Launching an Online Business Program at Scale: A Retrospective Case Study of Disruptive Innovation Before the Pandemic

How does an online graduate business program become the fastest growing program in a short span of 5 years, in a category that has been showing constant decline in the last decade? This article takes a retrospective look at the journey from conception to launch and early implementation of an innovative online program at a large public university about half a decade before the pandemic. Extant research about online learning focuses on educational strategies, the changing roles of faculty in a new environment, or students’ satisfaction and performance in online learning programs or courses. This article takes a broad-based view to discuss details on the strategy, design, and development of a disruptive online graduate program built for scale. Given the accelerated transition into remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, our journey also has important implications from the forward-looking approach of half a decade ago for how higher education should navigate the digital future.

Interpersonal Mindfulness in Leadership Development: A Delphi Study

Mindfulness is increasingly being used within leadership development to enhance managers’ wellbeing and leadership capability. Given the relational nature of leadership, we posit that an interpersonal form of mindfulness has the potential to offer benefits over and above those provided by personal or internal mindfulness. We therefore chose a Delphi research methodology to consult and achieve consensus among expert practitioners, exploring if and how interpersonal mindfulness, in the specific form of the Interpersonal Mindfulness Program (IMP), can contribute to leadership development. Our aims were, firstly, to identify the necessary components of an IMP-based leadership development program and, secondly, to create guidelines for practitioners. Through four phases of data-gathering and feedback, we achieved consensus among 39 experts on guidelines for how to develop a leadership development program based on the IMP, contextual factors that will act as facilitators or barriers, and selection and screening of participants. The intention is that the resulting guidelines will support the implementation of coherent, consistent IMP-based leadership development, sensitive both to its origins and to the context.

Fear or Competition? Antecedents to U.S. Business Student Immigration Attitudes

Immigration is an important and contemporary topic in management education given its impact on labor, wages, innovation, and diversity. However, extant research offers few insights into the antecedents to student immigration attitudes. Survey data from undergraduate students taking business courses at two large public universities in the southeast U.S. reveal that while student attitudes toward immigration are more moderate than the general U.S. population, these attitudes differ by gender, political affiliation, and immigration background. Following realistic conflict theory and social identity theory, these student immigration attitudes are a function of both fear and competition. First, their attitudes are confounded by conflicting antecedents in perceived personal competition for resources with immigrants (e.g., jobs, wages) versus immigration benefits (e.g., costs, labor base, innovation). Second, xenophobia (fear of immigrants) is a remarkably powerful influencer of one’s immigration attitude and its antecedents. With these points, management educators must engage students in critical thinking about immigration to prepare them to effectively work with diverse colleagues and business partners while leading global organizations. We, therefore, present four cross-disciplinary areas of intersection between immigration and management education, including diversity and cultural intelligence, human resource management and ethics, entrepreneurship and innovation, and finally, economic and socioeconomic impacts.

Promoting Case-Based Learning in Business Higher Education in the Middle East and North Africa Region

The case method has made inroads as a pedagogical tool that can sharpen students’ analytical skills and better prepare them for the reality awaiting them professionally. Despite its deep-seated origins in the West, the case method remains underused in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The purpose of this study is to explore the main challenges that MENA business higher education institutions face in effecting case-based learning and the key initiatives that may help in addressing them. Building on our extensive experience with case studies production and teaching in the MENA context, and a pioneering exploratory research involving 40 instructors, students, and administrators from three leading business schools in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, we shed new light on the skills and contextual challenges that MENA business higher education institutions encounter when implementing the case method. We also propose a framework that integrates a wide range of initiatives to promote case-based learning in MENA. At the heart of this framework is the “community building” effort advocated as a catalyst to support case writing, teaching, solving, and publishing, as well as the development of a culture conducive to an effective deployment of the case method in the specific MENA context.

Contrasting 4 Year Outcomes Associated With Introduction to Management Courses

Management faculty members have had a longstanding interest in the design of the Introduction to Management Course as it presents an opportune point to provide students with the foundational skills for success in their Management Studies. Since many Management majors take these courses during their freshman year in the university, the courses are, intentionally or not, also settings for helping students transition to the university both academically and socially. This paper reports on a study of the 4-year outcomes associated with this potential of Introduction to Management courses to help with students’ transition into university-level studies. Specifically, it contrasts 4-year graduation outcomes among three different Introduction to Management courses taken by a freshman business student cohort of a large, public, university. The study results show a course that focused on life skill building was associated with better 4-year graduation outcomes than theory-driven and business overview classes. Contrary to expectations, the study indicated that there were no significant differences among students enrolled in the classes in terms of other important student characteristics known to impact graduation rates, including underrepresented minority (URM) and first-generation status, SAT or ACT scores, self-reported GPA, and exposure to university-level URM student success and achievement programs.

Short-Term Study Abroad Research: A Systematic Review 2000-2019

Short-term study abroad (STSA) programs are the fastest growing segment of experiential learning programs in management education and the least studied. This is the first systematic review of STSA research, which focuses on 156 studies on STSA published between 2000 and 2019 and proposes a conceptual model to guide STSA research scholars. Through this detailed review, we provide a greater understanding of the scale, scope, key themes, and methodology of STSA research. Our article identifies the four key groups of theories used to inform STSA research, and provides insight into the variables and characteristics of STSA research, and the role of STSA in management education. Our review identifies 85 thematic outcomes found in the STSA literature and gives a particular focus to the 29 cross-cultural outcomes that characterize this literature. The review provides the first systematic analysis of cross-cultural outcomes within STSA research and identifies behavioral attributes as among the most studied. Cultural and learning theories were found to be the dominant theories that informed the underlying concepts in the STSA literature. Our review also provides a comprehensive agenda and directions for future STSA research, discussion on its impact, and its place in management education.

Curriculum Adaptation for Blended Learning in Resource-Scarce Contexts

Drawing on three action research case studies involving several African universities, this article critically explores how academics converted their previously pure classroom-based courses for delivery through blended learning. The case studies reflect resource-scarce contexts where limited access to digital technology and the internet poses unique challenges to universities seeking to scale-up management education to the geographically distant and culturally diverse student population. Results from analyzing the case studies, through the concept of curriculum adaptation, were drawn upon to develop a theoretical framework for use by academics planning to transition from face-to-face to blended learning environments. The article uncovers the difficulties of, and opportunities for, creating learning communities that enable classroom-based, face-to-face teaching to be blended with online learning in ways that foster locally relevant, purposive interactions among academics and students, while scaling-up access to management education. The article concludes with a discussion of opportunities for management educators to introduce online learning in their existing classroom-based management courses.

Republication of “Principles of effective course design: What I wish I had known about learning-centered teaching 30 years ago”

Ten years ago, after 20 years as a university professor, I was asked to direct the teaching and learning support center at my university. I quickly realized I had almost no knowledge of the published scholarship on this subject. From my reading of this literature, I found the research on the predictors of student learning particularly informative. In particular, I gained an appreciation for the impact of course design. In this article, I summarize a framework for designing “significant learning experiences.” In discussing the three key components of course design (learning outcomes, learning activities, and learning assessments), I offer tips and give examples relevant for the field of management. My intent is to share the most important information I have learned from a decade of conversations with experts on student learning—the things I wish someone had taught me 30 years ago.