Journal Spotlight: Management Learning

Jul 7

Written By

Management is relevant beyond business; learning continues beyond student life.

The Management Learning journal offers scholarship that extends beyond the typical research articles about challenges and strategies associated with running a business. This is a subscription-based journal you can find in your academic library. It includes both restricted and open-access articles.

Articles cover diverse topics of contemporary interest such as entrepreneurship, ethics, sustainability, pedagogy, and culture. In this editorial Emma Bell and emeritus editor Todd Bridgman discuss their philosophy for this "quirky" journal, and their intention to publish to publish "thought-provoking work that opens up existing ways of thinking about knowledge and learning to critical scrutiny."

Management Learning description points to a widely-encompassing mission that is:

Inclusive: covering all aspects of learning and knowing in management and organizations, encouraging interdisciplinary dialogue, and promoting a range of methodological and theoretical approaches;
Innovative: publishing high-quality work derived from critical, imaginative and committed inquiry which builds new ideas and developments relating to theory, pedagogy and practice;
International: addressing international and multi-cultural aspects of learning, with an international base of readers, authors, reviewers and editorial board members;
Integrative: linking research, theory, methods and practice;
Impactful: aspiring to publish papers that are influential both within the field of management and organizational scholarship, and in the arenas of policy and organizational practice.

Learning through videos.
Do you ever wish you could talk with the researcher and gain insights you can apply to your own work? Videotaped comments are the next best thing. You can find the list of videos here.

Special Issues Go In-Depth.
Virtual special issues allow readers to dig into a topic from multiple perspectives. Each one is a thematic collection of articles from various years and issues. Positive perspectives in management learning and teaching is the newest special issue, and you can find the full list here.

Explore a sampling of open access articles

Dyck, B., & Caza, A. (2022). Teaching multiple approaches to management to facilitate prosocial and environmental well-being. Management Learning, 53(1), 98–122. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505076211045498
Abstract. Friedman’s maxim “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits” (p. 32) has shaped what managers consider effective management. This Financial Bottom Line approach to management has been challenged by both Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) and Critical Management Studies (CMS). POS highlights how enhancing prosocial and other nonfinancial considerations can increase profits, consistent with the current dominant Triple Bottom Line approach. In contrast, CMS tends to critique any approach that seeks to maximize profits by creating dysfunctional power symmetries and marginalization. This study introduces a third option, the Social and Ecological Thought approach, which promotes maximizing social and ecological well-being while remaining financially viable. A longitudinal pre-post intervention in a sample of undergraduate management students showed that teaching multiple approaches to management—Financial Bottom Line, Triple Bottom Line, and Social and Ecological Thought—resulted in learners becoming less likely to espouse profit-related goals (e.g. to maximize efficiency, productivity, profitability) and more likely to identify nonfinancial ones (e.g. extra-organizational prosociality and reduction of marginalization) when characterizing effective management. However, the results did not support predictions regarding intra-organizational prosociality and marginalization, or power asymmetries. We discuss implications for pedagogy and the future development of POS and CMS.

Rostron, A. (2022). How to be a hero: How managers determine what makes a good manager through narrative identity work. Management Learning, 53(3), 417–438. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505076211007275
Abstract. The turn to identity within management studies has revealed important insights into management, by recognising its complex, contingent and relational nature, and through focusing on the personal experiences of managers and how they develop an identity as a manager. However, research has focused on processes of being and becoming a manager, rather than how individuals determine what makes a good manager, and what they are actually seeking to be. I therefore present an extended theorisation of narrative identity work which highlights the overlooked role of the ‘personal social landscape’ constructed through narrative, which gives meaning to the actors and actions within it. The theory is illustrated through detailed analysis of three manager accounts, which reveals processes by which managers construct personal versions of the same organisation, as social landscape to their self-narratives, and how these different organisational constructions create different meanings to their self-narratives as acting well as a manager.

Satama, S., Blomberg, A., & Warren, S. (2022). Exploring the embodied subtleties of collaborative creativity: What organisations can learn from dance. Management Learning, 53(2), 167–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507620985226
Abstract. This study illustrates the value of embodied subtleties in the process of collaborative creativity. Drawing on a sensory ethnography of two dance productions, we illustrate the fine-grained ways in which professional dancers negotiate creative processes behind the scenes. We identify three aspects through which collaborative creativity emerges from bodily subtleties: (1) moving beyond individual bodies towards collective ambitions, (2) relating to colleagues’ micro-gestures and bodily nuances, and (3) the role of ‘serious play’ between bodies in setting the scene for the first two aspects to occur. The findings will contribute to our understanding of the practice of collaborative creativity, which we treat as not only a mental but also a highly intimate bodily practice. We conclude that appreciating sensory micro-dynamics between oneself and one’s colleagues is crucial for creative collaboration, which is increasingly necessary for management learning in contemporary organisations.

Simpson, A. V., Berti, M., Cunha, M. P. e, & Clegg, S. (2021). Art, culture and paradox pedagogy in management learning: The case of Portuguese fado. Management Learning, 52(5), 630–651. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507620988093
Abstract. We propose a reawakening of interest in the role of artistic knowing for managerial education, presenting a pedagogy that is sensitive to cultural context and aimed at enabling the phronetic management of paradox. Inspired by fado, the iconic Portuguese popular music, especially the ways in which it embodies the stresses of society, we develop strategies for management learning based on engagement with art that fosters sensitivity to paradox. We contribute to management learning by inviting practitioners to be sensitive to the complexity of competing tensions in the cultures and language in and through which everyday lives are lived by bringing attention to the potential of artistic knowing for highlighting and navigating management paradoxes, to develop phronesis.

Vu, M. C., & Nguyen, L. A. (2022). Mindful unlearning in unprecedented times: Implications for management and organizations. Management Learning. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505076211060433
Abstract. Crises trigger both learning and unlearning at both intra-organizational and inter-organizational levels. This article stresses the need to facilitate unlearning for effective crisis management and shows how we could use mindfulness practice to enhance unlearning and transformative learning in a crisis. This study proposes the conceptualization of mindful unlearning in crisis with different mechanisms to foster unlearning in three stages of crisis (pre-crisis, during-crisis, and post-crisis). These mechanisms include mindful awareness of impermanence and sensual processing (pre-crisis stage), mindful awareness of interdependence and right intention (crisis management stage), and mindful awareness of transiency and past experiences (post-crisis stage).

Contribute to Management Learning!

Detailed s ubmission guidelines provide the information you will need to contribute your article for consideration.