A genetic approach to management education and the science of teaching

Abstract

In this thesis the philosophy and mechanisms of Cybernetics are applied to Management Education. A philosophical analysis of Management Education is developed and the notion of teleology introduced. Change, dynamic stability and a concept of self-renewal are employed in a cybernetic framework for managing conflicting curricula demands from: (A) academics who are concerned with the intellectual good and analytical ability of their students; (B) representatives of industry, commerce and government who ate concerned with manpower demands, and (C) students' demand for freedom to make up their own curricula from a menu of subjects chosen by them. A model of a regulatory system is developed for controlling a teaching/learning situation to achieve a desired level of mastery. Such a system would contribute towards an improvement in the science of teaching. The mechanisms of communication being parts of the study of Cybernetics are directly relevant to the teaching/learning situation. They form a means to an end relationship, between a teacher and students in the transmission of knowledge. A "black-box" approach to the processes of learning and problem solving is developed. From this approach evolved five essential phases to designing a protocol on how management students should learn what we (teachers) want them to learn. A case is presented to illustrate a learning process. A reflective approach giving teachers a more realistic view (than that given by Newell, Shaw and Simon (1958) and Newell and Simon (1972) ) of the important components for modelling how management students actually learn what we want them to learn is developed. A curriculum design is presented in section 8 which contains basic forms of knowledge and arrangements for a worthwhile management scheme. SYSTEM TWO is an operations system designed to implement the curriculum. It has advantages over committee arrangements and designed to accommodate co-operative educational programs for Management Education. This research has a positive value in that it demonstrates, among other things that Cybernetics is a worthwhile field of discipline which is needed to improve: the state of Management; pedagogy, and Management Education.