Wholistic Management Education (WME): Theorizing the Contextualized Applicability of Transformative Learning in Management Education Discourse

Abstract

Traditional management education discourse is in crisis. It does not prepare students to face real world complexities and challenges because it is devoid of context and historicity and localness. It focuses narrowly on the means and not ends of managing and organizing. To address these glaring and gaping fissures between concepts and reality. This paper utilizes Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning approach in management education so that the future managers are on course for individual transformation. Later developments in the transformative learning theory connecting it with extra-rational thinking, multiple ways of knowing and critically evaluating social dynamics are also incorporated so that the individual transformation leads to more broader collective transformation. The discursive interplay between texts, actions and discourses are captured in the proposed Wholistic Management Education (WME) model. The model’s validity and its relation with Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis are briefly discussed along with future research directions.