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Showing posts with the label management education

How Technology is Narrowing the Gap Between Business and Academia

Someday we might be looking back at those old laptops and cell phones and blow the dust off the keyboards as you would the cover of some rare hard bound book. Across the nation educational platforms are changing bringing with it uncertainty about the future of higher education. As technology disrupts the foundation of business colleges there will be a closer alliance between businesses and academia to generate new solutions that improve the skill sets of graduates. According to a Business Education Jam session it is possible to use technology to narrow the gap between academic and industry stakeholders (Freeman, 2014). The traditional gap that exists between academic knowledge and business knowledge is narrowing as stakeholders and universities take advantage of new technologies that offer a chance to connect at multiple levels. Technology has advanced to the point that communication is moving at a much faster pace than in the past. New generation technologies and the way these t

Creating Higher College Value By Connecting to the Business Community

A common question arises about how to raise the value of higher education. With any societal institution there are stakeholders who look on at the changes and scratch their head as if to state something helpful. Alas nothing comes out! Connecting the business community and their ideas to higher educational may just help raise the value of a college education while promoting higher forms of experimental knowledge. The end user is the ultimate feedback loop that evaluates the product as successful or a failure. The same concept applies to higher education, government, or retail outlets. If the end users are not happy with the product then it will have less value in the future. Turning the scratching of heads into  useful dialogue may just shed a little light on methods of improving higher education output for public consumption. Advanced economies encourage the creation and dissemination of knowledge for growth. Higher education is the formal institution in charge of that process a

Integrating International Business Education For Higher Outcomes

College students collect lots of insightful morsels of knowledge that add to their understandings of their chosen field of study. Unfortunately, many graduates can’t conceptualize the wider context of information and this limits their ability to integrate new information for higher practical application. A study by Annavarjula, et. al. (2014) explores the beneficial practice of creating integrative curriculum blocks to enhance international business education learning.  Integrative learning helps students to make connections between personal experiences and multiple pieces of information learned in the classroom to deeper embed concepts for practical use. When integrative learning is strong it can help students visualize, understand, and overcome difficult problems by using creativity across different spectrums.  Integrative learning is important to international business students as the complexity of understanding world markets can bury even the brightest of minds. Havi

How Management Knowledge Improves Military Adaptability

Military training is focused on learning specific skills to create a well-oiled machine designed to be stable under organizational pressure. A paper by Petrufova (2014) discusses many of the strengths and weaknesses of modern military education. In particular, the paper elaborates on how technical ability is strong but broader management knowledge is lacking for adapting to change.  Adaptable military styles require a broader framework for understanding crisis situations and countering long-term threats. The military relies heavily on technical training to teach soldiers how to complete their day-to-day job functions. Awareness of how their function contributes to the whole and can be adjusted when situations change is lacking. Management skills are needed for officers that control a number of functions simultaneously that require more complex interaction. The process of promotion from within helps to maintain morale and retain knowledge but doesn’t often afford the

Moving to More Difficult Concepts in Management Education

Management education focuses on the development of business gurus that seek to run companies for greater expansion and profit. These programs often talk about management skills, people skills, business skills, finance, and many other primary functions of a manager. A paper by Waddock & Lozano (2013) helps us think beyond primary knowledge and into concepts like reflective practices that develop awareness, systems thinking, and ethical values.  Reflection is a process of understanding oneself in a context of events. Those who are reflective think about the business, its impact, and themselves and can understand events. This understanding leads to better management practices in the future.  Students that develop reflective thinking are more thoughtful about how business practices impact others around them. Without reflection decisions can be limited and self-interested and such thinking has led to major calamity not only for businesses but also stakeholders.  A hig

Developing the Global Mindset from Understanding Cultural Perspectives

The global mindset is important for managing organizations across a wide spectrum of cultures as well as working effectively within particular cultures. A study by Masakowski, et. al. (2013) discusses the concept of the global mindset and how a sample of military veterans was able to improve upon cultural intelligence, metacognitive/cognitive strategies, and their effective/motivational resources for learning. The study helps to highlight some of the factors in developing global managers. Business education is beginning to incorporate the global mindset into their curriculum in an effort to create stronger global strategic decision-making. This mindset is fostered through multi-cultural interactions within classrooms (Rhinesmith, 1992). It may also be fostered in companies through cross collaborative projects and service oriented learning. The global mindset can be used in business organizations, military units, or geographical dispersed projects. Global leadership skills