be addressed jointly with a team of students in real-time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The infrequent application of management research may not result from inappropriate research or organizational characteristics which frustrates such application, but from managers' lack of training in using our findings. This paper argues that some current themes in theorizing (and thus teaching) about organizations may reduce managers' abilities to apply research. The question of why practicing managers seem not to be making conspicuously frequent use of academic research on problems of organizational management has been the topic of much recent discussion. One view is that the problem lies in the nature of our research, while another claims to locate the problem in the characteristics of the organizations in which our potential research users are situated. This paper suggests a third alternative explanation: that research findings are not applied because few managers have the training to understand and appreciate our work. It argues that although we have the opportunity, in classroom and management development settings, to improve managers' abilities to understand our research, recent trends in academic theorizing may preclude the exposure of these managers/students to the type of research with the greater likelihood of applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introductory Production/Operations Management course is beneficial to all business students. Yet it is difficult to structure and teach. Why? This paper suggests how the course got into troubles, what the problem is, and how to reshape the course using the manager's knowledge needs as the key criterion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the current "mindscape" of the many voices for change in management education? This paper examines these voices and suggests they might be meaningfully translated into the business curriculum through the exploration and integration of curricular paradigms which have a broader view of managerial knowledge and cognitive skill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business Administration professors have largely ignored encouraging or training women to take executive positions. The relevant actor in the business textbooks and lectures is the male. As a result of the women's movement, the prospects for women have improved; but academia has failed to prepare women to take advantage of those opportunities. This paper discusses insights gained from designing and teaching a course for potential women executives and suggests materials which should be included. The course consisted of five parts: 1. Consciousness Raising and Confidence Building: deals with instilling confidence in women that they can be executives 2. The Impact of Working Women on Society and the Economy: discusses the impact that will revolutionize the job market and society's preoccupation with reproduction 3. How to be a Professional: concerns an attitude that will answer many of the objections employers have for not hiring women 4. Effective Management - Feminine Style: places emphasis on women executives as role models 5. Marriage and Career: describes the two-career family as a newly-emerging social pattern that will change the world as we have known it. The paper concludes that it is imperative for more courses like this to be added to curriculums and that the absence of a role model is the critical factor discouraging women seeking high level positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper raises the question of how Management educators can facilitate the transfer of quantitative and behavioral theory to real world applications. The authors propose simulation gaming as a pedagogical technique to merge quantitative and behavioral theory within an applied environment. The authors discuss historical uses of simulation gaming, and also propose several keys to the successful implementation of this relative new technology. Also discussed are specific quantitative and behavioral exercises which have been used in conjunction with complex simulation games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the impact of a centralized electronic peer evaluation system on the attitudes and performance of undergraduate business students over a pair of semesters. Three-hundred and nine undergraduate students evaluated, and were evaluated, by their peers using a web-based system that captures peer evaluations in quantitative and qualitative formats. Results show that the comfort of students in evaluating others increases over semesters although this effect could not be directly attributed to the use of the peer evaluation system. Similarly, the effectiveness of students, as perceived by peers, also increased over semesters. The results of this study underscore the benefits of centralizing peer evaluations for the assessment of important skills and their development in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a description of a business course project focused on great leaders. It is said that the project, which takes the form of an educational game, can help students to remember and apply topics which are relevant to issues of business leadership. The project focuses on the ways in which great leadership can be enabled or hindered by the contexts in which leadership is exercised. A description is presented of the teaching methods and rules of the game. A list of historical figures who can be used to illustrate the principles of great leadership is included, which includes Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong and the Ayatollah Khomeini.

While there is an increasing body of evidence that suggests that instructor behaviors significantly influence student perceptions of on-line courses, studies of the effects of factors in place prior to the start of an on-line course are rather limited. Identifying non-instructor dependent factors could help business schools accelerate the development of their on-line courses and programs. This paper considers the question of whether instructors and schools can increase the likelihood of success for their on-line courses by examining the technological and pedagogical structure of courses and their relationship to student learning and satisfaction. Since the research was conducted in two phases using data from eleven semesters of MBA courses, this study is one of the first longitudinal studies of the effectiveness of online management education. The results of the study indicated that technological characteristics were generally more significant predictors of perceived student learning and delivery medium satisfaction, but pedagogical characteristics were more significant predictors of course satisfaction over time. Other notable findings include significantly different patterns of predictors of perceived learning over time, and that the perceived flexibility of the delivery medium ceased to be a significant predictor of perceived learning and course satisfaction after the first phase of the study. Overall, the findings suggest that the criteria for developing and delivering effective web-based instruction are becoming both more complex and more difficult to attain. Therefore, business schools would do well to cultivate unique areas of strength rather than relying upon generalized formulas for developing their web-based courses and programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few MBA Programs provide preparation for the increasingly important management role of coach. This paper reports on one such effort. Students in a second-year MBA elective in leadership, as part of their participation in the course, serve as coaches in an assessment program, similar to a developmental assessment center, for freshmen business students. MBA leadership students and alumni are trained to coach the freshmen through observation of their behavior in structured exercises, working with other coaches to develop a feedback and coaching plan for the students, and conducting an individual coaching interview. This is the first opportunity that many MBA students have had to engage in a helping relationship. Questionnaires and writing assignments, completed by the MBA students, illuminate some of the key challenges that management coaches must confront. Developmental coaching requires that the coach carefully observe both individual and context, support the individual's expression of a personal learning agenda, separate intent from behavior while trying to understand both, and maintain a high level of trust in the coaching relationship. Coaching is a challenging, complex and highly variable task likely requiring on-going learning and reflection for its successful execution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication is consistently listed as one of the most important skills of managers, yet it is an area to which little time is devoted in most BBA and MBA programs. Most communication courses currently offered to business majors artificially separate oral and written communication and almost completely ignore the conceptual communication skills of listening and reading. The communication skills managers use are dynamic, with reading, writing, speaking, and listening all intermixed in a stimulus, feedback, and response system. Traditional courses teaching communication skills are inefficient because the instructors can deal with only one student's work at a time, while the remainder sit as passive listeners. This situation is inefficient utilization of both the instructor's and the students' time. This paper describes a new communication course for business students designed to be effectively taught to classes of up to two hundred plus students. It focuses on dynamic communication, integrating writing, reading, speaking, and listening skills. The teaching is based on the principle of instructor "management by exception" and uses video tapes and semi-programmed materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests how management education courses could be more effectively designed by mapping students' perceptions of the stimuli surrounding them and their own responses to these stimuli. Using empirical data from an Undergraduate Research Methods course at a midwestern University, the study demonstrates how to map and interpret the perceptions and the alternative ways in which the instructor can use the information based on the objectives set for the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experiment in job enrichment In the classroom was guided by the Hackman/Oldham job characteristics model. Mixed results were obtained for model-specified relationships. Performance was significantly better and absenteeism significantly lower in the enriched group than in the control group, but the control group had significantly higher satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executives and pundits criticize irrelevance and abstraction in collegiate business education, yet few changes occur. This paper argues that professorial unresponsiveness results from the structure of the business education industry, the university culture, and the professorial reward system. Future changes in academic attitudes may be too late to be useful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will offer a clarification of what a multi-media case is; describe the collection of and teaching of a multi-media case; and, note the benefits and pitfalls of multi-media cases as we have experienced and thought about them. The preparation, equipment, and time requisites are obvious from the above. Less obvious are the different demands on student and instructor. While written cases offer easy reference, audio and visual media require much more remembering. This means reorienting one's information gathering mode, as well as storing the welter of informational bits in new forms or categories. While different from written casework, this is much more like the first-hand experiences people have. Checking facts not in the written materials is done by sampling others. In the instance outlined above, the instructor initiated the areas of focus, but primarily "directed traffic," restated comments and "rewarded" astute remarks. By detailing the collection and teaching of the Brooks Steel Company case we hope to have illustrated the several difficulties, as well as the myriad position potentialities, of this new instructional device. Perhaps others will be encouraged to experiment with and contribute to this effort at introducing realism into the training of administrators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a panel discussion session on the use of the business environment as a teaching aid, as articulated by Dean Allen Wallis of the University of Chicago. Wallis examines the executive program of the University of Chicago on graduate study in business management. The program is intended for students with major executive responsibilities. The objectives of the Executive Program and teaching methods it utilizes are detailed. Some cautions about extending the methods used to other business programs are considered.

The minority MBA may be thought of as a "newcomer" on the corporate scene. Because of the small number of minority MBA's in this country, relatively little is known about these business neophytes. This paper reports on a study undertaken to provide needed information on the career patterns and graduate educational experiences of minority MBA graduates from the Consertium Program for Graduate Study in Management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high fall-out of students from courses is a concern to all business school professors. There are three main variables in the classroom setting - the teacher, the student and the material. Often suggestions are made to innovatively adjust the teacher's behavior and some techniques are suggested to explain certain materials. Not much work is done, however, to examine student perceptions to see what they suggest about the material and teacher variables. It has been suggested that a student's performance is related to the fit between his personality and the class environment. A questionnaire was adapted to the classroom variables. The questionnaire was administered to 48 students in a decision science class followed by submission of the data to a Q-factor analytic program. This program generates types of people. Three main types of students evolve from the data. The first type was externally-oriented. The second type held views corresponding to the ideal student. The third type was interested in the work but was unable to maximize his grade. In each case demographic and grade implications are explained. Not only are the types described in the paper but the attitudes which distinguish them are highlighted. Treating these findings as a constant, suggestions are made to vary the class environment to maximize the student-environment fit in business courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenges of small businesses are many, their need for assistance increasing, while the availability of professional help appears to be dwindling. This paper demonstrates why the professor should view himself as a logical resource and how he, the client, and their respective publics can benefit from the interaction. Attention is directed to the professor's normal function of conveying knowledge; the need for practical experience to continue and development and make teaching material more relevant; the retirement to develop professional behavior by actively integrating knowledge, skills, attitude, and experience. The significance lies in calling attention to the needs of small business and the logical resource to fill the void, and how the professor, by filling this void, can enhance his own capabilities as a professor with significant residual benefits accruing to the many publics which he serves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching general systems theory by requiring students to design a production function is fraught with formidable obstacles. By using a simulated systems approach, through which students may experience the intricacies of systems design, students learn about informal organization, formal organization, personal interaction, human relationships, and of course, systems theory--at both the intellectual and at the visceral level. There are both costs and benefits associated with this approach, and these are detailed in this paper. Also, inferences are made for utilizing a similar approach in teaching a wide variety of business subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates how the concept of "vested interest" can be effectively incorporated into a collective bargaining game construct and, subsequently, enhance the utility of the pedagogy with respect to the maximization of experiential value. During the past five years, the author has utilized the game technique as the primary pedagogy for a graduate level course in collective bargaining. The methodology employed in developing the "vested interest" concept is comprised of the psychological preparation of the student/participants, selection of negotiating teams, and the exogenous and endogenous environments. It is felt that the resultant game closely simulates the psychological environment of labor-management negotiations and, consequently, serves to significantly increase the value of the game as a teaching technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that our business training programs be internationalized because business no longer operates within the so-called American or domestic environment. The world is interdependent and the environment in which companies operate is international. Reporting on trends in employment, Business Week1 indicates a growing need for executives with international skills. This trend is merely the beginning of a new trend. Competition for the limited supply of executives with international skills will intensify. As the firm shifts (whether voluntarily or involuntarily) its focus to the international environment, it no longer needs American marketing, management, accounting, or finance experts. Instead, it needs international experts with ability to solve problems arising from operation within an international environment. With the new international orientation, students must be prepared to deal with the volatile future environment. These "change experts" or "environmental experts" will be responsible for defining and monitoring the environmental parameters under which companies operate at any particular time. Given this determination, they will decide what is suitable to the specific environmental conditions and will coordinate the activities of their "American" functional or "how to do" experts to assure a successful implementation of their strategy. This paper proposes an important step to assure the availability of executives equipped with the (international) skills necessary to handle the business problems of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]