How to train enlightened managers

The advent of business management (the management) as an academic discipline is a relatively new phenomenon. The business schoolswhich emerged in France at the end of the 19th century, offered vocational education but were not recognized by universities.

In the United States, the first business schools were founded in the early 20th century to provide technical training and prepare managers for nascent industries such as railroads and steel, as well as professionals responsible for setting up international trade structures for government. federal of the United States.

Management (more research)

The technical nature of the knowledge offered by business schools experienced a turning point at the end of the 1950s, when a report by the American Ford and Carnegie foundations recommended that these centers develop more academic research, following the characteristic methodology of other sciences. social, such as economics or sociology.

Since then, there has been a boom in research production in the field of management, along with the creation of a significant number of academic journals in various disciplines, driven by the development of business schools. The result is a self-sufficient academic marketplace.

The impressive display of academic research in management has led to a debate about whether its nature has been distorted and its impact has been lost. Criticism about the relevance of the knowledge generated by business schools is a recurring theme. For example, Pfeffer and Fong provided evidence to support that business research and the real problems business managers face in their daily lives are increasingly divergent.

good research

In his booklet Theory and practice, the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that there is no substantial difference between what might be called theoretical research and applied research. There is simply good and bad research: good research is consistent with the real world and compatible with applied problems, bad research is sterile intellectual speculation. This assessment is just as valid today.

If business schools are to produce more relevant research, they will need to find ways to strengthen the links between academia and business. Costas Markides, from the London Business School, talks about teachers ambidiestrosarguing that it is a mistake both to underestimate the value of academic research and not to take a global perspective.

According to Markides, the organic separation in the structure of the schools between the academics and the practical or adjunct professors is also wrong. His proposals to encourage younger scholars to publish not only in academic journals, but also in professional journals, are a way forward. This can stimulate the transfer of academic research to the teaching and dissemination environment, as well as encourage cooperation between companies to identify new ideas and research models.

Along the same lines, my colleague from IE University Salvador Carmona and I have argued that the irrelevance of some contributions from business schools may be due to the system of recognition and compensation of academics. In this sense, although the social impact of academic research is demanded, publication in academic journals is fundamentally rewarded.

academy and company

It would be desirable for business school research to combine internal and external validity, for business school faculty to develop rigorous and relevant research, and to interact with practitioners. Persuading professors to combine research and teaching activities with interaction with industry to disseminate their research results would require a transformation of recognition and compensation systems, as well as an emphasis on the external impact of research. This is a collective challenge.

In addition, these changes would have implications for the structure of business schools, their governance system, and the resources available to teachers.

Perhaps part of this change could be achieved by broadening the attachment of management research from the social sciences to the humanities. An interesting proposal sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation, which has already propelled the scientific turn in management schools, could offer a way forward: the report “Rethinking Undergraduate Management Education: Liberal Learning for the Profession” (2011), recommends that undergraduate in Business Administration, one of the most sought-after programs in both America and Europe, take an open-ended approach, similar to liberal arts undergraduate programs.

This proposal would give the humanities a greater presence both in the curriculum of management courses and in the research carried out in business schools. It would also help to break the so-called silos –in reference to university departments–, promoting interdisciplinary research between the areas of Humanities and STEM, and overcoming the fallacious separation between areas commingle y hard.

Science and humanities

Professional reality also belies this separation between the sciences and the humanities: Many of today’s most successful tech entrepreneurs have bachelor’s degrees in liberal arts, even if they later specialized in technical studies at the master’s level. As Scott Hartley, author of The Fuzzie and the Techie, explains, career profiles of techies have traditionally been contrasted with those of the fuzzies. Those are the terms used at Stanford University to designate STEM students versus humanities students, respectively.

The ideal profile of graduates should integrate both facets: professionals with a broad vision of the world, cultivated and enlightened, but with a solid knowledge of technology, programming or data management. Hartley provides a long list of business leaders who combine these two indissoluble parts of the true entrepreneur. He also provides powerful arguments on how to solve the problems posed by the development of technology and artificial intelligence, insisting that a philosophical and humanistic perspective is required.

New habilities

This evolution toward the humanities is also reflected in the increasing number of business schools that have introduced liberal arts subjects into their curricula. Making the humanities a central part of all degrees will cement the learning experience and develop open-minded and well-rounded graduates.

Teaching modern art, for example, fosters skills such as perception and observation, typical of artists and architects, which can help traditionally action-oriented managers to be more reflective when assessing risk.

Courses on foreign cultures can help managers better lead intercultural teams in their global companies. The critical thinking modules can be useful to rethink ethically questionable decisions.

We live in a good time to take advantage of the benefits of classical education in business schools.

A version of this article was posted on LinkedIn.

Santiago Iñiguez de Onzoño, President of IE University, IE University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.