Rethinking Management Education in Malaysian Universities and Institutions of Higher Learning
This paper describes the scenario of management education in the context of Malaysian universities and the institutions of higher learning. Management education has come to much criticism in recent times from the industries due to the inability of graduates to put their learning into practice (Sunday Star, November 6, 2005). Trivedi & Sudarshan (2003) argue that one of the great disservices of "management education" has been the formulation of the idea that there is an exact science of management that can be learned like engineering, science or computer programming. However, unlike engineering and science, management is an interdisciplinary field with contributions from various fields such as psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics and finance. Contemporary management also includes issues related to cross-cultural management and international management. Increasingly, the understanding of management is coming to depend on understanding, analyzing and predicting organizational behaviour, which is the basis for human resource management.
The aim of this paper is to explore and explain how management education in the universities and institution of higher learning in Malaysia can be improved to provide greater outcomes to the industries, to the society and to the nation in achieving Vision 2020. In this paper, the author asserts the need for "glocalization" of management education and a strong collaboration between the universities and institutions of higher learning and industries in producing the required quality and quantity of management graduates. Both are the key ingredients to increase the effectiveness of management education and to produce world-class Malaysian organizations. This paper represents the author's personal experiences and reflections as a management educator and consultant, combined with many discussions with academics teaching management, management consultants, management students and managers in Malaysia.