Lifting the (Peter) Vaill of Management Education: How to Practice Management Education in the Next 25 Years

Abstract

We contribute to the Special Issue primarily through the lens of the Journal of Management Education (JME) publications of Peter Vaill, a long-time, distinguished shaper of JME for most of its 50 years. These publications and other works elucidate several themes for the future of Management Education (ME): the scholar practitioner, the subjective frame of the action taker, the use of poetry and other humanities in teaching, moral development, student freedom, critique of the competency movement, and practice. The early years of Management education were incredibly exciting as breakthroughs piled up regularly and schools of management were where the “action” was. Vaill’s writings uniquely center on the experience of the practice or techne of the action takers and emboldening them to act courageously and ethically. Among several examples, the future proposed here would include Management faculty conducting classes that are emergent, so that the professor and students both learn in the moment. They would also practice management to understand and mold this dynamic field that they teach. This would result in far more interactive classes where students have greater appreciation for the “feeling, judgment, sense, proportion, balance, and appropriateness” of management and ideally develop a greater passion for Management.