Keywords Managers, Education, Learning, Skills

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
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 and leadership

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:
(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.
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

According to Longenecker and Ariss (2002), management education is beneficial to
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;
. 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 managers confidence, reducing a managers stress level and
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 managers 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

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.
(3) Decisional roles. These include a entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource
allocator, and negotiator roles. Decisional roles might be the most crucial part of
a managers work as performing the roles justifies the managers great
authority and his powerful access to information. Mintzberg emphasized that
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. 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 students
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.

istorically, there has been debate whether being a good manager is a skill, trait, or
inherent behavior. Originally, the theory that the effectiveness of the manager is
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
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 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.

All the five dimensions represent managerial skills based on different areas. We
critically discuss, in order, the areas mentioned above (Mintzberg and Gosling, 2002,
pp. 64-75).
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 ones 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 persons expectations;
(3) skill to incorporate those expectations in ones subsequent behavior; and
(4) self-control to stay focused on the other persons 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
The fourth dimension, managing context, deals with international development of
managers and is based on the assumption that being exposed to other peoples worlds
brings insight to ones 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.
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
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.

What should be taught?

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 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
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?

Among formal education techniques, higher education is the most popular. Business
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
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).
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

s through lecture or other more creative ways of teaching, the management student
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
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
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,
Harvards 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 Chandlers 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 Demings 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 scholars 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-sighted
understanding of the role and responsibilities of multinational corporations (Harmon,
2003).
Douglas McGregor (1906-1964)
Best-known for his theory X and theory Y regarding achievement motivation, the 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 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 scholars work was his continuous critique of MBA programs, which even led him
to the expression, you cant 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.

Limitations of management education

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 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
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
Stanfords 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
managers learn more from all other types of learning processes? The return on
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
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
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.