Maintaining Relevance in Business Education. A Framework for Exploring Alternative Teaching...

International Journal of Value-Based Management13: 273–295, 2000.© 2000Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

273

Maintaining Relevance in Business Education.A Framework for Exploring Alternative Teaching Paradigms

JANE McKENZIE & DOMINIC SWORDSHenley Management College, Greenlands, Henley on Thames, Oxon RG9 3AU, U.K.

Abstract. Relevance has become a critical factor in business education programs. Such pro-grams must deliver the skills and knowledge that enable participants to learn and thrive in acontext of change, growing business complexity and technological sophistication. This paperexplores the need to realign our teaching approach to the new demands of business managersin pursuit of maintaining relevance. It considers the changes this requires in the learner:teacherrelationship, and the way in which information communication technologies have a powerfulrole to play in developing and managing this new relationship. A model is proposed to explorethe alternative teaching paradigms associated wich might be best described as seismic shiftsin the learning landscape. For educators it suggests a change in teaching values that emphasisestronger attention to process skills, less teacher autonomy, direction and control, and a morecreative use of technology to encourage diversity, dialogue and distributed team learning.

Keywords: action learning, collaboration, leadership, learning space, technology and learning

1. Introduction

Relevance is a critical factor in education and especially in post experience,business education programmes; relevant education addresses the needs ofthe learner, and is rooted in the social and business context, in which thelearner lives and works. Learners are operating in rapidly changing envir-onments, frequently face daily challenges of immense complexity and leadbusy lives that place a premium on time devoted to personal development andeducation. Even a quick scan of contemporary business literature generatesan impressive list of some of the interdependent factors that determine andare impacting relevance in modern business education.

• The advent and potential of the digital/knowledge worker era, (Negro-ponte, 1995; Tapscott, 1996; Toffler, 1990; Drucker, 1993).

• Globalization, and the geographical dispersion of intelligent resources,in the virtual organization (Fisher and Fisher, 1997; Venkatraman andHenderson, 1998).

• Innovation and learning as the primary source of competitive advantage(De Geus, 1988, 1997; Slocum, McGill and Lei, 1994; Fulmer Gibbsand Keys, 1998).

274 JANE McKENZIE AND DOMINIC SWORDS

• Greater turbulence, complexity and uncertainty (Stacey, 1993; Handy,1989, 1994).

These forces are driving revolutionary changes in organizations; such changesare radically transforming the profile of an effective manager, generating ademand for life long learning and an intense interest in the learning organiza-tion. (Senge, 1990; Argyris and Schon, 1978; Burgoyne, Pedler and Boydell,1991).

Managing continuous organizational change, global market forces, andrapid international communications calls for a particular skill set, which has,at its heart, new capabilities of modern leadership. Simply stated, manage-ment’s task is about creating visionary futures, then coaching, encouragingand nurturing teams of people required to realize that future. A modernmanager needs:

• the confidence to go first into uncharted waters,• the courage to explore without being held back by unnecessary baggage

of redundant learning,• the capacity to discriminate when knowledge is redundant and when it

retains some durable value,• the creative insight to conceive interventions, which like a pebble drop-

ping in a pond, create waves and ripples that spread mightily across theorganization,

• the conviction to bring people together, enable and empower them tofulfill their potential.

The need to develop this new style of leadership has a direct and immediateimpact on the way we undertake education. The role of the teacher alters;program structures need redesigning, learner expectations need managing anddelivery mechanisms need to be more carefully targeted.

This paper argues that the skills and knowledge requirements impliedby such transformational change are unlikely to be achieved by learners onmany of our existing business education programmes. These tend to focuson delivery of programme content. We suggest that modern education is fa-cing paradigm-shifting forces that can be explored along two inter-relatedchange trajectories. The first represents the tension between content and pro-cess within a learning programme; the second is the expanding continuum ofdelivery mechanisms that can be deployed in programmes to develop learnerrelationships with particular reference to a growing array of digital commu-nications options now available. We argue that relevance drives a need toexplicitly raise the profile of process and learning skills, in a bid to developgreater learner autonomy; but this has to be done without compromising con-tent. Related changes in delivery opportunities require us to find new ways

MAINTAINING RELEVANCE IN BUSINESS EDUCATION 275

to use distributed learning technology more effectively to enhance interactionand enrich relationships between teachers and learners, and between learnersand their peers. A model is presented which suggests that content and process,and relationships and technology are four equally important threads to bewoven into rich training and education scenarios that are relevant to modernbusiness and social needs, and that will become increasingly relevant in thecoming decades.

2. New challenges in educating managers for today’s business world

‘A shrinking world in which technological and political complexity increaseat an accelerating rate offers fewer and fewer arenas in which individualaction suffices In a global society, in which timely information is the mostimportant commodity, collaboration is not simply desirable it is inevitable.In all but the rarest cases, one is too small a number to produce greatness.’Warren Bennis’s (1996) assertion was actually directed at management lead-ers, whose daily task is now one of ‘Organizing Genius’ yet it could equallywell apply to management educators. In the years since Word War II, we haveaccrued more information and knowledge than in the whole of human historyup until that point; and the growth continues exponentially (Toffler, 1990).Technology disseminates that knowledge world wide in the blink of an eye,which stimulates even faster proliferation. As a consequence, both businesspeople and educators are faced with the mammoth challenge of remaining upto date with a burgeoningquantityof potentially relevant information, whilstevaluating thequality of the new data against an increasingly complex webof known facts. Together these circumstances generate six major imperativesfor the future of education.

Firstly, in such circumstances, learning has to be a collaborative venture,both for the learner and the teacher.

It would be arrogant and dangerous to assume that one person has a monopolyon relevant knowledge. Based on a recent study of senior executive’s conduc-ted by Korn–Ferry and the Economist, Bennis (1997) argues that inevitably‘tomorrow’s organizations will be managed by teams of leaders, rather thana single person.’ Even leadership will need to become collaborative; the rolewill revolve around different team members to suit the demands of prevalentenvironmental forces, and leverage the diversity of expertise and skills (Fisherand Fisher, 1997). Educators face exactly the same challenge. Firstly it isunrealistic to expect one lecturer to specify a curriculum that encapsulates allthe relevant knowledge a learner will need. Secondly codifying content does


not encourage the learner to develop the critical search skills he or she willneed when the knowledge becomes outdated.

Secondly, discrimination, rather than absorption is an essential skillfor a modern learner. The teacher adds more value in developing thatcapability, than he or she can by imparting knowledge.

This is particularly so when the value of information is not a constant. Eight-een years ago, wrestling with the problems of organizational turbulence inthe coal industry, Revans (1982) faced a problem that many of today’s man-agers would empathize with; the absence of a relevant and reliable body ofknowledge to turn to for answers. ‘We are in the epoch of change,’ he said‘tomorrow is necessarily different from yesterday, so new things need to bedone.’ Logically, the faster the rate of change, the less likely it is that yester-day’s theories and models are going to be relevant to today’s problems. It is anunfortunate consequence that, as the rate of change accelerates, the half-lifeof knowledge reduces. Revans suggested that Learning= P +Q, wherePequals programmed learning from resources like books, lectures, or any formsof distilled advice encoded by others, andQ, represents learning throughaction and experience. Clearly, under conditions of rapid change, when thevalue of P declines, the contribution fromQ has to increase in order toachieve the same amount of learning. This means the learner is faced with theneed for constant creativity, increasing innovation and regular re-invention,achieved predominantly through action and experimentation, rather than theapplication of tried and tested theories.

This leads to a third educational imperative. In turbulent environments,the necessity for action learning increases. To avoid the problem of re-petitive error, learners need to improve what Argyris calls their doubleloop learning capability (Argyris, 1977).

Double loop learning is about critically reviewing approaches, models andtheories to test their continued relevance and applicability. Yet, there is afurther desirable competence, which actually challenges the long standingpre-eminence of content in education. That is triple loop learning. (Bateson,1973; Snell and Man-Kuen Chak, 1998). Triple loop learners have learnedhow to learn. In other words they examine the way they learn, and developenhanced ways to learn differently. If education is to be effective in develop-ing managers with the qualities identified in section one, then one of the keyskills we need to be teaching is Triple Loop Learning. This sort of objectivewould be entirely consistent with the recent QAAHE suggestions of whatconstitutes postgraduate study. The document posits that even Masters levelstudy should contain a significant reflective element.


Hence, the fourth imperative is to ensure that we develop autonomouslearners – people who know how to learn for themselves, and how tolearn with and through others.

These imperatives are driving the concept of learning increasingly towards adevelopmental experience where educators must engage with more creativeand novel approaches to learning and take some responsibility to establish asuitable climate for creativity to happen. In ‘The Courage to Create,’ (1975)Rollo May discusses the psychological effect of novelty upon the individual.Creativity and innovation are complex and uncertain processes. For learners,complexity and uncertainty are two uncomfortable forces in a system of inter-linked effects. They feed ambiguity, which tends to increase risk, producinganxiety that reduces security and motivation to change. Unmanaged, the dis-comfort feeds back into greater risk and more uncertainty, and even moreanxiety. It’s a vicious spiral of decline. The anxiety beating at the heart ofthis process is the critical element to be managed. High levels of anxietyblock learning, tolerable levels act as a catalyst. When the level of discomfortis right, the anxiety actually motivates people to find novel solutions to aproblem.

This leads to the fifth educational imperative. We need to create trainingand development situations in which learners develop ways to conqueranxiety, and use it productively in the service of creativity.

All of these imperatives stem from organizational dynamics that representa significant challenge to conventional understanding of management. Tradi-tional leadership tasks like organizing, directing, controlling and planning arenot conducive to continuous autonomous learning and creativity. Commandand control management squashes the opportunity to leverage the intelligencelocked up in the minds of people. Given that business education is largelyabout developing future leadership material, we can not ignore the strongarguments emerging in the leadership literature that suggest that conventionalmodels of leadership are ill suited to today’s turbulent and complex condi-tions. To make the most of the intellectual assets of a business, a leader’s jobbecome less about content, and precise direction, and more about managingboundaries (Fisher and Fisher, 1997) giving knowledge workers the freedomto explore, experiment and learn, without exposing the organization to anunacceptable level of risk. The literature often labels this whole concept,‘servant leadership’ (Greenlead, 1983, 1996). Attributes include

• A recognition that one individual does not have all the answers.• Demonstrable humility and vulnerability.


Table 1.

Author Leadership characteristics identified

Gregerson et al. (1998) Personal character; Integrity; Emotional connection;

Unbridled inquisitiveness; Embracing duality, seeking both

and solutions rather than divisive either/or options; Managing

uncertainty; The ability to balance tensions; Business and

organizational awareness.

Fisher and Fisher (1997) Act as a role model for others; Coach; The ability to unleash

energy and enthusiasm; Business analyzer – understanding

the big picture and translating environmental changes into

organizational opportunities; Facilitator; Barrier buster and

boundary manager; Customer advocate.

Bennis (1996) Articulate a uniting vision, and create an environment in

which individuals have autonomy whilst focused on a

collective goal; Willing to make decisions but allow

followers to work as they see fit; Understand human beings;

Respected by others; pragmatic dreamers; making sure the

right information gets to those who need it; Take the sting out

of failure; Imbue effort with meaning.

Coleman (1998) Motivation; Self Awareness; Empathy; Self regulation;

Social skill

Koffman & Senge (1998) Walking ahead; Serving those that follow; Idealist and

pragmatist combined

• The ability to advance his or her own transformation as well as thepersonal transformation of others and the organization.

• A supportive attitude.• Empowering others.

Table 1 extracts from the growing body of literature a typical sample of desir-able leadership characteristics required to manage effectively in a knowledgeera.

If we look at the contents of Table 1, we immediately see that none ofthese qualities is directive, controlling or strongly decisive. Rather they aresupportive, nurturing and empowering, requiring emotional intelligence, aparadoxical outlook on management, (McKenzie, 1996; Hampden Turner,1990; Pascale, 1990; Handy, 1994) that seeks to integrate and support mul-


tiple communities of interest. There are many more personal than functionalcompetencies on the list. In total they embody behaviours and skills thatHerman and Kovencih (1997) describe as authentic management.

This argues for a final imperative for education. The need for teachersto act as role models for the leaders of the future. If knowledge workersneed leaders who are facilitators, rather than ones who simply providedirections and have all the answers, then learners need educators whocreate similar experiences during training.

The six business imperatives identified can be formulated as six learning ob-jectives for those in business education. At the end of a program a learnershould

1. Know how to work collaborative.2. Have a highly developed capacity for discrimination.3. Have the ability to learn from reflection on new experiences, and to

question the underlying structure of thinking and decision making (whatArgyris calls double loop learning).

4. Have learned how to learn autonomously (triple loop learning).5. Have developed strategies for coping with the anxiety associated with

turbulence and uncertainty.6. Have developed and practiced the necessary servant leadership skills.

3. Learning as a dynamic contract

If relevant and effective education matches teaching processes with the learn-ing objectives, these imperatives will have a significant impact on the way weunderstand and undertake education and management development for thebusiness community. A new educational paradigm that can meet the needs ofa large number of life long learners, and still deliver the quality required toachieve the learning objectives, challenges us to rethink the way teachers andlearners interact.

The nature of the business challenge raises some interesting questionsabout teaching in management education. Primarily they challenge us toreconsider whether teaching paradigms, in which the teacher defines the con-tent, provides the framework for the accumulative achievement of learning,defines the assessment protocols and provides feedback against a predeter-mined set of objectives, are appropriate? Is it right that the teacher has overallcontrol and responsibility for a significant, if not major part of the learning? Isit appropriate for the teacher to abrogate the role of leader while the learner toall intents and purposes remains a follower? Should management education


be a safe or an uncomfortable experience, a guided tour, or a holographicsimulation of a real world adventure?

Even allowing for more recent developments in teaching theory and prac-tice, where much greater attention is applied to work based application,realism in learning and learner centered approaches. In most institutions,the overall control and responsibility is still largely vested in the role of theteacher. Considered against a framework of paradigm preserving, paradigmstretching and paradigm breaking, recent changes in teaching practice arepredominantly incremental within the existing paradigm. They do little tostretch or break the accepted model of education. If this continues, it wouldappear that we are in danger of becoming irrelevant.

Learning is often described as a contract. This metaphor is a suitable onehere as it captures the sense of a multi party agreement to achieve a particularend. Each party contributes to the definition of the contract, and learning is theresult of an exchange between the parties. In educational terms that contractis not a static document, but a fluid living agreement, in which each stagedetermines the relevance of the next. It is likely to be based around the sixbroadly defined outcomes listed above, but these must be negotiated to makethem sufficient to ensure mutual commitment and engagement. In adoptingthis metaphor of mutual negotiation, the question is where to start in applyingit to an educational design that can be made available to a large body ofstudents at a manageable cost.

The power and availability of technology has introduced an additional di-mension to be considered in the design of the teaching process. Just as it hasdriven many of the challenges of business transformation for organizationsthroughout the 90’s (Scott Morton, 1991; Hammer and Champy, 1993), it isplacing irresistible pressures on the educational process. It has the potential tobe our downfall or our salvation, as we consider re-engineering the teachingprocess to step up to the challenges of new virtual educational networks andtransform education for the 21st century.

The model below links four mediating variables, which bound the spaceof possibilities in which the learner’s skill and the realization of theirexpectations can be achieved. There are two primary dimensions:

• Delivery Emphasis in terms of content and process.

• Delivery Mechanism as defined by the boundaries of human relation-ships and technology.

As such it provides a framework against which to analyze the changingface of teaching.

Basically this framework represents two pairs of forces in tension. Bothare important, and each is interactive with the other.


Figure 1. An alternative perspective on the educational process.

4. The content/process tension

Content is often the focus of most learners interest when they initially start apost graduate business course. This is hardly surprising, since the emphasison theory first emanates from the traditional teaching model at undergraduatelevel. Here experience teaches the learner that teachers are experts whoserole is to transmit information. (Burgoyne and Stewart, 1977). Symons (1996)labels this a Type A educational philosophy. It is teacher centered, conceptualand analytical. ‘Tools, frameworks, and analytical techniques are the coreof this type of program, where there is primacy of theoretical and factualknowledge, often grounded in the scientific approach.’

Clearly any model of teaching that is based solely on disseminating pre-derived content is at odds with learning objectives that emphasize the valueof collaborative exploration, facilitation, and learning to learn. In addition, itwould be singularly inappropriate when viewed in the context of the sort ofevanescent knowledge base noted above (Table 2).

Other models of learning identified by Burgoyne and Stewart (1977) fitalong a continuum in terms of their relative emphasis on content or process.These define the teacher not as a knowledgeable expert, directing otherstowards the critical aspects of the knowledge base, but as a facilitator oflearning within the context of the learner’s own world?

What Symons calls a type B program,1 tends to collect and use learningmethods much more from the process end of the spectrum.

However, good education it is not a question of either content or process.Rather it is a process of delivering a both/and solution. The learning journeybecomes an interactive process, which at times demands self direction by the


Table 2.

Information Cybernetics Cognitive Experiential Action Social

transfer learning influence

Knowledge A less A holistic A more A pragmatic A largely

expert taking dictatorial approach, emotional approach that content free

all approach to based on approach to builds on the collaborative

responsibility information mental maps learning that Sophoclean approach

for direction of transfers and a models and encompasses notion of which

learning precursor to frameworks action learning learning by depends on

action learning, constructed by sets, where doing. The the learner

implying a the learner, that much emphasis major gathering and

need for are influenced is placed on objectives of sharing

feedback, by their own exploring the Action personal

discovery and values effect of Learning are for knowledge

programming feelings and managers to and

in a loop behaviour on progress a real experience

the learner’s world problem with a group

progress and (where no of other

understanding solution already people

exists) or

opportunity,

and to learn and

develop in the

process. The

far heavier

emphasis on

process in this

model, tends to

produce more

change in

behaviour, and

mental model

change, when

compared to

purely content-

based

approaches

Content ← → Process

focus focus

Teacher Teacher Tutor Learner Learner Facilitated

directed. Tight oriented with supported oriented Centered and learner

control looser control team centered


learner, at times is dependant on feedback from peers and teachers and atothers is simply a function of teacher defined outcomes.

A note of caution should be introduced here. It is easy to characterizeapparently content-based programmes as devoid of process outcomes, and socriticize them. However we acknowledge that profound content teaching canlead learners to a breakthroughs in their journey towards highly autonomouspersonal learning. Through a deep understanding of the ideas of others, theycan learn to manipulate the core concepts of the subject and gain the confid-ence and ability to think for themselves, i.e., learn. As we have just said, goodeducation is about a both (content) and (process) solution. We would arguethat, in the present climate of education and business expectations, unlesswe explicitly target learning autonomy, and give process a higher profile byintegrating it specifically into the learning design, then the achievement ofautonomous learning will be largely hap hazard and sub optimal.

Type B programs are more obviously suited to the learning objectivesdeveloped earlier in this paper. But it can be difficult to rely solely onthese methods alone, if an institution is to maintain the quality and com-parability standards of their qualification programs, against a governmentdefined accreditation standard. The ability to adopt Type B programmes isalso influenced by the teaching preferences of members of the institution.

In our experience, teachers vary in their approach along a spectrum fromhighly didactic where students make few decisions to highly responsive butpotentially anarchic, because students make most of their decisions aboutlearning. A predisposition or weighting towards one mode of teaching affectsan educator’s ability to develop learner autonomy, and the comfort level of thelearner (McKenzie and Smith, 1998). This leaves the institution strugglingwith the tension between managing and teaching enough content to producecomparably assessable outcomes, whilst sensitively steering the student in thegeneral direction of autonomous learning. Little (1975) noted this dilemma‘There is no escape from the paradox of leadership – the requirement that menshould not be LED to freedom, or that students be TAUGHT the autonomousstyle’ (p. 260).

5. The relationship/technology continuum

The relative emphasis on content delivery and process support in teachingapproach is intimately connected to another dimension of education, whichis essentially to do with modes of interaction, where interaction refers toengagement with knowledge resources as well as with other people.

Engagement is a critical factor in the learner’s ability to take on andabsorb new knowledgeto the point that it changes behaviour. Relevance


of the material or the process is one factor affecting the degree of learnerengagement. Another factor that has a significant impact upon the outcome isthe relationship between the learner and his/her peers and or the learner andhis/her trainer. If that relationship is one of dependence, it is less likely thatthe learner will fully assimilate the lessons.

Boud (1988) argues that the nature of the learner/teacher relationship isdependant on the

• prior experience of the learner,

• educational values of the teacher,

• external constraints of the educational institutions.

Technology is currently challenging many of the external constraints uponeducational institutions – geography, limited resources, time etc. We willexamine this later because, for it to be usefully deployed, we need first toexamine how the educational values of the teacher need to adapt to build onthe learner’s prior experience and move the learning process forward.

Traditional models of learning tend to use a fairly limited range of tech-nologies. The most dominant form is still that of face to face workshops,lectures, presentations and seminars. Here the relationship between learnerand teacher is well understood. With perhaps the exception of good qualitytutorial work, where the teacher’s role can include more process support interms of counseling, coaching and devil’s advocacy, traditional education islargely teacher dependent. It is not designed to resolve the leadership para-dox or, as Boud argues, move the learner through four stages of relationshiptowards psychological maturity.

The four stages of learner maturity he describes are dependence, counter-dependence, independence and interdependence. A progression that is notatypical of the way children grow towards adult hood. Brundage and MacK-eracher (1980) describe the nature of these four stages (Appendix A) and howthe teacher can support them most effectively. For the learner to progress, theteacher needs to adopt a variety of strategies that suite the level of learningconfidence, manages their anxiety caused by new experiences at each stageand gradually withdraws tutor support whilst encouraging first independentcontent exploration and then collaborative challenge to known paradigms.

This progressive approach suggests that the learner/teacher relationshipshould evolve over any program of learning. Inevitably, this impacts thechoice of delivery mechanism, the style and mode of teaching and theteacher’s objectives as well as the relative emphasis on content and processelements. Elapsed time also affects the choice of mechanism; some learnerswill move between the stages faster than others. Some never progress bey-ond a certain stage. The teacher’s responsibility is to recognize when and


how the relationship is evolving, and which teaching tools are most appro-priate to achieve the desired ends. Fulfilling these changing developmentalneeds is a serious challenge for high volume postgraduate education, withrestricted budgets. Fortunately the power of modern technology to support anincreasing variety of distributed teaching modes affords us the opportunity tomanage that relationship more uniquely for each individual, and tailor coursesby deploying technology specifically to suit the appropriate stage of learnerdevelopment.

Conventional teaching paradigms have made minimal demands on thetutor’s ability to build close developmental relationships with students, be-ing largely predicated on distance and dependence. In lectures, the tutor isa simply an expert deliverer of knowledge, perhaps an enlivener of under-standing, taking sole responsibility for demonstrating the way in which theknowledge presented can have meaning to the individuals receiving. For thishe/she is accorded an elevated status in the eyes of the learner, thus distancingthe tutor from the learner. To move the learner towards autonomy requiresthe tutor to develop a more intimate and interdependent relationship of trust,openness and understanding. Both parties have to accept the nature of thelearning contract, to which the learner brings more knowledge and experienceof his or her own context, values, and philosophy than the tutor can, whilstthe tutor offers his or her experience of the broader context and a profoundunderstanding of the learning process. Deep learning occurs when each re-frames the other in some way. Unfortunately, this can be time consuming,and very unpredictable.

The extra time spent in partnership and relationship can be compensatedfor, to some extent, by the effective use of technology.

Initially the introduction of technology into the educational processlargely followed a path of least resistance. Many organizations and busi-ness schools simply translated conventional teaching material into electronicmechanisms for information transfer. Clearly there are cost saving benefitshere. When specialists capture expertise in digital format, it can be dissemin-ated to a global audience, cheaply and without the need for the tutor’s physicalpresence. But technology offers more than the elemental potential for thevirtual lecture, with all the associated limitations of knowledge dependence.It is also a way to develop a degree of learner confidence with basic content,Used at the right time, and with some enhancements in terms of quizzes selfassessment it can provide a valuable preparatory foundation for further ex-ploration and challenge in the tutorial situation. This makes the most of faceto face time for the sorts of double and triple loop learning activity requiredin modern education. Computer conferencing opens possibilities for widerchallenging of models and theories, greater exploration and dialogue with the


international community, and the chance for teachers to model new types ofbehaviour, leading by example, and facilitating a dialogue amongst a broaderdistributed and more diverse community of learners and teachers. Diversityand dialogue are two critical factors necessary to achieve the six learningobjectives noted above (Senge, 1990).

In a face to face setting, many institutions, Henley Management College isno exception, attempt to stimulate facilitated dialogue in-group tutorials. Herea sensitive tutor can encourage the learner to experiment, explore the limits oftheir knowledge in the context of their personal development needs. Howeverit is more difficult to capture the diversity, and deepen the dialogue face toface, because of the limitations imposed by the linear nature of verbal com-munication, and the physical restrictions of time, and geographical distance.Electronic communication can override all three of these problems.

Technology expands the opportunities in other aspects of traditional learn-ing models. Personal research, library work and learners discussing ideasoutside of the formal learning context, can all be enhanced through the useof GroupWare technology. Easy access to ever increasing amounts of digitalinformation and broad band communication media means that the learner’sexperience of the educational process can become more than simply a func-tion of their relationship with tutors. It can be enhanced by their own abilityto mine the rich sources of information and advice, wherever they are located,and whenever it is needed. Content such as books and articles is increasinglyavailable on line. Under conditions of rapid change, some of that expertisemay be even more relevant to the circumstances of the learner than the dis-tilled knowledge of the available subject expert. However, the learner stillneeds help sifting, sorting and evaluating the value of that content to theirspecific circumstances, in the context of the historical body of knowledge.Here educational institutions can add value by introducing the learners to arange of tools for this purpose.

To assist in the discriminatory process, there is value in connectinglearners with other learners, to discuss and compare their findings. We usetechnology to facilitate communication between learner groups, as well aswith others that have completed our programs, turning to them as a testedsource of advice and learning. The improved user friendliness of the WorldWide Web offers an even more extensive source of informative relationshipswith others engaged on similar learning journeys.

However, when technology is introduced into the educational process,it creates a significant disturbance in the teaching process. And althoughit offers good opportunities for moving learners through the various rela-tionship stages, educational institutions often find considerable resistance tothe changes in teaching practices required to use the new technology effect-


ively. Yet teachers have a central role in managing the interface along therelationship/technology continuum.

In our experience there are several major challenge for teachers

• Displaying confidence with the technology – research suggests this iscritical to student acceptance of its role in education. (Webster andHackley, 1997).

• Redesigning and re-pacing the learning material to accommodate thedifferences in the communication medium, and to achieve new learningobjectives.

• Downplaying the content expertise and upgrading the facilitation skills.‘Becoming an expert in not knowing’ (Raab, 1997) facilitating discus-sion, rather than providing answers.

• Translating their face to face communication skills into an electroniccommunication medium, when the primary message is textual.

There are also several institutional challenges, not least of which is the devel-opment of the sort of hybrid manager (Earl and Skyrme, 1990) that businessesin the early 1990’s were desperately searching for. The teacher who can workacross the IT/academic divide is a rare commodity. It needs someone withenough understanding about both the potential and application of technology,and the business/educational imperatives. They need the credibility to talkmeaningfully to both camps, and to work across boundaries, linking techno-logical opportunities with teaching needs. Such people are likely to be criticalin enabling us in education to avoid simply translating existing practices intodigital solutions and ignoring the potential for changing educational practices.We have seen the development of new roles called educational technologists.In some instances these people are technical editors, but the best examplesoperate right in the centre of the framework in Figure 1, a development whichchallenges the independence and autonomy of traditional academic stature.The developments outlined here, place major demands on us as education-alists to reevaluate how we conduct our own work and share the power andauthority vested in it with learners and others in learning and educationalsupport roles. Such change requires us to value relevance and what is rightfor the learner very highly indeed.

The starting point for this paper was a recognition that the changing role ofmanagers in driven by turbulent organizational and environmental conditionsis creating a pressure for revolution in the whole learning process. This raisesissues of the democratization of learning, greater learner autonomy, and de-veloping educational values such as trust, openness, interdependence greateraccessibility of tutors, and a strong emphasis on developing process skills inthe learner. But the question is how fast and how far should we move ? The


future is still full of uncertainty. It is probably foolish to try to predict thefuture and then shape ones teaching strategy to fit the predictions. Likewise,it would be foolish to imagine that a different future will not emerge, or thatit will be simply an extension of our existing behaviours. So we need to thinkabout how we can expand the space of possibilities, without compromisingour potential to deliver relevant learning now and in the future.

6. Towards an expanded space of possibilities

Traditional models of teaching (Symons, 1996; Type A model), sit firmly inthe top left hand square of this model. A number of postgraduate managementprogrammes including some of those in Henley have stretched towards a postmodern paradigm, with a reasonable emphasis on process as well as content,plenty of collaborative group work, some tentative steps into mentored learn-ing and theoretical exploration rather than pure knowledge dissemination.2

We do place a strong emphasis on personal development, but in many re-spects it is not integrated into the teaching approach, rather it is a distinct andtangible process related add on.

However over the past five years, technology has begun to offer a rangeof opportunities to expanding the options towards the right hand side of themodel. Initially, perhaps few institutions realized the full potential for en-riching educational possibilities, that new the convergence of computing andcommunication offered.

Like everyone, we have experimented with transformational leaps betweenquadrants. Translating lectures into Computer Based Training (CBT) mod-ules that sit in the top right quadrant of the model. All content and technology.We quickly learned that this is a blunt instrument in the teaching toolbox, inthat it tends to be ineffective in fulfilling learning objectives that are basedaround personal development and autonomous learning. The poor resultswere partly related to inherent technology limitations and unreliability, butalso at the time, were a result of learner inexperience with this method ofdelivery. The lack of personal interaction involved in CBT, needed to incor-porate alternative mechanisms to manage the anxiety factor. Removing thepersonal interface puts significant cracks in a long established and well-testedand comfortably familiar educational paradigm. In the context of Boud’sequation such a paradigm was found to be inconsistent with the educationalvalues of the teacher, and probably also with the prior experience of the stu-dents, so despite the opportunities to remove educational constraints, CBTdid not achieve its objectives.

Currently we are working within what is depicted in Figure 2 as an early21st century paradigm of education. In this we place comparable emphasis on


Figure 2. Expanding the space of possibilities.

technology and face to face interaction, balanced weighting on content andprocess, and reasonably equal importance upon teacher delivery and learnerexploration and research through technology. We have adopted what Bournerand Flowers (1998) label the high tech-high touch approach to education.

The rationale behind this comes from several sources. Firstly our organ-isational preference for adding value through developing strong learner/tutorrelationships and secondly, drawing on the practical experience of organiz-ations as they move towards a more virtual existence. (Hale and Whitlam,1997) Handy suggests that paradoxically, the more virtual an organizationbecomes, the more its people need to meet in person (Handy, 1995). It seemsthat to optimize the opportunities technology provides for delivery and sup-port, we need to balance the negative side effects with a large dose of face toface involvement between learner groups and between learners and tutors.

The high tech/high touch approach manifests itself in different ways ondifferent program. Let us look at two examples of how we presently opera-tionalise this high tech high touch philosophy, and how we use it to supportthe learner through various stages of learning development.

After more than 10 years of experience using the Lotus Notes platform toprovide optional support to our learner community around the world, a yearand a half ago, we adopted Lotus LearningSpace as a delivery mechanismfor some large corporate clients. The software was specifically developed toenable collaborative learning. It is a self contained electronic environment,


which provides a guide to activities that support learning, access to digitalresources – CD-ROMs, web sites, papers and cases, a virtual course roomwhere learners and tutors can conduct exploratory dialogues in teams, and ameans to introduce participants to each other through participant profiles.

Our clients sponsor cohorts of learners from around Europe who progresstogether,in distributed groups, through the MBA programmme. Subject tu-tors deliver workshops, and also visit LearningSpace periodically, to answerquestions, offer guidance, and participate in subject discussions. Howeverthey do not have the opportunity to develop a long-standing developmentalrelationship with the learner, because they only work with them for a shortperiod. We also find that there is a high expectation for subject specificintervention, This is consistent with the experience of other users of com-puter mediated teaching. Wilson and Whitelock (1999) postulates that it isa consequence of the email mentality, that sets expectations of immediateaccessibility and responsiveness from the person who is perceived as the mainmechanism for delivery and overcoming uncertainty. Unfortunately when thatintervention takes place, it often halts the learners move towards autonomy.For this reason we try to structure the activities within LearningSpace to focustutor intervention at certain added value points.

However we need to compensate for the fact that this model of subjectdelivery in some ways discourages subject tutor/learner relationships and re-moves a comfort factor. So we provide what we call a co-ordinating tutor. Oneco-ordinating tutor supports a group of up to 25 learners. The co-ordinatingtutor focuses entirely on facilitating the learning process, ensuring continuityand movement through the various stages of learner development, buildinga relationship with the learner, based on trust and open discussion aboutthe personal development needs of the individual. They play a significantrole in helping learners make sense of their learning progress (triple looplearning) and in managing the anxiety referenced earlier. Co-ordinating tutorsattend face to face starter residentials and weekend workshops, to initiateand re-enforce the relationship. They also facilitate discussions within Learn-ingSpace, constantly looking for the unique learning opportunities for eachindividual in their care. However they never get involved in content. Theyall have a generic understanding of the subject matter, but their role is tofacilitate learning, not to impart knowledge. In this way the learning processgradually becomes a partnership of exploration between the learner and theco-ordinating tutor.

The activities within LearningSpace are deliberately structured to matchthe various stages of learner development. In the early modules of the MBA,there is a heavier content input, and the skills of collaborative working areintroduced but not tested or assessed. The co-ordinating tutor models the


desired behaviour in terms of servant leadership. Exercises are inserted toencourage learners to deal with conflict, and develop confidence in less de-pendent working. Later in the MBA, the subject tutor support is graduallywithdrawn (not totally), and more exploratory, discursive activities take place.The final module of the programme asks the learner to practice their ownservant leadership skills, and to reflect on the experience. Throughout thewhole MBA programme, reflection and personal growth are encouraged andsupported by the co-ordinating tutor.

Our new Flexible Evening MBA program offers an alternative approachthat parallels this model of dynamically managing the four variables im-plicitly affecting the outcome of the learning contract. Content, process,relationship technology all receive a similar level of emphasis in the design ofthe programme. It is a hybrid program that gives the learner a set of learningresources, both text based and electronic, but also provides them with thecomfort of regular face to face interaction. One night a week that interactionis with subject tutors, and the second night a week it is working in groups withpeers, The development of collaborative working practices and inderdepend-ent learning capability is supported by one of the co-authors of this paper, inher role as Director of Studies. Similar to that of the distinctive process role ofco-ordinating tutor, the support of the Director of Studies provides continuityand facilitation, both in the face to face medium and through technology. Onthis programme we use technology for a variety of purposes. First to providean alternative mechanism for developing relationships between learners, andbetween teacher and learner. Secondly, video conferencing gives us the op-portunity to draw on the best tutors from around the world, introduce diversityinto the teaching process. But it also allows both the learners and myself tomaintain the group dynamic even when pressures of work and travel preventus from being physically present at some of the evening sessions. Learning-Space will provide a mechanism to support dialogue between learners withouta lot of subject tutor intervention. In this respect it offers largely processsupport, but where it can add value we will also use it for content deliverytoo. The overall programme design and the activities used are structured togradually move the student from dependence to interdependence over thecourse of the two years, reflecting on their developing learning capabilityas they go.

We feel that such an integrated model of the educational process com-bines the best of all aspects of learning, in the delivery process. However,it still has its downsides in terms of dependence on face to face interactionas the stimulus and maintenance factor for relationships. It is important torecognise that in the future, when people are more comfortable building andmaintaining virtual relationships, in which they never meet face to face, then


the educational model could change even further, shifting into the domainlabelled alternative future in Figure 2. This could open up a different rangeof opportunities for both the learner and the tutor, but we would suggest thatthe value of these alternatives would be highly dependent on the creative useof the technology, and would not be realisable if we simply translate existingparadigms, into a virtual medium.

Such paradigm breaking approaches also require radical changes in thecompetencies of teachers and the expectations of learners. It is difficultto achieve this sort of transformation in one leap. Although the environ-ment conditions have changed, neither teacher nor learner can change thevalue they attribute to personal interaction as fast as technology enthusiastsmight want or technology would allow them to. Currently what we must do,in designing of programs, is make short term decisions, which are robustwith respect to present certainties without restricting future possibilities. Inthis way we model the leadership qualities that our learners are seeking todevelop.

7. Conclusion

This paper has explored the need to realign our teaching approach to thenew demands of business managers. It argues for a need to move the learnerthrough four stages of maturity from dependence to interdependence. It con-siders the changes this requires in the learner teacher relationships, and theway in which technology also has a powerful role to play in developing andmanaging this new relationship. For educators it suggests a change in teachingvalues that emphasize stronger interaction with practice and engagement withthe real world, greater emphasis on developing process skills, more intimateand supportive relationship with learners, based on trust, accessibility andopen communication, less teacher autonomy, direction and control, and fi-nally a more creative use of technology to encourage diversity and greaterdialogue, and support distributed team learning.

Notes

1. A type B program is not just learner centered, it is experiential; grounded in the manager’spractical experience. It postulates that management is about such things as negotiatedroles, uncertainty, socialization, leadership and decision making. The programme is buildaround action learning, which hinges on insight and enquiry; developing knowledge by‘reflective praxis’ as Schon (1983) describes it.

2. We note two groundbreaking work in this context particularly by colleagues at Roffy Parkand Lancaster Management School.


Appendix A. Stages of learner development.Brundage and MacKeracher (1980) cited in Boud (1988)

Early stage.– Initially the learner enters a situation that involves a high degreeof novelty, uncertainty, and lack of familiarity. He or she lacks the confidenceto make his/her own rules, preferring to fall back on external standards toguide behaviour. The learner also tends to act on assumptions built frompast experience, even though they may not be appropriate. At this stage, ateacher best supports the learner by creating a reliable environment, in whichbehavioural requirements are both explicit and consistent, with clearly ex-plained consequences for different types of behaviour. However, at this stage,it is easy to slip into expert mode, and focus on content delivery, which canultimately embed dependent behaviour.

Reactive stage.– As the learner gains confidence in the situation, a senseof self as an independent agent develops. At this point, learners often be-come negative, engage in conflicts and arguments, particularly if externalconditions are unsupportive. Developmental teachers encourage the learnerto express their negative feelings and allow them some leeway in terms ofbehaviour.

Proactive stage.– Once the learner feels accepted as part of a learninggroup, he starts to explore and accept the individuality of others. Groupactivities become more enjoyable at this stage; learners engage in dialoguemore frequently and argue less. Appropriate teaching values for this periodare accepting divergence and encouraging co-operation and collaboration inpreference to individual performance or competition, Developmental teach-ing activities concentrate on providing descriptive and immediate feedbackabout individual behaviour in relation to established objectives, rather thanfocusing on content assessment.

Integrative stage.– A mature learner not only distinguishes between indi-vidual and others, but also works to integrate his perspective with theirs. Hedevelops a sense of balance between himself and peers, which allows him toaccept and work with multiple standards, different interpretations and manysources of information. At this stage he needs the support of a teacher whoencourages the development of personal standards to guide future learning,openly shares information about themselves, their feelings and values, andwilling acts as a co-learner.


References

Argyris, C. (1977). ‘Double loop learning in organizations.’Harvard Business Review 55(5),115–125.

Argyris, C. and D. Schon (1978).Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective.Addison Wesley.

Bateson, G. (1973).Steps to an Ecology of Mind. London: Palladian.Bennis, W. (1997).Organizing Genius – The Secrets of Creative Collaboration. London:

Nicholas Brearley.Boud, D. (1988) (ed.).Developing Student Autonomy in Learning. Second Edition. London:

Kogan Page.Bourner, T. and S. Flowers (1998).Teaching and Learning Methods in Higher Education: A

Glimpse of the Future. University of Brighton.Burgoyne, J. and R. Stuart (1978). ‘Teaching and learning methods in management develop-

ment.’Personnel Review 7(1), 53–58.Coleman, D. (1998). ‘What makes a leader?’Harvard Business Review, November.De Geus, A. (1988). ‘Planning as learning.’Harvard Business Review, March April.De Geus, A. (1997).The Living Company. Boston MA: Harvard Business School Press.Drucker, P. (1993).Post Capitalist Society. New York: Harper Business.Earl, M. and D. Skyrme (1990).The Need for Hybrid Managers. Working Paper. Oxford:

Institute of Information Management Templeton College.Fisher, K. and M. D. Fisher (1997).The Distributed Mind Achieving High Performance

through the Collective Intelligence of Knowledge Work Teams.NY: Amacom.Fulmer, R. M., P. Gibbs, and B. Keys (1998).The Second Generation of Learning Organiza-

tions: New Tools for Sustaining Competitive Advantage. Autumn, 7–20.Greanlead, R. K. (1983).Servant Leadership. Paulist Press.Greenlead, R. K. (1996).On Becoming a Servant Leader. Jossey Bass.Gregersen, H., A. Morrison, and S. J. Black (1998). ‘Developing leaders for the global

frontier.’ Sloan Management Review Fall, 21–32.Hale, R. and P. Whitlam (1997).Towards the Virtual Organization. McGraw Hill Maidenhead.Hampden, T. C. (1990).Charting the Corporate Mind. Oxford: Blackwell.Handy, C. (1994).The Age of Paradox. Boston MA: Harvard Business School Press.Handy, C. (1989).The Age of Unreason. London: Business Books.Handy, C. (1995). ‘Trust and the virtual organization.’Harvard Business Review, May June,

40–50.Herman and Karenich (1997).Authentic Management.Koffman, F. and P. Senge (1998). ‘Communities of commitment. The heart of learning

organizations.’Organizational Dynamics, 5–22.Little (1975). Cited in Boud D – op cit.May, R. (1975).The Courage to Create. New York: W Norton & Co.McKenzie, J. and M. Smith (1998).Management Learning in a Global Classroom. Pro-

ceedings of IEE colloquium on Technology and Management learning. November,London.

McGill, M., J. Slocum, and D. Lei (1994). ‘The new learning strategy; anytime anythinganywhere.’Organizational Dynamics 32(3), 33–47.The Learning Organization in Action.A special report from organizational dynamics.

Negroponte, N. (1995).Being Digital. London: Hodder and Staughton.Pascale, T. R. (1990).Managing on the Edge. How the Smartest Companies Use Conflict to

Stay Ahead.New York: Simon and Schuster.


Pedler, M., J. Burgoyne, and T. Boydell (1991).The Learning Company. McGraw HillMaidenhead.

Raab, N. (1997). ‘Becoming and expert in not knowing: Reframing teacher as consultant.’Management Learning 28(2), 161–175.

Revans, R. W. (1982). ‘What is action learning.’The Journal of Management Development15(3), 64–75.

Schon, D. A. (1983)The Reflective Practitioner. How Professionals Think in Action. NewYork: Basic Books.

Senge, P. (1990).The Fifth Discipline; The Art and Practice of the Learning Organizations.London: Doubleday.

Snell, R. and A. Man-Kuen Chak (1998). ‘The learning organization; Learning and empower-ment for whom?’Management Learning 29(3), 337–364.

Stacey, R. (1993).Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics. London: Pitman.Symons, J. (1996).What Type of Learning?A review of learning approaches in the context of

the design and delivery of academic management development programmes in the U.K.,Henley Working Paper series 9623.

Tapscott, D. (1996).The Digital Economy. Promise and Peril in the Age of NetworkedIntelligence. New York: McGraw Hill.

Toffler, A. (1990).Knowledge Wealth and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century. New York:Bantam.

Venkatraman, N. and J. C. Henderson (1998). ‘Real strategies for virtual organizing.’SloanManagement Review Fall, 33– 48.

Webster, J. and P. Hackley (1997). ‘Teaching effectiveness in technology mediated distancelearning.’Academy of Management Journal 40(6), 1282–1309.

Wilson, T. and D. Whitelock (1999). ‘Is it sustainable? A comparison of student and tutoronline time across three distance learning courses.’Alt J 6(1), 25–31.

Maintaining Relevance in Business Education. A Framework for Exploring Alternative Teaching...

Documents

Transcript of Maintaining Relevance in Business Education. A Framework for Exploring Alternative Teaching...