Rethinking Management Education

At a time of ever-increasing debate about orthodox approaches to management education, and their application in the post-industrial era, this innovative book brings together the work of authors actively engaged in developing new forms of education.

Key starting points for the volume are: first, that it is important to expose to reflective analysis and critique such a significant and influential contemporary activity as management; and second, that management education is a primary site for such interrogation since it plays a crucial role in helping to produce and reproduce managerial practices.

The introduction contrasts dominant utilitarian and functionalist conceptions of management education with various alternatives. It argues the need for a critical and pluralistic form of management education whereby participants are introduced to the full diversity of appropriate perspectives and debates. The remainder of the book echoes this commitment by exploring a range of approaches, including those based in psychoanalysis, critical theory and poststructuralism. Throughout the book, there is a focus is upon the implications of problematizing management knowledge so as to facilitate alternative and critical modalities of teaching and learning. In this context management is seen not simply as a bundle of skills and techniques but, rather, as a complex social, political and moral practice.

Re-Thinking Management Education is essential reading for all academics, students and professionals concerned with the most significant developments in education and learning in the field.