| Learning Developmental Coaching Through Experience |
| | Hunt, James Michael | Babson College | Huntj@babson.edu | (781)-239-5724 |
| | Weintraub, Joseph R. | Babson College | Weintraub@babson.edu | (781)-239-4356 |
| | Few MBA Programs provide preparation for the increasingly important management role of coach. This paper reports on one such effort. Students in a second-year MBA elective in leadership, as part of their participation in the course, serve as coaches in an assessment program, similar to a developmental assessment center, for freshmen business students. MBA leadership students and alumni are trained to coach the freshmen through observation of their behavior in structured exercises, working with other coaches to develop a feedback and coaching plan for the students, and conducting an individual coaching interview. This is the first opportunity that many MBA students have had to engage in a helping relationship. Questionnaires and writing assignments, completed by the MBA students, illuminate some of the key challenges that management coaches must confront. Developmental coaching requires that the coach carefully observe both individual and context, support the individual's expression of a personal learning agenda, separate intent from behavior while trying to understand both, and maintain a high level of trust in the coaching relationship. Coaching is a challenging, complex and highly variable task likely requiring on-going learning and reflection for its successful execution. |
| | Keywords: Coaching; Development; Assessment |
| Casuistry and the Business Case Method |
| | Calkins, S.J., Martin | Santa Clara U. | MCalkins@scu.edu | (408) 554-2157 |
| | This article argues for the compatibility of casuistry and the business case method. Focussing on business ethics, it describes the salient features of casuistry and the case method, shows how the two are similar yet different, and suggests how elements of casuistry might benefit the case method. Toward these ends, the article shows how casuistry and the case method are inductive and practical ways of reasoning that focus on a single setting and real-life situation. In both methods, decision-making is shown not to depend upon experts. Rather, ordinary people can use them. Despite their apparent similarities, however, casuistry and the case method are shown to have different purposes, to emphasize the resolution of dilemmas to different degrees, and to stress order differently. While these are important differences, the article suggests that bringing casuistry and the case method together might benefit business management and, in particular, might enhance the field of business ethics. |
| | Keywords: Casuistry; Business Case Method; Management Education |
| Instructional Methods and Mental Models of Students: An Empirical Investigation |
| | Nadkarni, Sucheta S. | U. of Kansas | snadkarni@bschool.wpo.ukans.edu | (785)-864-7555 |
| | This study explores the differences in the mental models of students exposed to three different insturctional methods of teaching an
Organizational Behavior course--lecture-discussion, experiential and hybrid. The lecture-discussion and experiential methods are
integrated into a 'hybrid method' to exploit the synergies between the best features of the two methods. Results suggest that the
students in the hybrid group had more complex mental models than those exposed to either the lecture-discussion method or
the experiential method. Implications of the findings are dicussed. |
| | Keywords: Instructional methods; Mental models; Cognitive maps |