Causes of the Decline of the Business School Management Science Course
Thomas A. Grossman - grossman@UCalgary.ca
Falculty of Management, University of Calgary,
Calgary, Alberta Canada T2N 1N4
Abstract
The business school management science course is suffering serious decline. The traditional model- and algorithm-based course fails to meet the needs of MBA programs and students. Poor student mathematical preparation is a reality, and is not an acceptable justification for poor teaching outcomes. Management science Ph.D.s are often poorly prepared to teach in a general management program, having more experience and interest in algorithms than management. The management science profession as a whole has focused its attention on algorithms and a narrow subset of management problems for which they are most applicable. In contrast, MBA's rarely encounter problems that are suitable for straightforward application of management science tools, living instead in a world where problems are ill-defined, data is scarce, time is short, politics is dominant, and rational "decision makers"; are nonexistent. The root cause of the profession's failure to address these issues seems to be (in Russell Ackoff's words) a habit of professional introversion that caused the profession to be uninterested in what MBA's really do on the job and how management science can help them.
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Citation Information
Grossman Jr., T. A. 2001. Causes of the decline of the business school management science course. INFORMS Trans. Ed. 1(2) 51-61. Available online at http://ite.pubs.informs.org/.
DOI: 10.1287/ited.1.2.51