Teaching High-Commitment Management the High-Commitment Way

Abstract

High-commitment management practices—including the use of self-managed work teams, broad job descriptions, performance-based compensation, and high levels of employee participation in decision making—are becoming increasingly popular. How can business students best learn to manage effectively in the high-commitment workplace? Drawing on the management education literature and the author's teaching experiences, this article argues that high-commitment management can most effectively be taught the high-commitment way by modeling analogous practices in the classroom and then analyzing the group's own experience to illuminate the distinctive dynamics of participatory management.