Business schools and lifelong learning: Inquiry, delivery or developing the inquiring mind

Abstract

‘[V]irtually all public and private enterprises – including most successful corporations - are becoming dominantly repositories and coordinators of intellect’ (Quinn, 1992: 241). University based management schools play a role in harnessing this intellect by supporting the development of leaders with the capacity to think critically, to make choice and to facilitate implementation. As centers working with a higher proportion of mature executives, management schools are forced to address the complex resource issues surrounding knowledge accumulation and knowledge dissemination. Enhancing the capacity of our future leaders to contribute to society requires gifted academics – academics that expand the desire for inquiry in their students and thereby develop their capacities for self-driven lifelong learning. Are such academics teachers, researchers or hybrids? ‘[We, researchers, should] not fall into the trap of answering questions of increasing irrelevance with increasing precision’ (John Gardner – cited in Davenport Prusak, 2003: 87).