Agility in business school education through richness and reach: a conceptual model

Abstract

Purpose

Pedagogy today has become a function of technology and this relationship becomes all the more promising when used to address the educational needs of the constantly changing and fast evolving business school education. Business schools today are responsible for empowering future managers and leaders with not only the knowledge and insights but also with the ability to sense and respond to the unanticipated changes of the turbulent business environment. The objective of this paper is to conceptualize an integrated pedagogical framework that combines “richness” of augmented reality, classroom teaching and academic research with “reach” of social networking to yield a paradigm of agile business school education.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors propose a conceptual model that would help in building entrepreneurial agility through business school education when internal factors collectively optimize the richness of education content and external factors provide the reach necessary to create a field for socialization that helps in building knowledge.

Findings

The authors’ conceptual model consists of three sub‐paradigms derived from the theories they discuss: richness (from theory of experiential learning), reach (from social network theory) and business school education agility (from contingency theory). These three dimensions together enable the authors to understand and propose a new model for business schools, which would have the objective of producing more graduates with entrepreneurial agility.

Research limitations/implications

This research is just an attempt towards integration of emerging technologies to offer agile and experiential education. More research is needed to assess the effectiveness of various teaching and learning techniques. Multivariate analysis would be helpful in determining the multitude of effects on learning that can occur within a business school environment.

Originality/value

Agile business school education is a new variation on business school pedagogy that combines traditional‐style education with technology to provide education that is relevant today and will be relevant in dealing with unforeseen events in the future. Agile business school education will enable graduates to build and lead agile and successful organizations.

Citation

Gupta, N. and Shah Bharadwaj, S. (2013), "Agility in business school education through richness and reach: a conceptual model", Education + Training, Vol. 55 No. 4/5, pp. 370-384. https://doi.org/10.1108/00400911311326018