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Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
A Review of “The Learning Curve: How Business
Schools Are Re-Inventing Education”
James L. Morrison
To cite this article: James L. Morrison (2013) A Review of “The Learning Curve: How Business Schools Are Re-Inventing Education”, Journal of Education for Business, 88:4, 246-248, DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2012.685778
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2012.685778
Published online: 20 Apr 2013.
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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 88: 246–248, 2013 CopyrightC Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0883-2323 print / 1940-3356 online DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2012.685778
Book Review
De Onzono, Santiago I˜niguez. The Learning Curve: How Business Schools Are Re-Inventing Education. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. (2011). 202 pp. ISBN: 978-0-230-28023-6.$42.00.
HOW TO RE-INVENT MANAGEMENT EDUCATION
What exactly is management education today? Is it an aca-demic discipline worthy of admiration or is it a collegiate program that promotes misdirected priorities, thus losing its grip of purpose and focus?
What is intriguing about this text is that the author, Santi-ago De Onzono, has vast European and Asian experience as a consultant on management education. Therefore, although management education, and particularly the MBA, is the re-sult of American ingenuity with its roots at the collegiate level in the early 1900s, the American way of delivering graduate and undergraduate education is now being challenged. This text gives a very different perspective as to where the field is today in management education and where the field should be headed.
The intent of the author is to offer a constructive pro-posal for addressing the criticism that business schools, and particularly management educational programs at the grad-uate level, are to blame for the current global economic crises emerging around the world. De Onzono, a profes-sor of strategic management and an expert in management education, argues that business faculty need to re-establish their credentials in order to lead the business community by redesigning graduate curricula to reflect a highly dynamic marketplace where success and failure often come unexpect-edly. He argues that faculty of business schools traditionally have stressed conducting research that has little practical rel-evancy. De Onzono suggests that this must change. Driving this change are three trends: new technology, globalization, and changing demands of students themselves.
The target audience of this publication is graduate busi-ness faculty, although the content also has implications for undergraduate faculty situated in colleges and universities around the world. The content is organized around a proposal demonstrating how business faculty can meet the challenges
of the future by initiating a new era by making substantial changes in both philosophical and operational fundamentals. In this regard, De Onzono suggests that there is a major so-cietal shift occurring whereby economic crises along with conflicting forces of globalization and local diversity are re-shaping the values of the students that are being served in business programs. This clash of realities is also somewhat central to the rate of economic and social progress of coun-tries around the world. In confronting this challenge, De On-zono offers an energetic journey for business faculty to follow for combining the academic traditions associated with both undergraduate and graduate business education with the need for practical solutions to problems facing companies around the world. While the thrust of the text focuses on graduate management education, and particularly the MBA, there are undertones associated with his suggestions that also impact undergraduate business programs.
In other words, De Onzono’s intent is to provide a blueprint for universities that they can follow to reinvent the collegiate business curriculum. The key to the proposal is a need to build a new and expanding bridge between aca-demic research and its practical application. To do this, De Onzono attempts to reshape the future by suggesting an ex-traordinary vision, quite different from the past, for creating a world-class business educational provider. Therefore, to sum up his charge, he answers the question: How do we create new world-class collegiate programs that are academically rigorous while at the same time vocationally relevant?
In this regard, De Onzono suggests that business faculty must initiate new learning experiences for graduate students in particular, such as designing highly interactive and prac-tical learning opportunities for hands-on experience by en-gaging in life-enriching projects in the developing world and beyond. In short, the students of tomorrow and their future employers expect a more world-oriented business graduate that can demonstrate both scholarly excellence and its prac-tical application. This strategy provides a more diversified program of study, especially in graduate business programs, by balancing the specifics of management education with the sensitivities of the humanities, such as art, music, philoso-phy, and history. Therefore,the Learning Curve describes a more liberal approach to preparing graduates to engage their future employers in meaningful dialogue where issues
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related to sustainability, the environment, and general soci-etal welfare are assessed along with product development. To De Onzono, this revision in a program of study is relevant to both graduate and undergraduate programs.
The text is divided into three parts. Part I focuses on de-scribing the rise to prominence of business programs, in par-ticular the MBA, over the past century. Chapter 1 outlines the role business programs have played for generating economic wealth for a large number of citizens around the world. The MBA is particularly depicted as a key catalyst for advancing the quality of life of citizens both within the borders of the United States and beyond. Chapter 2 addresses those critics of business programs that suggest that the failures of business schools have also led to the present economic crises around the world. Such criticisms identified include an arrogance among business students reflected in the know-it-all attitude they take with them to the actual job, the absence of focus on concepts related to financial risk taking, and lack of a sense of business ethics. Finally, Chapter 3 provides some practi-cal suggestions for turning out better managers to achieve a level of excellence in their profession. Introduced here are a number of management virtues that need to be developed in business students such as humanity, justice, design thinking, and lifelong learning.
Part II examines what are identified as the three major trends that are driving change at universities as a whole, as well as business schools. These trends are new technol-ogy, globalization, and the changing values of students them-selves. Introduced in Chapter 4 are new management educa-tional delivery strategies adopted by corporate universities, such as Apple University, Corporate University Exchange, and European Foundation of Management. Then, in Chapter 5, De Onzono identifies new learning technologies that result in a blended delivery system combining online and fact-to-face teaching. These technologies are expected to transform the future role of business educators who will likely rely more upon teaching materials in digital formats, thus tak-ing advantage of the speed of the Internet to create, spread, and validate ideas and theories. Chapters 6 introduces what are identified as a new breed of international stakeholders (or students) for business schools around the world. This is the result of the ease with which students can cross national boarders when seeking their business education. In Chapter 7, the formation of new international alliances and satellite campuses are examples of ways for universities to connect with a worldwide audience. In this regard, De Onzono iden-tifies emerging new educational hubs in locations such as India, China, and the Middle East, whereby a new context for learning management education is now emerging out-side of the United States. An interesting point raised by De Onzono is the need to enhance international accreditation standards to assure quality programs while at the same time respecting local cultural traditions.
Part III looks to the future for management education by focusing on intriguing challenges for teaching business
stu-dents. In Chapter 8, De Onzono argues that business faculty must reinvent themselves to remain relevant. He focuses on the importance of rewriting current mission statements (as identified as the DNA for management education) to reflect a new set of stakeholders, a new set of aspirations, and a new set of operational practices. This is fundamental if manage-ment education is expected to continue to serve as a catalyst for preparing leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs to trans-form both local and global societies into productive entities. Chapter 9 focuses on a changing student who is demanding a quality education delivered within a new set of time (in fewer semesters) and geographical constraints. The issue of addressing student diversity resulting from attracting learners from around the world becomes more paramount as manage-ment education goes global. Balancing gender, nationality, academic background, age, cultural traditions, and values are now considered ingredients for putting together more dy-namic and meaningful management education reflecting the realities in the international workplace. Chapter 10 takes a look at who should be the business faculty of tomorrow. For example, faculty tenure systems, ties between researchers and practitioners, practical managerial work experience, and assessment of the usefulness of academic research must be re-examined in order to provide the framework for change to occur in our existing business programs.
The strength of the text lies in De Onzono’s ability to offer constructive strategies for enhancing the significance of man-agement education in our collegiate business schools while at the same time addressing those criticisms that continue to haunt the credibility of such programs. He never wavers from his premise that business programs have an opportu-nity to remain valuable contributors to business organiza-tions although they need to reinvent themselves somewhat. De Onzono fills the text with numerous examples particu-larly related to the necessity to assure that quality programs are being maintained. For example, he describes the intrigu-ing relationship among the AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System), EQUAL (European Quality Link), AMBA (Association of MBAs), and more recently AAPBS (Association of Asia–Pacific Business Schools) in their at-tempts to develop and maintain criteria appropriate for as-sessing the quality of management education (and other busi-ness programs) now offered internationally. Another example is illustrating how universities around the world are creat-ing new educational hubs to attract the international student. Such examples include the Dubai Knowledge Village, India’s Education City, the Abu Dhabi Oxford Leadership Develop-ment Program, the Trium of HEC Paris, London School of Economics, and NYU Stern Business School.
A notable issue that is missing from the discussion of the future of management education is that of sustainabil-ity. Understanding the relevance of sustainability when solv-ing problems in contemporary business structures is now a key component to effective management. The study of how
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to design and implement sustainable business strategies for maintaining not only economic but social–environmental value is a good example of where business programs, es-pecially graduate programs, need to focus attention. In this regard, De Onzono argues that the graduate business program particularly needs to be more application oriented. The pur-pose is to enable graduates to go into any economic sector with the know-how needed to transform business as usual into business that can operate indefinitely.
While not an instructionally oriented text typically re-viewed for Journal of Education for Business, this text is still a must-read for business faculty. The fascinating ex-amples used throughout the text are derived from personal interviews of some influential business educators.The Learn-ing Curve provides a compelling roadmap that will assist
faculty in recreating a world-class management education that maintains academic vigor while at the same time is vo-cationally relevant. De Onzono attempts to address a chal-lenge that is central to both economic and social progress for this century. Focusing on the future is what this text is about, and his premise that now is the time to rethink carefully about implementing strategies that protect the rich traditions of the discipline while at the same time assure relevancy in the educational marketplace is an intriguing perspective.
James L. Morrison
University of Delaware Newark, Delaware, USA
