Relational Learning in the University and the Demands of Business: a Mismatch?

Abstract

An advertising blurb for a recent film stated that &dquo; ... going to school can be an education in itself!&dquo; This statement succinctly identifies the dual nature of learning in an institution. On the one hand, there is the formal, intended learning provided by the institution. On the other hand, there is learning which takes place simply from the experience of participating in an educational system.Most educators pay a great deal of attention to the formal learning, but pay considerably less attention to what is learned from the experience of going to school.This can create problems for students if what they learn from the informal system is not appropriate after they leave school. Teachers of Organizational Behavior might well take an interest in what students experientially learn from the university setting, since this is quite likely to include relational orientations and skills-topis within the OB bailiwick.The purpose of this paper is to explore the relational orientations and skills that business students learn experientially in school, and how this affects them when they enter business. This paper begins with a review of pertinent studies in three areas: (1) the kinds of relational skills businesspeople see as important, (2) the differences between students and businesspeople, and (3) the problems of recent graduates when they enter business.

Expert Knowledge in Management

“…Schein (1964, p. 70) points out that in the process of organizational socialization, recent graduates may actually be persuaded that their college-learned knowledge is too theoretical, idealistic, and naive, and that this knowledge should be largely abandoned in favor of a more &dquo;realistic&dquo; or &dquo;practical&dquo; orientation. In addition, there is evidence that many graduates become disoriented to a certain extent when they enter business (Bigelow, 1983). This suggests that their college orienting frameworks do not work well in business, and that their coursework has not provided them with orientations which they are able to use.…”

“…It is very often the case with &dquo;student expertise,&dquo; which may orient the student to a passive, overrationalistic approach. To the extent students can be confronted with situations in the university setting which are similar to those confronted by managers, the likelihood is increased that student expertise will be more transferrable to work settings (ways of doing this are discussed in Bigelow, 1983). However, to the extent that university learning has a high potential for transference, it may be useful to apprise about-to-graduate students of the potential dynamics of the situations they are about to enter, and of ways they may make the transition without diminishing the value of their education.…”