What Type of Knowledge Is Required in the Business Curriculum? Pedagogic and Curriculum Response to the “New Knowledge”

Abstract

This chapter argues that one of the key criticisms of contemporary business education relates to its approach to knowledge construction, and the prioritising and privileging of disciplinary-based propositional knowledge in the core curriculum. It is suggested that, in general, business education has been slow to respond to the changing conditions and nature of knowledge creation outside of the academy, and it is posited that a recognition of this “new knowledge” is crucial when developing the skills and attributes identified as being important in the workplace. It is further argued that, although project and work-based learning opportunities should be expanded within the higher education (HE) curriculum as a way of making learning more relevant to the business world, of equal importance is how this knowledge is fused with disciplinary-based propositional knowledge within the majority of modules or educational experiences a student is exposed to. By way of illustration, the findings of a small scale research project examining student learning from a “live” company project will be examined. It is concluded that by incorporating authentic learning approaches more extensively within the curriculum, which expose students to or enable them to develop aspects of the “new knowledge”, and then leveraging these broadly across the curriculum, business educators can forge a knowledge synthesis and support skills development that will go some way to bridging the expectations gap between universities and business.

Appendix

Reflections on Personal Learning from Participation in a Student Consultancy Project with a Local Company

Personal objective at commencement of consultancy project	Learning outcome/achievement at completion of project
Gain work experience	“It happened in one sort of way. I thought that the consultancy project was working in the firm and the learning process might be different. The work given was more research based so it meant the project can be done at university…overall the experience was different, but good” (student one). “Q. You mentioned you hoped it would enhance your career path by demonstrating practical knowledge from a real life business project which a company prefers from an applicant when they apply for a job rather than just a certificate…A. Yes, I think is true” (student two). “It has been good to work with a company because it gets you prepared when applying for jobs” (student three)
Knowledge about the industry sector	“The research in the project is more related to a company’s specific goals and how a business operates in a marketing environment; how you need to compete, what factors you need to look at. For example, competitor analysis—I had to look through journals and see how competitors appeared in the magazines and how they conveyed their message across…it was definitely a different way of doing things…In normal research we have a topic in mind and we do a research and read about it. This project would be useful for someone who would like to enter a business or someone who would have liked to enter the same field” (student one). “You have responsibility in something that the company requires. In study work the topics have already been written/talked about, e.g. case studies, which you are working on. In this project, you make something on your own which you can contribute to the business; it’s up to them if they accept it or not but you can put your point of view across, which is interesting” (student one)
Knowledge of the UK business environment	“UK businesses are quite direct and focused” (student two). “I think other modules we can base on secondary data and academic stuff. In this project, secondary data is used but we had to think in depth and find the data unlike modules which can be academic stuff which you can defend and argue it. In this project you had to get on with the work and do it effectively, in the real situation” (student two). “In a real situation the business culture is quite different, you can’t base it by using academic skills, you have to apply it. It’s quite different, to argue and back up your ideas” (student two)
Knowledge on the role and use of trade journals in business	“Quite a lot of knowledge” (student one)
Knowledge of B2B marketing	“In this project we had no limitation to the research we were doing because it was marketing and as much information you can gain from the competitors and what the company should do and more discussion on this, the better” (student one)
Development of consultancy skills	“What I have learnt from the project is understanding the goals for the company, getting the message from the company and keeping good communication with them regularly. I have learnt the importance of keeping good work progress—working towards your goal and the timeline of the project” (student one)
Development of cross-cultural communication and teamwork skills	“Communication in a professional way is what we learnt during the process” (student one). “Q. Do you think the experience helped you to develop skills to work with people from other cultures? A. I think in terms of culture, for example, Indian people insist on doing something, you have to adapt but sometimes it’s hard but my group mates are not so aggressive so it’s quite good” (student two). “This project improved my English skills, conversation, presentation and discussions” (student two). “It’s quite different because most of the work we discussed and allocated work. In this project we had to sit, think and sometimes we would have to make changes something even though it was a group effort. Whilst in other modules the process was different: discuss, have a meeting and allocate work” (student two). “One of the students there was a language barrier in a sense, so in the beginning it took time to understand. Eventually, since we were working together you try to understand what they are trying to and yes, it was good” (student three). “Since we were all from different backgrounds, there are things like punctuality, taking breaks—people have different ideas. It has worked out quite well, since we worked together before but not for a long project such as this one, so you get to know each others’ strengths and weaknesses” (student three)
Report writing skills	“The project is a big assignment to be presented in a formal way which has given me the experience when dealing with companies that the dealings should be formal. I have learnt a lot about formality in the project to be conveyed in the consultancy project” (student one)
Research and analytical skills	“Q. Do you think the project has developed your research and analytical skills in different ways? A. Yes, I think it did because the kind of research done in the project was different to the research done in the masters programme” (student one). “Some people…may have come from a more academic course. It has been good that there is a different opinion though. Some people have been focused on the academic skills and not used it to applying it and they say that ‘they haven’t learnt anything at all’” (student two). “Q. Do you think it did improve your research and analytical skills? A. Yes, definitely because once you research something you need to understand why the person said that or why the particular topic was researched on. Through this I found out how to analyse some situations so it has helped me and my dissertation work” (student three)
Project and time management skills	“…in a project like this it’s important to make progress regularly. This was done according to the timelines we set, we had to fulfil the project requirements within the timeline and timeline was not enough as we had to meet the demands of (the company director) because she had more things for us to do as well” (student one). “Q. Did you think the project improved your time management skills? A. Yes, but not as I expected because we did not have much pressure” (student two). “…we did develop confidence…we set targets in terms of finishing something, during the project we were better at managing time, but it took time to realise this” (student three)
Knowing the company from an insider point of view	“I would say I gained 50% of what I expected, maybe the reason of this is that we were not involved within the company and the many things the company does and all the aspects we would touch if we were working in the company. We were given a particular task which was done externally, meaning that we were not in the firm, which was fine…Since it was a small company they have limited things to do…if it was a bigger company it would have been a different experience for me…if the project duration was longer then I feel I would have got more of an insider point of view” (student one)
Ability to work under pressure	“Yes, I felt the pressure but as much as working on the project—the scope of this project was huge; we had to do a lot of things and so we had to limit ourselves” (student one). “To be honest, there was not much pressure!” (student two). “…I felt we worked well as a group, under pressure since we had other commitments to do” (student three)
Practical knowledge from a real life business project	“If we were not doing this project and was doing it as part of the a master’s programme…we would not have done it as efficiently so we took a different approach; professionally, we learnt professionalism. For example, how to talk professionally when you are doing some business, deals, something about their business” (student one). “Communication in a professional way is what we learnt during the process” (student one). “…for the company report we have to be precise and business-like in what we had to say. In assignments you don’t have to really, so the difference was that we had to think more thoroughly. This is because I have not done any professional work before so it was difficult and different for me to think in that context” (student three). “The phone interviews we did with the different magazines, those were good as after a few phone calls we knew exactly what to ask for to get the right amount of information…Also in terms of marketing, as when we first approached the magazines as students and that didn’t work at all. Then we approached as label manufacturers, they were asking a lot of questions—what did you do, what’s in the next editions and future events and exhibitions. The magazine people even asked for our e-mail address which was good” (student three)
Improving my resume	“For employers to see this…this project has added value to my CV” (student one). “Yes, I think is true” (student two). “I got to know more on how to interact in business terms, basically. To form objectives, what questions to ask and what specific work you need to do—to build my resume in a way, to be specific not ‘beating around the bush’” (student three). “…team working as the project was done in a short period of time and also working under pressure. These are some of the things I would mention, as I felt we worked well as a group, under pressure since we had other commitments to do. These things I could put on my CV as it went well” (student three)