Theory and practice: their roles, relationship, and limitations in advanced management education - master of business administration degree

Business Horizons, May-June, 1993 by Joseph A. Raelin

For those who have read the recent literature on the oversold MBA degree in the United States, there is an appreciation of the pitfalls of emphasizing theory at the expense of practice in the delivery of an MBA program. Although barely a whisper in the first generation of programs in the 1960s following two major national foundation-sponsored reports (Gordon and Howell 1959; Pierson 1959), criticism has reached the level of a chorus of complaints against the pure professional model adopted by most American universities in the advent of the reports.

Perhaps triggered by Hayes and Abernathy (1980), we now know that theory-driven graduate management education encourages a preference for analytic detachment over insight. We know that though consistent and standardized, the product of MBA education tends to be narrow, short-term, and technical, and that it may commit the ultimate sin of actually reducing commitment to lifelong learning (Porter et al. 1989; Raelin 1990).

From a review of more than 200 articles, Cheit (1985) identified 13 major complaints against U.S. business schools, grouped under four headings:

1. They emphasize the wrong model.

2. They ignore important work.

3. They fail to meet society's needs.

4. They foster undesirable attitudes.

Theory-based programs suffer the risk of leaving students with the impression that management problems can be nestled into neat technical packages. However, as Reilly (1982) asks, can graduates think independently, function without sufficient data or extrapolate beyond given data, change their approach in midstream, negotiate, and continually reflect and inquire? In a compelling example, he depicts the shock of a fresh MBA-trained manager who finds that a product line divestment decision has less to do with marginal cost analysis than with personal affinity to the line on the part of the CEO who began his career with the brand.

The split between theory and practice--that theory is done in school and practice at work-- was not invented in America. Indeed, it is a central thrust of the German Wissenschaft tradition of old science wherein the professor-scientist perceives his activities to be quite different from those of the manager-doer. The academic's work is applicable in the sense of serving business people. It is the company's job to engage in training that is directly responsive to its management problems (Locke 1985).

THEORY

Few would question the value of science or basic theory in throwing light on the assumptions underlying practice. However, as we shall see, there is also a need for a theory of practice to identify incongruities between theory and practice. Further, we cannot afford to leave the domain of practice exclusively to the busy practitioner. In a qualitative analysis of managers prior to their enrollment in an MBA course, Viljoen et al. (1980) found that although the managers had a good grasp of the necessary skills of management attendant to their respective organizations, they were unable to develop a cohesive, abstract theory about management.

Practitioners' explanations to students, then, may be at best speculative and not informatively reflective. Especially when it comes to the artistry of their actions during indeterminate situations, they are more likely to say "You'll pick this up as you gain experience" rather than struggle to recapitulate what they accomplished using meaningful, albeit abstract, 'categories. It goes without saying that professors are also not necessarily equipped to explain their theories of action. Nevertheless, their training, if not their character, should predispose them to be reflective about the indeterminate characteristics of their fields (Argyris & Schon 1975).

Let us review for a moment the contribution of basic theory to management practice. Not only does theory, as we have pointed out, challenge the assumptions underlying practice, but, according to Thorpe (1988), as a way of illuminating and describing action, it provides managers with a common language and wide powers of analysis. With these tools, managers are able to reflect upon and actively experiment on the outcomes of their meaningful interventions. Theory further introduces them to principles that can be applied to new and different problems across different contexts. Therefore, theory is virtually necessary in management education if students are to develop the capacity to deal with change and with the future--indeed, if they are to be able to imagine.

Theory in advanced management education, however, needs little defense, at least if we are to take our cue from the standard MBA. In fact, it usually predominates. More than two decades ago, Simon (1969) discussed how faculties in the U.S. were splitting into two worlds--the discipline-oriented and the profession-oriented. Owing to canons of respectability derived through emulation of the natural sciences, the social sciences have tended to embrace neat formulations at the expense of messy applications sometimes required in the professions.