What Business Schools Can Do to Bridge the Theory-practice Gap: An Overview and Discussion
Guoxin Ma, Yuting Zhang, Yifei Chen
Oct 31, 2020
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Journal
The International Journal of Humanities & Social Studies
Full text
Semantic Scholar
Key Takeaway Key Takeaway: Business schools can bridge the theory-practice gap by incorporating collaborative research, MBA programs, and ethical education, preparing future managers for globalization.
Abstract
would disagree that there is and should be a close relationship between theory and practice in management, there is a lack of clear consensus on how ‘close’ the relationship is or should be. From a learning perspective, perhaps managing is best described as a ‘craft’, a kind of profound and hard to articulate tacit knowledge, usually gained through implicit learning and personal lived experiences (Sadler-Smith, 2006). From this perspective, it would not be hard to understand why the practical side of management had been for the most part left with management development (as a function of human resource management), instead of with management education. This produces significant difficulties in Abstract: Aligning management knowledge and practice has become a ‘persistent and difficult problem’ for management scholars and educators. In scholarship, more specifically, increasing attention is paid to a ‘gap’ between theory and practice in many professional fields worldwide. In this paper, we aim to address the conceptual space between theory and practice in management education by providing an overview of relevant techniques and practices used by business schools, namely, collaborative research, MBA programmes, and ethical education. We further reflect on issues highlighted in this overview and discuss its wider implications for management teachers, scholars, and practitioners, shedding light on future empirical research. advancing knowledge on management education to bridge the theory-practice gap in management literature. This article addresses this issue by highlighting the current challenges faced by business schools regarding preparing future managers in the increasingly globalising context, by providing an overview of what business schools can do to bring the practical side of management into its education. We close this paper by discussing the wider implications and future research.