ABSTRACT

One of the most common complaints about management education is its continuing reliance on traditional models that students are expected to apply to solve problems of practice. However, the dilemmas that managers increasingly encounter are so chaotic, emergent and multi-faceted that pre-determined models may offer little more than an illusion of certainty and an inadequately linear way to proceed. Other complaints about management education charge a lack of direction, individualistic focus and relatively low level of engagement with actual business organizations (Khurana 2007; Starkey and Tempest 2009; Landfester, Tofte Brenneche and Prat-i-Pubill, this volume). It might be reasonable to suggest a connection between these problems: due to the fact that management education remains separated from contemporary struggles of management practice on-the-ground, its curricula may not be as helpful as they might for inducting new professionals into the practices and politics of emergent, dynamic complexity.