Meaningful learning in management: recombining strands of knowledge DNA through engaged dialog and generative conflict

This paper explores how meaningful learning objectives in management classes are pursued when the focus is on classroom activities and strategies that foster transformative thought, adaptive growth, and commitment from both instructors and students to achieve meaningful learning. To this end, we offer a metaphor and a context for this approach to learning. The DNA of learning metaphor details effective pedagogical practices and encourages instructors to take a more challenging and possibly transformative approach to their course design and classroom experiences

In search of the corporate citizen: The emerging discourse of corporate ecology

Examinations of corporate discourse tend to dichotomize ethical stakeholder relationships and strategic business decisions, but when the ethical/economic conflict is cast in rhetorical terms, the apparent contradictions can be seen as a failure of traditional Western managerial discourse. Decision making within bureaucratic organizations has followed the traditionally rational, assertive forms of Western discourse, but management theorists increasingly urge corporations to adopt practices more appropriate for complex, adaptive, self‐organizing communities. This emerging rhetorical form has practical utility in an adaptive, post‐industrial “learning organization” but also allows a performance of organizational citizenship that integrates ethical and economic values in a discourse of corporate ecology. © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All right reserved