(Un)Learning and (Mis)Education Through the Eyes of Bill Starbuck: An Interview With Pandora's Playmate.

Abstract

William H. Starbuck began his academic career in the late 1950s as a doctoral student at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, working alongside Herb Simon, Jim March, and Dick Cyert. Bill retired in 2005 as the ITT Professor of Creative Management at the Stern School of Business at New York University and now serves as Professor in Residence at the University of Oregon's Lundquist College of Business. In the intervening decades, Bill has held faculty positions at 20 universities, taught classes on 32 different subjects, published more than 130 articles in a variety of disciplines, served on the editorial boards of 14 journals and as editor of Administrative Science Quarterly, been elected a fellow of 5 professional societies and held the position of president of the Academy of Management, and most recently, was selected as recipient of the 2005 Academy of Management Distinguished Scholarly Contributions Award. This interview draws forth the lessons Bill has learned through his personal experiences, teaching, and research over his many decades as a leading management scholar. He identifies several problems that confront learning and education within the Academy of Management and those it serves, as well as those it should attempt to serve, and he offers advice on how to address these problems.