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Keywords Education, Managers, Entrepreneurs, Globalization, Public sector reform
Abstract The growth in management education generally, and entrepreneurship education specifically, has occurred at the same time as increasing importance is attached to management both as an activity for academic investigation and as a practical activity in both public and private sectors. This paper argues that the intellectual foundations of this growth are unsupported by a significant volume of evidence and so it is unlikely that the hope for economic outcomes will be, achieved. In the specific case of entrepreneurship education, this paper recommends that the tension between prescription and recognition of the activity needs to be resolved by both academics and policy makers before the benefits of education in this area can be realised.
1. Introduction
Current policy makers increasingly argue that the main purpose of education is to provide a driver for economic growth. The case for this rests on there being some sort of causal relationship between organisational performance and management; the higher the quality of management, then the more likely it is that the improved organisational performance will result. The outcome of this is that current debates on education tend to focus on issues such as achievement and output. This is reflected in, amongst other things, policies based around increased testing at all ages, from primary through secondary and onto further and higher education. The aim of this paper is not to engage in these debates, but rather to follow a more valuable line of enquiry and consider the relationship between the form and purpose of management education. Our argument is that an understanding and appreciation of the volume, form and content of management education cannot be gained by abstracting it from its intellectual and practical context.
This paper is organised in a fairly straightforward way. section 2 examines the growth in the volume of management education and considers the key intellectual backdrop to this growth, namely a growing obsession with management as the key, if not the only, determinant of organisational success. section 3 develops this point further with a consideration of the form and content of management education with the specific example of entrepreneurship education. Section 4 provides conclusion with a discussion of both intellectual and practical limitations of the...
