Senior Lecturer in Leadership at the School of Business, Dr Paul Donovan, has written an article that has been published in the Journal of Management Education. The article is entitled ‘A Threshold Concept in Managing: What Students in Introductory Management Courses Must Know’.
In the field of management, a practice–theory gap has developed and consequently, management education has been criticised for being irrelevant to the needs of stakeholders. This article argues that introduction to management courses in higher education perpetuate this gap by not teaching what managers do. These courses fail to communicate well the threshold concept of managing as accomplishing results through other people.
Understanding this threshold concept would give students clearer perspectives on the distinction between doing work and managing work in organisations – between being ‘one of the team’ and ‘managing the team’.