Whither the MBA? Or the Withering of MBAs?

This article employs a critical realist perspective to contextualize management education, including the MBA, and facilitate debate on the prospects for its reinvention. Two decades of substantive management education critique has not resulted in any fundamental change in models of content and proce...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inManagement learning Vol. 38; no. 4; pp. 405 - 423
Main Authors Welsh, M. Ann, Dehler, Gordon E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England Sage Publications 01.09.2007
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Action theory
Higher education
Legitimacy
Legitimation
Management
Management development
Management development programmes
MBA programs & graduates
Ontology
Pedagogy
Prospects
Realism
Training
Transformation
critical realism
critical pedagogy
Key Words: management education
action research
MBA programmes
ontology
legitimation crisis
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Summary:This article employs a critical realist perspective to contextualize management education, including the MBA, and facilitate debate on the prospects for its reinvention. Two decades of substantive management education critique has not resulted in any fundamental change in models of content and process used to educate managers. We argue this is a matter of ontology and discuss the advantages of critical realist ontology for addressing this issue. A critical realist analysis identifies the generative mechanisms at work that both necessitate and constrain reinvention. We argue that one generative mechanism in particular, a legitimation crisis, could ultimately lead to the transformation of management education. This is explored systemically at the institutional, programmatic and pedagogical levels.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
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ISSN:1350-5076
1461-7307
DOI:10.1177/1350507607080572