Amy L. Kenworthy

Daring to Be Different Unconferences, New Conferences, and Reimagined Conferences

In management education, 2013 is the Year of the Daring; a year for those daring to be different. “Daring to Be Different” is the bold theme of this year’s Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference (OBTC) taking place in Asheville, North Carolina, in June. Compared with other conferences, OBTC has always had a different edge to it, but this year they are turning up the amp to 11 and creating an innovative and supportive space for management educators to explore new ideas (http://obtc.org/content/2013). The Academy of Management is similarly daring to be different this year with the launch of a new conference focused on management teaching. Called the “Teaching and Learning Conference at the Academy of Management,” or more catchily, the TLC@AOM, the one-day conference is situated on the Sunday between the professional development workshops and the scholarly program. The press release says that the “2013 TLC@AOM will (1) focus on practice to improve teaching and learning, addressing the needs of both novice and veteran members, and (2) represent all disciplines in AOM Divisions and interest groups with interdisciplinary topics and sessions.” In addition to these two daring innovations, 2013 saw the first “unconference” in management education. The Research in Management Learning and Education (RMLE) Unconference was held on February 1, 2013 at Bond

Service-learning and negotiation: An educational "win-win"

Negotiation is one of the most popular elective business courses offered across tertiary educational programs today. Yet, in many undergraduate and graduate programs, the “practice” of negotiation takes place solely through role-plays and simulations. The purpose of this article is to provide a “how to” template for negotiation instructors who are interested in extending their students’ experiences beyond the sole use of in-class role-plays and simulations into the real world. The project described in this article is a semester-long, undergraduate service-learning group consulting project that has been used and refined over an 8-year period.

No More Reinventing the Service-Learning Wheel: Presenting A Diverse Compilation of Best Practice How To Articles

This Journal of Management Education special issue has been a long time coming. There is no doubt that the teaching tool commonly referred to as service-learning—the practice of engaging students in real-world reciprocally based active and reflective experiences through programs and projects with service-oriented organizations in their local communities—has grown in prominence and application, nationally and internationally, over the past decade. As Thomas Ehrlich aptly stated in a 2009 commentary,

To Rubric or Not to Rubric: That Is the Question.

It is with great excitement as well as the heavy weight of responsibility that we engage in this scholarly public conversation about rubrics. Our thoughts, as represented by the commentary below, were both stimulated by and written in response to Riebe and Jackson’s article “Assurance of Graduate Employability Skill Outcomes Through the Use of Rubrics.” Having read two iterations of that article, and imagining that we are engaging in an active dialogue with others about this issue, we highlight three key messages that we believe warrant further consideration and discussion by the Journal of Management Education (JME) readership. The first relates to motivation. In an earlier draft of their article, Riebe and Jackson put forth the assertion that rubrics “encourage a sense of purpose” for faculty members. Although that phrase is no longer included in their article, we believe it accurately represents one of the core beliefs underpinning many advocates of rubrics in higher education. On this point we would tell a different story—our belief is that most if not all faculty members have a preexisting sense of purpose related to quality teaching and learning and that administrative mandates that are frequently interpreted as “telling us how to teach” are not particularly motivating. The second message we would like to revisit relates to the authors’ discussion of the design and effective implementation of rubrics. As part of our comments below, we believe there are numerous complex issues

Do Sweat It: Using a Fitness Session as an Introduction to Research on the Relationship Between Physical and Mental States

In this article, a hands-on experiential exercise session in a fitness center is presented as a teaching tool for management instructors to facilitate a theoretically based discussion about the connection between individuals’ physical and mental states. Before discussing the components of the exercise session itself, a rationale for integrating this exercise into management courses is presented. The exercise session is then described, with an overview of the logistics and operational components including both the legal release form and the reflection questions that are used before and after the session. Readers are encouraged to consider integrating this teaching tool into any level of management course from undergraduate through executive. To assist in this regard, readers are provided with a list of suggested readings and research findings as well as a discussion of both the potential risks and beneficial outcomes of using this teaching tool.

Charging forward into the unscripted future: Following the script of interconnected action

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a context for the compilation of papers and commentaries included in this International Journal of Organizational Analysis special issue on “Scripting the next wave of exigent issues for service‐learning in our unscripted future: when technology, globalism, and community engagement collide.”Design/methodology/approach – The authors of this paper are the Guest Editors for the special issue. As such, in this paper, they provide a brief history of why the special issue was created and how it serves as an extension to the first special issue (Vol. 17 No. 1, 2009).Findings – There are five papers and six commentary pieces included in this special issue. Each raises a charge, or challenge, to the reader in terms of moving forward with service‐learning in the uncertain, complex, and highly unscripted environments.Practical implications – The practical implications of this paper are those that relate to future research and practice in the service‐learning domain. ...