The Theory/Applications Balance in Management Pedagogy: Where Do We Stand?

Abstract

Business schools are expected to be "professional" in the sense that their mission is primarily to prepare people to practice their skills in the business world. Various critics, however, claim that management professors overemphasize theory and research and neglect the practice and applications students need to transfer classroom theory to the world of practice. This study compared an earlier sample with a more recent sample of Academy of Management members concerning the relative emphasis they believed should be placed on theory and applications in management pedagogy and the techniques they used to bring applications into the classroom. Current respondents believed that more emphasis should be placed on applications than the earlier respondents. An unexpected finding, however, was that the more recent respondents reported a lower mean usage of pedagogical techniques that are appropriate for developing students' ability to apply course concepts than the previous group. Possible reasons for these incongruent findings are discussed as well as the implications for management pedagogy.