Educating for business – and the business of education
Historical Perspectives and developments
CBS Paper Development Workshop
Business History Conference, Detroit, March 16-18, 2023
The past years have seen an increasing scholarly interest in the historicity of management
learning and education. Studies on historical interrelations between business and education
have appeared as journal contributions and special issues across diverse fields such as
business history, management- and entrepreneurship studies, and didactical research (Bok,
2009; Bridgman et al. 2016; Clinebell, & Clinebell 2009; Khurana 2007; Spender, 2016;
Wadhwani & Viebig 2021), as business schools and educational programs in management
are increasingly seen as having a transformational potential to address present-day global
challenges. Instead of merely educating for business, business school curricula and didactics
are now focused on educating for sustainable solutions and addressing grand challenges
(Gatzweiler et al. 2022).
In the PDW we focus on historicity of business education and, and we would like to explore
recent developments as well as theories and methods that might shed new light on the
historical development of business education.
The workshop offers an opportunity to get feedback and generate ideas of how to develop
concrete paper drafts that deal, one way or the other, with historical aspects of business
education. In addition, the PDW will serve as a forum where we can discuss future directions
and opportunities for historical studies within the area. What questions and research that are
yet to be explored? And what are the role for historians in shaping agendas and research
questions?
Themes to be explored in the papers could include, amongst others:
- The role and development of entrepreneurship education
- The historicity of business- and management education
- Historical responses to grand societal challenges
- Future directions of business education
- Business school pedagogy and didactics in historical perspective
- The historical development of business education curricula
- Theoretical and methodological perspectives connected to business education
Submitted texts could take form as extended abstracts or full paper drafts. The important
thing is that readers can identify the key arguments, theories, and empirical material, for them
to provide useful feedback, suggestions, and comments.
The PDW is developed in the context of a special issues call on entrepreneurship education
in Management & Organizational History. Potential authors for the special issue are encouraged
to participate in the workshop, but the PDW is not limited to contributions for this
publication.
Participants are expected to read all circulated papers. Please submit a paper draft or extended
abstract before January 10, 2023 to the workshop organizers.
- Christoph Viebig, CBS Centre for Business History: cvi.mpp@cbs.dk
- Anders Ravn Sørensen, CBS Centre for Business History: ars.mpp@cbs.dk
References
Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the marketplace: The commercialization of higher education.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Bridgman, T., Cummings, S., & McLaughlin, C. 2016. “Restating the case: How
revisiting the development of the case method can help us think differently about
the future of the business school”. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 15(4):
724-741.
Clinebell, S. K., & Clinebell, J. M. (2009). The tension in business education between
academic rigor and real-world relevance: The role of executive professors. Academy
of Management Learning & Education, 7(1), 99-107.
Khurana, R. (2007). From higher aims to hired hands: The social transformation of American
business schools and the unfulfilled promise of management as a profession. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Khurana & Spender, J. C. 2012 “Herbert A. Simon on What Ails Business Schools:
More than ‘A Problem in Organizational Design’. Journal of Management Studies,
49: 619–639.
Wadhwani & Viebig (2021) “Social Imaginaries of Entrepreneurship Education: The
United States and Germany, 1800–2020“ Academy of Management Learning & Education
20(3).
Gatzweiler et al. (2022) “Grand Challenges and Business Education: Dealing with
Barriers to Learning and Uncomfortable Knowledge”, in Research in the Sociology of
Organizations, Vol. 79, pp. 221-237.
Organizational History Network 