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Article
Publication date: 1 July 2002

Lars T. Moratis and Peter J. van Baalen

Transformations in the context of higher education urge educational institutions to (re)position and (re)organize themselves to counter the challenges these transformations bring…

1072

Abstract

Transformations in the context of higher education urge educational institutions to (re)position and (re)organize themselves to counter the challenges these transformations bring. Especially regarding universities and business schools, organizations that encompass a broad range of communities, operations, and activities, these transformations result in the radicalization of what Kerr has called the multiversity. The rationale of this radicalization is to be found in the trends and developments in the contemporary context of higher education. This article presents the networked business school as a response to this radicalization within the field of management education and management learning, since network organization seems to offer a lot of possibilities and benefits to the organization of business schools.

Details

International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 16 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-354X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 April 2012

Peter van Baalen and Luchien Karsten

This paper aims to provide insights into the evolution of the concept of interdisciplinarity in management science and management education.

2090

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provide insights into the evolution of the concept of interdisciplinarity in management science and management education.

Design/methodology/approach

A range of recently published (1993‐2002) works, which aim to provide practical advice rather than theoretical books on pedagogy or educational administration, are critiqued to aid the individual make the transition into academia. The sources are sorted into sections: finding an academic job, general advice, teaching, research and publishing, tenure and organizations.

Findings

The paper finds that in the evolution of management education and management science interdisciplinarity took different forms: synoptic and instrumental. Both forms resulted from different knowledge strategies of competing and cooperating disciplines. It concludes that in The Netherlands instrumental versions of interdisciplinarity in management research and education prevailed.

Research limitations/implications

The paper studies the evolution of interdisciplinarity in management education and management science in the Dutch higher education context. It assumes that the pattern of evolution differs from country to country.

Practical implications

Interdisciplinarity is a complex concept. This study provides practical insights into the dynamics of interdisciplinary collaboration.

Originality/value

Much has been written about interdisciplinarity in science and education. However there is hardly any empirical and historical research on this topic.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. 18 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1348

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 April 2010

Peter van Baalen and Luchien Karsten

This paper aims to provide an alternative explanation for the rise of modern management schools at the turn of the twentieth century. It is to be argued that these schools were…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provide an alternative explanation for the rise of modern management schools at the turn of the twentieth century. It is to be argued that these schools were not just responses of the higher education system to the demand of industrializing companies for a new class of professional managers, like Chandler suggests.

Design/methodology/approach

The historical‐actor approach is applied to explain the rise of academic management schools, prior to the Second World War. Data were collected from the archives of different management schools and professional organizations of the engineers and accountants.

Findings

To legitimize their position in the higher education system, abstraction appeared to be the dominant strategy of the professions. By abstraction they could distinguish themselves from the lay public and other professional groups in the domain of management. At the moment the new professions had a foot in the higher education system the engineers and the accountants contested for the new management domain. Abstraction appeared also the successful strategy of the accountants to distinguish themselves from the engineers and to establish a sound base for the development of the Dutch variant of business economics.

Research limitations/implications

The paper presents a full account of the Dutch situation but the findings cannot be generalized to other countries. More comparative research is needed. The rise of management schools is mostly explained as an educational response to an economic demand.

Practical implications

The history of the Dutch business schools may provide researchers and administrators of universities insight into the dynamics of disciplines and into setting up professional schools.

Originality/value

This research is based on original documents from the archives of schools and professional organizations. The main contribution of the paper is that it shows how emancipatory and social status motives mediated between the demand and supply side.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. 16 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1348

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Rethinking the Business Models of Business Schools
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78754-875-6

Article
Publication date: 13 February 2009

Agnès Delahaye, Charles Booth, Peter Clark, Stephen Procter and Michael Rowlinson

This paper seeks to identify and define the genre of corporate history within the pervasive historical discourse produced by and about organizations which tells the past of an…

3750

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to identify and define the genre of corporate history within the pervasive historical discourse produced by and about organizations which tells the past of an organization across a multiplicity of texts: published works – commissioned and critical accounts, academic tomes and glossy coffee‐table books – as well as web pages, annual reports and promotional pamphlets.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach takes the form of systematic reading of historical narratives for 85 mainly British and US companies from the Fortune Global 500. For these companies, a search was carried out for US printed sources in the British Library and a survey was conducted of historical content in web pages.

Findings

From extensive reading of the historical discourse, recurrent formal features (medium, authorship, publication, paratext and imagery) and elements of thematic content (narrative, characters, cultural paradigms and business success), which together define the genre of corporate history, have been identified. Such a definition provides competence in the reading of historical narratives of organizations and raises questions regarding the role of history in organizational identity, memory and communication. In conclusion it is argued that the interpretation of corporate history cannot be reduced to its promotional function for organizations.

Research limitations/implications

The list of the formal features and thematic content of corporate history detailed here is by no means exhaustive. They are not variables, but signs, which, in various combinations, compose the narrative and signify the genre.

Practical implications

It seems likely that coffee‐table books will increasingly replace academic commissioned histories, with consultants professionalizing the discourse and formalizing the genre of corporate history.

Originality/value

The genre of corporate history has hitherto been neglected in organization theory, where the linguistic turn has led to a preoccupation with talk as text. The use of genre to analyse corporate history represents a textual turn to literary organizational texts as text.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 22 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 2009

Arménio Rego, Isabel Pinho, Júlio Pedrosa and Miguel Pina E. Cunha

This study shows how 152 researchers from several research centers of a Portuguese university perceive the facilitators and barriers to knowledge management. Three domains are…

Abstract

This study shows how 152 researchers from several research centers of a Portuguese university perceive the facilitators and barriers to knowledge management. Three domains are considered – knowledge gathering, creation, and diffusion. Three dimensions of barriers and facilitators were considered – individuals, socio‐organizational processes, and technology. Regarding both barriers and facilitators, but mainly barriers, the findings suggest that researchers are more sensitive to the “soft” aspects of knowledge management (i.e., individuals, socio‐organizational processes) than to the “hard” ones (i.e., technology). This suggests that, although technology is an important facilitator, it is people and their interactions that create knowledge and promote the knowledge flow.

Details

Management Research: Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management, vol. 7 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1536-5433

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 July 2007

Irma Bogenrieder and Peter van Baalen

Most people participate in various groups and communities simultaneously. Many authors have pointed to the importance of multi‐membership for knowledge sharing across communities…

Abstract

Purpose

Most people participate in various groups and communities simultaneously. Many authors have pointed to the importance of multi‐membership for knowledge sharing across communities and teams. The most important expected benefit is that knowledge that has been acquired in one community of practice (CoP) can be applied into another CoP or group. This paper seeks to discuss the consequences of multi‐membership for knowledge sharing in a CoP.

Design/methodology/approach

The concept of multiple inclusion is used to explain why and how multi‐membership can hold up knowledge sharing between groups.

Findings

This case study shows that knowledge transfer between CoPs and teams can be problematic when norm sets between these two groups conflict.

Originality/value

This paper concludes that CoPs can sustain when the “practice” remains at a safe distance from the “real” project work in teams that are guided by managerial objectives.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 20 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 February 2009

Hugo van Driel and Wilfred Dolfsma

The purpose of this paper is to disentangle and elaborate on the constitutive elements of the concept of path dependence (initial conditions and lock‐in) for a concerted and…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to disentangle and elaborate on the constitutive elements of the concept of path dependence (initial conditions and lock‐in) for a concerted and in‐depth application to the study of organizational change.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach takes the form of a combination of a longitudinal and a comparative case‐study, based on secondary literature.

Findings

External initial conditions acted less as “imprinting” forces than is suggested in the literature on the genesis of the Toyota production system (TPS); a firm‐specific philosophy in combination with a critical sequence of events mainly shaped and locked‐in TPS.

Research limitations/implications

The empirical sources are limited to publications in English, so relevant factors explaining the path taken may not all have been included. The importance of a salient meta‐routine might be firm‐specific.

Practical implications

The study contributes to understanding the factors underlying corporate performance by a critical re‐examination of a much heralded production system (TPS).

Originality/value

The paper highlights the use of the concept of meta‐routines to connect the core elements of path dependence, that is, sensitivity to initial conditions and lock‐in mechanisms.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 22 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 February 2015

Eric Davoine, Stéphanie Ginalski, André Mach and Claudio Ravasi

This paper investigates the impacts of globalization processes on the Swiss business elite community during the 1980–2010 period. Switzerland has been characterized in the 20th…

Abstract

This paper investigates the impacts of globalization processes on the Swiss business elite community during the 1980–2010 period. Switzerland has been characterized in the 20th century by its extraordinary stability and by the strong cohesion of its elite community. To study recent changes, we focus on Switzerland’s 110 largest firms’ by adopting a diachronic perspective based on three elite cohorts (1980, 2000, and 2010). An analysis of interlocking directorates allows us to describe the decline of the Swiss corporate network. The second analysis focuses on top managers’ profiles in terms of education, nationality as well as participation in national community networks that used to reinforce the cultural cohesion of the Swiss elite community, especially the militia army. Our results highlight a slow but profound transformation of top management profiles, characterized by a decline of traditional national elements of legitimacy and the emergence of new “global” elements. The diachronic and combined analysis brings into light the strong cultural changes experienced by the national business elite community.

Content available
Article
Publication date: 13 February 2009

Peter van Baalen and Irma Bogenrieder

1717

Abstract

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 22 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

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