scholarly journals Restating the case: How revisiting the development of the case method can help us think differently about the future of the business school

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Bridgman ◽  
Stephen Cummings ◽  
C McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Business School ◽  
Business Schools ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Case Method ◽  
Harvard Business School ◽  
Linear Evolution ◽  
Management Learning ◽  
Innovative Thinking ◽  
History Of

© Academy of Management Learning & Education. Although supportive of calls for business schools to learn the lessons of history to address contemporary challenges about their legitimacy and impact, we argue that our ability to learn is limited by the histories we have created. Through contrasting the contested development of the case method of teaching at Harvard Business School and the conventional history of its rise, we argue that this history, which promotes a smooth linear evolution, works against reconceptualizing the role of the business school. To illustrate this, we develop a "counterhistory" of the case method-one that reveals a contested and circuitous path of development-and discuss how recognizing this would encourage us to think differently. This counterhistory provides ameans of stimulating debate and innovative thinking about how business schools can address their legitimacy challenges, and, in doing so, have a more positive impact on society.

scholarly journals Restating the case: How revisiting the development of the case method can help us think differently about the future of the business school

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Bridgman ◽  
Stephen Cummings ◽  
C McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Business School ◽  
Business Schools ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Case Method ◽  
Harvard Business School ◽  
Linear Evolution ◽  
Management Learning ◽  
Innovative Thinking ◽  
History Of

© Academy of Management Learning & Education. Although supportive of calls for business schools to learn the lessons of history to address contemporary challenges about their legitimacy and impact, we argue that our ability to learn is limited by the histories we have created. Through contrasting the contested development of the case method of teaching at Harvard Business School and the conventional history of its rise, we argue that this history, which promotes a smooth linear evolution, works against reconceptualizing the role of the business school. To illustrate this, we develop a "counterhistory" of the case method-one that reveals a contested and circuitous path of development-and discuss how recognizing this would encourage us to think differently. This counterhistory provides ameans of stimulating debate and innovative thinking about how business schools can address their legitimacy challenges, and, in doing so, have a more positive impact on society.

Transatlantic Influence in the Shaping of Business Education: The Origins of IMD, 1946–1990

2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas David ◽  
Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Business Education ◽  
Business School ◽  
Management Development ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Harvard Business School ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Reciprocal Influences

The history of the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), one of the most prestigious business schools in the world, highlights the role of multinationals in establishing business education in Europe and the problem of legitimacy. The creation of IMD's predecessors CEI and IMEDE by Alcan and Nestlé also illuminates the role of Harvard Business School in their development and the reciprocal influences of American and European management education after World War II.

Business Education and Anxiety in the Performance of Value

2020 ◽  
pp. 260-270
Author(s):  
Fabian Muniesa
Keyword(s):  
Business Education ◽  
Business School ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Case Method ◽  
Harvard Business School ◽  
Experiential Training ◽  
Financial Valuation ◽  
Cultural Complex ◽  
Training Technique ◽  
Education Today

Business education epitomizes the cultural complex that situates performance (understood both as the intensification of valuation and as the spectacle of decision) at the center of social life. The experiential training technique known as the case method, famously recognizable as a Harvard Business School product, carries in particular a series of meanings that are central to the formation of the ideals of performance, adventure, effectiveness, and aplomb that distinguish business education today. It also conveys, however, elements of anxiety that are characteristic of the notion of the real that is actioned in such a setting. This hypothesis is explored here through an examination of early and contemporary aspects of the case method at the Harvard Business School, in particular in the financial valuation curriculum. It is suggested that the performative features of the case method, widely understood, concur with an exacerbation of the troubling aspects of the “performance complex.”

Sixteenth-Century Writings on Bookkeeping: Acquired by the Kress Library of Business and Economics

1960 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothea D. Reeves
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Business School ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Harvard Business School ◽  
History Of

Two recent acquisitions of the Kress Library, a part of Baker Library of the Harvard Business School, will be of particular interest to business historians. The Kress Library, rich in the history of economic institutions and business life, as well as in material on the progress of economic thought, has a strong and varied collection on bookkeeping, to which it has recently added two rare volumes.

scholarly journals Management education and the theatre of the absurd

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 591-606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Starkey ◽  
Sue Tempest ◽  
Silvia Cinque
Keyword(s):  
Business School ◽  
Management Education ◽  
Business Schools ◽  
Eugene Ionesco ◽  
Theatre Of The Absurd ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Aspects

In this article, we recommend the drama of theatre of the absurd as a novel space for critically reflecting upon management and management education as shaped by the forces of emotion, irrationality and conformism rather than reason. We discuss the theatre of the absurd as uniquely relevant to understanding our troubled times. We present a brief overview of the history of business schools and management education. We apply the idea of absurdity to the world of business schools and management education, focusing on the work of one of the theatre of the absurd’s leading proponents, Eugène Ionesco. We emphasise the importance of fiction and fantasy as key aspects of organisation and education. We contribute to debates about management education by reflecting on possible futures for management education and the business school, embracing the humanities as a core disciplinary focus. We suggest that this will help rebalance management education, retaining the best of the existing curriculum, while re-situating the study of management in its broader historical and philosophical nexus.

The production of educational space: Heterotopia and the business university

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 521-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timon Beyes ◽  
Christoph Michels
Keyword(s):  
Business School ◽  
Management Education ◽  
Business Schools ◽  
Physical Design ◽  
Productive Force ◽  
Management Learning ◽  
Spatial Understanding ◽  
Experimental Teaching ◽  
Future State ◽  
The Future

This article responds to recent calls for rethinking management education and fostering a spatial understanding of educational practices. We propose to introduce Foucault’s notion of heterotopic space and the spatial thought of Lefebvre into the debate about the current and future state of business schools. In particular, we conceptually and empirically discuss the potential for understanding space in a way that addresses its productive force, its multiplicity and its inherent contradictions. Using the example of an experimental teaching project dedicated to the conception and physical design of a city of the future, we reflect upon the possibility of the emergence of ‘other’, heterotopic spaces within an institution of management learning. Our findings suggest that spatial interventions facilitate critically affirmative engagement with the business school by offering an imaginative approach to management education.

Book Reviews

2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 1299-1303
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Business School ◽  
Political History ◽  
Business Administration ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
Harvard Business School ◽  
History Of

Valerie A. Ramey of University of California, San Diego and NBER reviews “The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran, and Ultimately Gave Away the Panama Canal” by Noel Maurer and Carlos Yu. The EconLit abstract of the reviewed work begins, “Chronicles the economic and political history of the Panama Canal from the origins of the idea in sixteenth-century Spain to the present day. Discusses an introduction to the Ditch; before the Ditch; preparing the Ditch; digging the Ditch; crossing the Ditch; passed by the Ditch; sliding into irrelevancy; ditching the Ditch; and concluding the Ditch. Maurer is Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Yu is an economic historian and private consultant. Index.”

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