The idea fits with what Whitehead called the goal of introducing beginners to the "romance" of the field so that they become motivated to continue on.
For me, one challenge is to pair at least some of these books with articles that encourage students to also think critically about these books (e.g., validity, generalizability). An article I like and often use is Mintzberg's classic Harvard Business Review article, "Organization Design: Fashion or Fit." Some ideas may be adopted because they are fashionable rather than because they fit. I guess I am adding a question which is, "How are students to become critical readers of the 'top business books'?" Indeed, how will you critically choose such "top business books"? (Maybe you will purposely toss in a book that you think may not quite merit the stature some people accord it?). In any case, I think a search of Book Reviews to accompany the books might be helpful. I recall that in the wake of "In Search of Excellence", there were a couple of articles that looked at "Excellent" firms to see how many remained excellent. I also think that a published interview-if available--with a book's author(s) might be interesting, valuable supporting material. Unfortunately, I would have to do a search to find this; perhaps others have some references?
As far as pedagogy goes, as a Ph.D. student I co-taught a class in which we had groups of students pick a firm that was NOT in "In Search of Excellence" but that students thought was a nominee for "Excellence." They wrote a paper and did a presentation applying the ideas in the Peter's book and several others to that firm. The students enjoyed the class; it ended on a high note with the presentations.
Erik Jansen Ph.D.
Department of Information Sciences
Grad. School of Operations & Information Sciences
589 Dyer Rd., Root Hall 235
Naval Postgraduate School
Monterey, CA 93943
office: (831) 656-2623 fax: (831) 656-3679
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Wankel [mailto:
wankelc@optonline.net]
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2003 12:35 PM
To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Teaching Management via reading Top Management Books
From: Adeline Sullivan [mailto:
asullivan@drjohnsullivan.com]
What pedagogy have you used and has worked to teach a business course where
students will be given a list of the top business books to read (i.e. In
Search of Excellence: Tom Peters, Good to Great: Jim Collins) and the books
will do the teaching. The goal of the course is to excite the students to
read and continuing reading business books as a learning tool throughout
their business career. The overarching goal is to teach students about
World Class Managed Companies, Managers and Management Best Practices.
The question is how will we know they have actually read the book and how
to grade the students?
Sincerely,
Adeline Sullivan on Behalf of Dr John Sullivan, Professor of Management,
San Francisco State University
asullivan@drjohnsullivan.com