Beethoven & Bamboo:The Impact of Arts-based Methodologies in Higher Education Management Learning

Abstract

This paper uses an experiential music exercise to better understand current conceptualizations of Higher Education Management learning. As an accessible, inclusive and generative Arts-based medium, music provides a natural platform to investigate its impact on student learning and sheds light on conceptualizations of Management education. Premised on open space learning techniques, students engaged with embodied forms of learning and navigated the landscape of possibilities that were enabled by the musical exercise. Traditional forms of Management education have been somewhat slow to embrace alternative pedagogical approaches in terms of delivery. For instance, those involving the Arts. Through experiential learning our findings in this paper contribute to these emerging teaching methodologies via a team- based musical leadership exercise. The empirical material generated from student interviews of this workshop (co- facilitated by a musical artist and two academics) uncover alternative conceptualizations of Management learning, and the discussions illuminate the benefits/challenges of Arts-based methodologies in Business Higher education.