Jeff,
Thanks for your interest. Bill Ferris is this year's MED program chair, so
I have cc'd him regarding your ideas on a preconference session. I have
also posted this response to our MED discussion list since we have been
chatting about how to get more practitioners (a.k.a. executives) involved
in the Academy meetings. So...you may get some addtional inputs from other
members of MED on this topic.
As far as my feelings on training PhD students for a career in consulting,
that's ok but I don't think it will get much attention at the research
universities. We have a fellow in the local area here who is preparing
himself for a consulting career, but he's doing a terminal degree through
Nova. I think programs like that which also rely on using mostly
practitioners in the classroom are more appropriate for that career path
than the research universities.
Hope this helps. I'm sure Bill will get back to you on the preconference
stuff.
Regards,
Dave
On Thu, 7 Nov 1996, KERR, JEFFREY wrote:
>
> Prof. Lemak:
> My name is Jeff Kerr and I am your counterpart in the Managerial
> Consultation Division of the Academy. I am writing to see if there might be
> any interest on your part in sponsoring a joint pre-conference session in
> Boston focused on the training of practitioner/consultants as a legitimate
> objective of management doctoral education.
> This idea came up as part of a larger dicussion regarding the tension
> that appears to (continually) exist between the academic and practitioner
> orientations within the Academy and, more generally, within the field of
> management itself. With a few notable exceptions (e.g., Case Western), most
> schools devoted to management education seem to emphasize the training of
> researchers rather than clinicians. Some of the possible discussion points
> for a panel might be:
> -consulting as a legitimate career path for doctoral students;
> -training consultants versus training researchers;
> -should bus. schools be doing more to prepare doctoral students
> for practitioner careers?
>
> I think this might be an interesting session. What do you think?
>