Precursors of professionalism of business graduates: implications for business education and the profession (original) (raw)
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2010
Professionalism, as represented in behavioral qualities that are in wide variation across students, is a timely and relevant issue for business schools for both pedagogical progress and for graduates' employability. Framed in structuration theory (Giddens, 1984), this paper describes a novel program designed to foster recognition of professional characteristics and incentivize more professional behavior, to progressively shift awareness and norms within the student body culture among undergraduates in an accredited college of business in the Western United States. In concert with traditional curriculum, this simple program offers the reward of formal recognition for students who consistently demonstrate more professional behavior in coursework and extra-curricular activities. Students' recognition of professionalism is expected to be valuable to them and to the college, and formal recognition for those that distinguish themselves is expected to be notable on their resumes an...
International Business Research
One of the biggest challenges of our time is to develop the management discipline into a true profession. In this respect, business schools have been accused for failing to promote better policies and management practices as well as failing to educate students, as prospective managers, about their moral and social responsibilities. This essay outlines a multi-dimensional framework for professionalization, involving the dimensions of purpose, knowledge, behavior, and expectation. Subsequently, this framework is used to define and explore various paths out of the current intellectual stasis of the field of management and business. A key pathway is creating a shared sense of professional purpose and responsibility; another important route involves developing a professional body of knowledge informed by both discovery and validation; third, so-called ‘trading zones’ need to be developed, to offer opportunities for (professionals with) different voices and interests to meet; ...
With increased scrutiny over the value and promise of higher education, liberal arts degrees face criticism, in favor of professional degrees like business that position students for a linear career path to lucrative work. Research for this article is based on 20 interviews with college students majoring in Arts and Sciences, who completed a summer program to obtain a business minor. Our findings demonstrate that participants talk about the business minor as a key factor in 'selling themselves' to potential employers by (1) highlighting the discipline required to complete the program, (2) acting as a conversation starter with potential employees, and (3) emphasizing the broad applicability of a business minor. Implications demonstrate the power of professionalism to render specialized knowledge (like business knowledge) insignificant while offering an extension of Williams' ideal-worker norm to young people.
Conceptions of Professionalism in U.S. Research Universities: Evidence from the gradSERU Survey
Minerva
Recent scholars of the professions have argued that a new hybrid form of professionalism is becoming dominant. This new form combines traditional commitments to ethics and community service with new commitments to managerial and entrepreneurial objectives. We analyze the perceptions of 4,300 U.S. graduate students in 21 fields concerning how well their programs have prepared them for leadership and management and for ethics and community service. These assessments allow us to examine the prevalence of this new conception of professionalism and to examine it in relation to two other conceptions: the “neo-classical” emphasis on ethics and community service as opposed to leadership and management, and another that emphasizes a divergence between business and technical professions on one side and social and cultural professions on the other. Hybridization was comparatively rare but occurred more frequently among students preparing for management, law, and medicine, and among men and stu...
Developing responsible business professionalism: A capabilities approach
Abstract Business and organisational life is increasingly fluid and dynamic, globalised and intercultural. The challenge for business education then is to develop a multidimensional model of responsible business professionalism that goes beyond simply helping students develop their employability skills. This paper presents our model of business professionalism, one we have successfully applied intensively to our teaching of many large cohorts of postgraduate business students.
From Student to Professional: Teaching Professionalism in the Marketing Classroom
Marketing Education Review, 2020
Developing professionalism skills in the classroom is vital to the business college experience as educators strive to ensure preparedness and success of their graduates. Marketers especially need enhanced professionalism training, as their careers involve interactions with many constituents. In this paper, the authors develop a semester-long emphasis on professionalism that introduces the concept, embeds its importance throughout the course with discussion and relevant exercises, and includes a component to monitor and evaluate professional behavior. Assessments at the beginning and end of the semester provide evidence for learning outcomes, both quantitatively and qualitatively, that speak to the effectiveness of its implementation.
Business Student Perception Towards Ethics: An Exploratory Study
International Journal of Business Ethics in Developing Economies, 2017
In regard to ethics and values, nowadays corporate scenario also demands business ethics which will guide the emerging professionals to exercise this ethical domain in their professional lives. The children of present generation do not know about their culture, traditions, values, ethics etc. This is one of the reasons why the content related to ethics and values is included in the curriculum of their professional studies. The objective of the present paper is to study the perception of business students regarding ethics and values. The role of ethics and values in a student's life is very important as it strongly affects their future, career, growth, professional behaviour and helps them learn how to tackle ethical dilemmas in personal and professional life. The data for the study had been collected from the undergraduate (commerce, management, engineering, arts, and science) and postgraduate (commerce, management, engineering, arts, and science) students of the private university situated in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The collected data was analysed with the help of statistical technique such as factor analysis, T-test and regression analysis. The results revealed that awareness about ethics and values is an important factor accessed by all the respondents of the study.