Over the last three decades the UK higher education system has operated under an ideological approach sometimes referred to as New Managerialism (Deem, 2004). The psychological contract of the individual actor within this altered environment was the subject of the research in this study. The psychological contract has been defined as an individual’s beliefs regarding the terms and conditions of a reciprocal informal exchange agreement between themselves and their organisations (Rousseau, 1989). The thesis focused on the psychological contracts of higher education lecturers in a post-92 University Business School in the United Kingdom. The study considered the construction of the psychological contract, the appropriateness of the initial contract, perceived influences on the contract, and behavioural consequences of contract breach and/or violation. The research was focussed on the role of the lecturer in interpreting and unpacking his/her perceptions and understandings. The research questions required data that was personal and experiential. Interviews were undertaken which allowed participants to provide life history accounts that described and theorised about their actions in the social world over time. The approach used had a number of limitations which were identified and considered within the thesis. Notwithstanding the limitations of the research approach, the data suggested that each individual had analysed the extent to which a new employment context would deliver transactional, relational, and ideological reward. However, ideology was less relevant in making the decision to accept higher education employment than either transactional or relational elements. Post-entry, sensemaking acted as a confirmation mechanism in respect of the expectations of what the job would entail and the pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits that would be received. Initial contracts were relatively accurate in their conceptualisation of the work involved in being a higher education academic. Within the Business School examined in this study, management decisions impacted on participants from both an economic and socio-economic perspective. Employees described how individual work contexts were altered by management decisions. Reaction to decisions depended on individual circumstances at any given juncture based on the influences from multiple contexts both internal and external to the workplace. Context was not homogenous and wide-ranging individual differences were apparent. These contexts played a part in defining to what extent changed work environments would be accepted or not. Participants were continuously active and involved in the evaluation of the multiple contexts that were relevant to them. The capacity to manipulate managers and influence decisions to counteract context change was also evident. The ability to thwart changes to work context varied between individuals and over time. This study identified how participants were able to create and shape their own work environment to satisfy their needs and wants during their careers within a structure that remained predominantly organic in nature despite a changing higher education environment. The goal of the employee was to create the idiosyncratic deal, the specific individually tailored work environment that would deliver the satisfaction required from higher education employment. The psychological contracts were self-focussed and self-oriented but this did not necessarily mean that employees were not also actively involved in assisting the organisation to achieve its ambitions. The notion that a managerial agenda had resulted in the erosion of individualism in higher education was not supported. There was evidence that the psychological contract was unilaterally changed and altered by the employee whenever he or she chose, rather than a negotiated change to a binding agreement. Alteration was intrinsically a private determination and often not communicated.

The competitiveness of the graduate business education market; concerns over graduate program relevance; and decreased provincial funding are placing destabilizing pressures on the current graduate business program offerings in business schools promoting the possibility of institutional change. Despite most academic institutions embracing online education as an option to respond, Canadian AACSB accredited business schools have not moved in this direction. The purpose of this research study was to explore the reasons for the limited adoption of online education in Canadian AACSB accredited business schools. The theoretical lens framing this research study was Institutional theory. A qualitative multiple case study research design was carried out with four Canadian AACSB accredited business schools participating. The main data collection method was semi-structured interviews with senior administration and faculty. This study revealed that the constraining forces were stronger than the enabling forces towards adoption, ultimately leading to limited adoption. The enabling forces identified were: market expansion opportunities; cost and infrastructure savings; and student demand for more online education. The constraining forces identified were: the lack of face-to-face interaction; and development and delivery cost. An examination of stakeholder influence found faculty resistance, to hold the strongest influence on organizational decision making in these business schools. Faculty resistance was concentrated mainly towards fully online graduate programs with greater acceptance for the hybrid format. The Institutional theory lens helped to understand that institutional change in academic institutions is difficult, due to the isomorphic forces acting as constraining forces to institutional change. This rendered the finding that the lack of legitimacy of this delivery medium was the main reason for the limited adoption of online education. A number of significant contributions to research in the areas of online education and institutional change in academic institutions; practical implications; and suggestions for future research in this area were also provided.

The research was triggered by widespread criticisms from its constituencies about the relevance of MBAs, allegedly instigated by its dual academic and utilitarian purposes in developing functionally and ethically competent managers. Using Malaysia as the research focus, the perceptions of three MBA stakeholders (i.e. business schools/management educators, industries and students) were explored on the adequacy of MBA provisions by its public universities in preparing professionally and ethically competent managers. Their opinions were gauged on several subjective terms, each carrying the dual academic-utilitarian connotations, i.e. the roles of MBAs, the roles of its providers, the definitions of relevance, the definitions of managers and the necessary competencies, and their concerns over the social responsibility of managers and their education. The research employed mainly qualitative approaches. Primary data was gathered through semi-structured interviews, a focus group discussion and e-mails from the three stakeholders. The management educators and students were derived from three selected business schools. The secondary data involved analysis of the MBA websites and prospectuses provided by all the 10 public universities in Malaysia. In total, the research derived data consisting of 28 interviews, 1 focus group, 81 surveys, 3 email questionnaires, and 10 document analyses. The findings suggested that the perceptions of all three stakeholders reflected an imbalanced MBA that was biased towards utilitarian objectives as opposed to social objectives. The findings showed that religion / spirituality and the development of ME in Malaysia had a considerable impact in influencing the perspectives of the respondents. The research contributes to the discipline by demonstrating how a non-western, religious, developing country viewed the research issues dominated by Western literature.

Background: Business schools are one of society’s most influential institutions as they contribute to transforming and influencing the way the business world works. Hence, business schools bear responsibility for the creation of future, socially aware, graduates. Accordingly, the business industry expects business schools to educate future managers enhancing sustainability and ethical standards. Although it is argued that graduates in business schools get taught many professional skills and abilities to gain economic success, ethical and sustainable practices are often neglected. The schools are getting criticism for providing education distant and irrelevant to industry demands. Purpose: This study aims to create a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of responsible management education (RME) in business schools. The research can hopefully provide valuable insights, both practically and academically, for both the investigated school and other business schools while also providing a richer and more holistic view of the subject.   Method: This single-case study uses an exploratory and abductive research approach. Empirical data have been collected through semi-structured interviews with participants from Jönköping International Business School. Data has also been collected through document analysis. To understand and analyze the findings, thematic analysis has been used.   Findings: The findings show that RME has been implemented in various ways, both because the school itself believes it is highly important, but also because of the pressures stemming from various stakeholders and other institutional forces. Progress is found to have been made, yet the effects of that progress were not acknowledged significantly by either students or document analysis which might be due to a lack of a common definition of both RME and sustainability amongst staff and faculty. For the school to remain attractive, it is found important to continue its work towards RME and put equal emphasis on teaching financial, social, and environmental responsibilities.

Inequalities among top positions in the business sector are prominent and have been shown to partly be explained by social networks, which are prone to be built already during college. Social networks are a vital part of one’s socialization process, where gender and socialization, as well as gender and social networks within the fields of business, are insufficiently explored. Thus, the purpose of this study is to increase understanding of how students, in the context of elite business schools, think and act regarding their socialization process, and thus social networks. Further, we aim to explore the role of gender in these respects. To fulfil our purpose, we applied a qualitative research design by analysing 19 interviews. Our study shows that students have different patterns of socialization behaviour. These can be viewed as a scale, ranging from being extremely social to barely having friends at school, where male students make up the majority on both extremes and female students the majority in the middle. Students positioned towards the social end of the scale could benefit the most in their future careers, which both might help explain existing inequalities and give an opportunity to act for change. / Network and net worth. A longitudinal study of women’s and men’s social networks in Swedish business education and their effect on career outcomes

No description available.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The information technology revolution has not really impacted the core processes of learning and teaching in business schools. Business schools stand in stark contrast to organisations where IT forms the new infrastructure for communication, decision-making, product development and service delivery. In this context, advanced and emerging information technologies are increasingly viewed as a key resource in enabling new and effective learning process. and educational innovations. The study introduces an interactive computer-mediated learning system designed for the field of People and Change Management that, whilst interacting with the student, also integrates seamlessly with traditional information sources. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die informasie tegnologie revolusie het nog nie regtig 'n groot impak op die kern prosesse van leer en onderwysing in besigheidskole gemaak nie. Besigheidskole staan in skerp kontras met organisasies waar IT die nuwe infrastruktuur vorm vir kommunikasie, besluitneming, produk ontwikkeling en dienslewering. In hierdie konteks word gevorderde en ontwikkelende informasie tegnologieë gesien as al hoe meer van kern belang in die daarstelling van nuwe en effektiewe leer prosesse en onderwys innovasie. Die studie boekstaaf die ontwikkeling van 'n rekenaar model om hierdie probleem aan te spreek in die veld van Menslike Hulpbronne en Veranderingsbestuur. Die impak is tweeledig van aard, die daarstelling van 'n interaktiewe leer proses, sowel as integrasie met tradisionele inligting bronne.

During the second half of the 20th century there has been both a burgeoning intellectual interest in business and management as a topic and an exponential growth in the formal study of business and management as an academic subject. Indeed by the end of the century it was estimated that worldwide there were 8,000 business schools and more than 13 million students of business and management. In addition, it was estimated that worldwide annual expenditure on university level business and management education had reached US $15 billion (The Global Foundation for Management Education, 2008). However, despite this there is a lack of clarity regarding both the scale and the nature of the influence that academic scholarship exerts over managers. Accordingly this research study has sought to investigate the appropriation of ideas, theories, concepts and models by management practitioners. The thesis has reviewed and evaluated the two most obvious, most established and most influential potential explanations. These were diffusion of innovations (Rogers, 1962) and fashion theory (Abrahamson, 1991 & 1996; Abrahamson & Fairchild, 1999). It has been concluded that whilst both these potential explanations provided important insights, neither was able to provide a comprehensive theoretical foundation for this research study. Accordingly, a much broader range of pertinent scholarship was reviewed and evaluated. This included, but is not limited to, the scholarship that is associated with learning by adults (Dewey, 1933; Bartlett, 1967; Schank & Abelson, 1976; Mezirow, 1977). Although this additional scholarship provided a further range of potential explanations, the extent to which any of these would be found within the particular setting of management practitioners remained unclear. In addition, the literature review highlighted a number of unresolved debates regarding issues such as (i) whether management was a science or an applied science; (ii) whether it was a craft or a profession; (iii) whether in reality there were fashionable trends in management practice or whether in fact such practices were remarkably stable; and (iv) whether management theoreticians, gurus and consultants actually exerted significant influence over management practitioners. The literature review also highlighted methodological concerns relating to the use of citation analysis as a proxy for primary information regarding managerial practice. Hence, this research is situated in a gap which is delineated by the unresolved issues that are associated with both diffusion theory and fashion theory; the applicability of the broader range of scholarship to a management setting; the unresolved debates within this field of interest and the need to obtain primary information relating to management practice, rather than being dependant upon citation analysis. The research study has utilised qualitative data and inductive reasoning to examine these matters and the overarching research philosophy has been that of realism (Ritchie & Lewis, 2003). Ultimately, 39 semi-structured, recorded interviews were undertaken using the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954). Collectively these interviews lasted for 35 hours and obtained information relating to 160 critical incidents. The verbatim transcripts of the interviews totalled 350,000 words. A case study analysis of this data was undertaken to examine the decision making of the interviewees in relation to some of their most challenging managerial situations. This analysis concluded that for the ‘generality’ of these interviewees; theory played little, or no, overt part in their decision making. The data was also subjected to a content analysis using a bespoke compendium of 450 ‘terms’ that represented the development of theorising about management over the whole of the 20th century. This analysis concluded that the influence of the 20th century’s management theoreticians over these interviewees was weak. Finally, the possibility that any such influence might be a covert, rather than an overt; phenomenon was examined using both the insights of intertextuality (Allen, 2000; Bazerman, 2004) and the framework analysis technique (Ritchie, Spencer & O’Connor, 2003). This analysis demonstrated that the discourse, dialogue and language of these interviewees could be indexed to four domains; (i) the theoretical; (ii) the conceptual; (iii) the tactical; and (iv) the practical. The intertextual indexing outcomes were corroborated both by substantial extracts from the verbatim interview transcripts and by three unrelated strands of scholarship. These were (i) adaptive memory systems (Schacter, 2001); (ii) the realities of management (Carlson, 1954; Stewart, 1983; Mintzberg, 1989) and (iii) the role of concepts and conceptual thinking in nursing (McFarlane, 1977; Gordon, 1998; Orem, 2001). On this basis it has been concluded that management can be characterised as a conceptual discipline; that in its essential nature management is at least as conceptual as it is either theoretical or practical; and that managers appropriate concepts and ideas, rather than theories and models per se.

This paper adds to existing literature regarding MBA selection processes and helps identify and better understand the needs that motivate consumers to pursue an MBA degree. Through a series of qualitative, one-on-one interviews with 17 brand-new MBA students or prospective students, this research found that while many people have "always wanted" to earn the advanced degree, most have toyed with the idea of a graduate business degree for many years. The most frequent reasons that people cite regarding their decision to seriously consider an MBA at a large southern university centers around four desires. These are, not surprisingly, the desire to earn more money, the desire to change careers, the desire to advance their careers by obtaining a required credential, and the desire for knowledge that can be obtained by earning the degree. Further, this research identified the single most important factor that prospects considered when determining which university to attend for the MBA degree: the university's ability to help make them more marketable or advance their career. Other answers included cost, university's reputation, convenience, program duration, the university's location, and the caliber of peers in the classroom.

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No. of bitstreams: 1 Mestrado_TA_FernandaCarreira_2018.vff.pdf: 1733940 bytes, checksum: e06df892b9201e41e41ed83fb817d432 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-05 / Quando perguntamos aos/às CEOs qual o business case da sustentabilidade, a maior parte das respostas gira em torno de expressões como vantagem competitiva, oportunidades de negócios, redução de custos, gestão de risco e alinhamento a propósito. Nesses casos, reconhece-se que a formação para a sustentabilidade veio se dando de forma pouca estruturada, mais pela prática e com espaço para desenvolvimento. Porém, a partir das entrevistas realizadas para esse trabalho, pode-se constatar que nem todos/todas CEOs conseguem conectar sustentabilidade ao core business da empresa. Mas onde e como eles e elas poderiam se formar para a sustentabilidade? O presente trabalho buscou compreender se existe e, se sim, qual é o papel das Escolas de Negócio na formação de CEOs para a sustentabilidade, de maneira a identificar insights para que a FGV EAESP avance nesse tipo de formação. A revisão da literatura buscou i) compreender o conflito entre a formação executiva tradicional e a para a sustentabilidade e, ii) analisar a oferta do que existe hoje em educação executiva de CEOs para a sustentabilidade. Já a pesquisa empírica buscou criar, utilizando a Teoria Fundamentada em Dados, uma teoria a partir da voz de CEOs de qual seria o papel das Escolas de Negócio na formação de C-Level para a sustentabilidade. Os resultados do trabalho apontam que as Escolas de Negócio têm um papel essencial na formação de gestores/as para a sustentabilidade, principalmente nos primeiros estágios de suas carreiras, e que as instituições que avançarem nesse sentido estarão em vantagem competitiva devido à baixa oferta de cursos nesta linha. Quanto à formação para a sustentabilidade para CEOs, o espaço existe, desde que as Escolas ofereçam um formato que esteja adequado à realidade profissional do C-Level. Por fim, este trabalho traz contribuições para que as escolas repensem sua abordagem de ensino-aprendizagem. Utilizando o espelho como metáfora, se as escolas de negócio foram criadas como um reflexo do avanço do setor empresarial, as transformações pelas quais as empresas estão passando deveriam ser refletidas no ensino e na formação de gestores/as pelas Escolas. / When we ask CEOs about the sustainability business case, most answers revolve around expressions such as competitive advantage, business opportunity, cost reduction, risk management, and alignment on purpose. In these cases, it is recognized that education for sustainability came about in a little structured way, more with the practice and with space for development. However, from the interviews conducted for this work, it can be seen that not all CEOs can connect sustainability to the core business of the company. But where and how could they graduate for sustainability? The present work sought to understand if there is and, if so, what is the role of Business Schools in the formation of CEOs for sustainability, in order to identify insights for FGV EAESP to advance in this type of education. The literature review sought to (i) understand the conflict between traditional executive education and sustainability, and (ii) to analyze the supply of what exists today in CEOs executive education for sustainability. Empirical research has sought to create, using Grounded Theory, a theory based on the CEO voice of what the role of Business Schools in C-Level education for sustainability will be. The results of the study indicate that Business Schools play a key role in educating managers for sustainability, especially in the early stages of their careers, and that institutions that advance in this direction will be in a competitive advantage due to the low supply of courses in this line. As for education for sustainability for CEOs, space exists, as long as the Schools offer a format that is appropriate to the professional reality of the C-Level. Finally, this work contributes to schools rethinking their teaching-learning approach. Using the mirror as a metaphor, if business schools were created as a reflection of the advancement of the business sector, the transformations that business is going through should be reflected in the teaching and education of managers by the Schools.