Assessing the Effectiveness of Whole Person Learning Pedagogy in Skill Acquisition

We describe a whole person learning experiential/behavioral skill pedagogy developed in an executive skills course. The pedagogy was designed to address recent criticisms of MBA education relative to program relevancy and the skill sets of students entering the workforce. We present an experiential learning model based on the concept of whole person learning, discuss how the model is used in the class, and provide an empirical assessment of skill improvement over a 5-year period. Using a pre–posttest with control group design to test student skill levels by way of an assessment center, the effectiveness of the pedagogy was supported. The skills assessed included communication, teamwork, leadership/initiative, decision making, and planning/organizing. Guidance is provided for implementing the pedagogy into MBA curricula. We describe a whole person learning experiential/behavioral skill pedagogy developed in an executive skills course. The pedagogy was designed to address recent criticisms of MBA education relative to program relevancy and the skill sets of students entering the workforce. We present an experiential learning model based on the concept of whole person learning, discuss how the model is used in the class, and provide an empirical assessment of skill improvement over a 5-year period. Using a pre–posttest with control group design to test student skill levels by way of an assessment center, the effectiveness of the pedagogy was supported. The skills assessed included communication, teamwork, leadership/initiative, decision making, and planning/organizing. Guidance is provided for implementing the pedagogy into MBA curricula

CEO succession and the CEO’s commitment to the status quo

Chief executive officer (CEO) commitment to the status quo (CSQ) is expected to play an important role in any firm’s strategic adaptation. CSQ is used often as an explanation for strategic change occurring after CEO succession: new CEOs are expected to reveal a lower CSQ than established CEOs. Although widely accepted in the literature, this relationship remains imputed but unobserved. We address this research gap and analyze whether new CEOs reveal lower CSQ than established CEOs. By analyzing the letters to the shareholders of German HDAX firms, we find empirical support for our hypothesis of a lower CSQ of newly appointed CEOs compared to established CEOs. However, our detailed analyses provide a differentiated picture. We find support for a lower CSQ of successors after a forced CEO turnover compared to successors after a voluntary turnover, which indicates an influence of the mandate for change on the CEO’s CSQ. However, against the widespread assumption, we do not find support for a lower CSQ of outside successors compared to inside successors, which calls for deeper analyses of the insiderness of new CEOs. Further, our supplementary analyses propose a revised tenure effect: the widely assumed relationship of an increase in CSQ when CEO tenure increases might be driven mainly by the event of CEO succession and may not universally and continuously increase over time, pointing to a “window of opportunity” to initiate strategic change shortly after the succession event. By analyzing the relationship between CEO succession and CEO CSQ, our results contribute to the CSQ literature and provide fruitful impulses for the CEO succession literature

Why Have we Neglected Vicarious Experiential Learning?

The literature of experiential learning has failed, almost exclusively, to address the perspective of vicarious experiential learning in research schema or conceptual models. We have not found any ABSEL references, for example, that focus on the vicarious dimension as a research perspective or as a fully expressed conceptual framework. Therefore, we ask the question “Why have we neglected vicarious experiential learning?” We address this question by reviewing the genesis of vicarious experiential learning from the literature of modeling and self-efficacy. We develop a model comparing vicarious experiential learning with direct experiential learning. The paper concludes with some explanations of the efficacy of vicarious experiential learning and methodological definitions of the concept

An Exploration of Overconfidence in Experiential Learning of Behavioral Skills among MBA Students

Several problems cited by instructors in organizational behavior (OB) (Burke & Moore, 2003) may be attributable in part to overconfidence among students. One question of interest to ABSEL scholars is the extent to which experiential learning environments interact with this phenomenon. While overconfidence is a well-known OB construct, its effect on acquisition of interpersonal behavioral skills in experiential learning settings is not well understood. In a study of MBA students exposed to an experiential behaviorally-based class featuring assessment centers, we found that overconfidence was a pervasive phenomenon, that it was an even larger phenomenon in the most interpersonally-oriented skills (leadership and teamwork), and we found that overconfidence was reduced between assessment centers and when disconfirming feedback was provided. Finally, we found some evidence that overconfident individuals performed more variably on a subsequent assessment center measurement. Implications for experiential learning theory and educational practice are discussed

Diversity's harvest: Interactions of diversity sources and communication technology on creative group performance

Our research is based on arguments that three different diversity sources in groups - agreeableness, openness, and ethnicity - might simultaneously possess separation properties that result in social categorization and variety properties that provide non-redundant and value-adding information resources. To help understand how these diversity sources interact with the additive and reductive features of communication technology to impact group creativity, we designed two studies involving computer mediation, nominal group technique, and face-to-face (control) communication. Our findings suggest that agreeableness, openness, and ethic diversity possess both negative separation and positive variety properties. Whereas the separation properties of all three diversity sources, as well as the variety properties of openness diversity, are evident in newly-formed groups, the variety properties of agreeableness and ethnic diversity are only manifest in mature groups. Finally, the additive and reductive features of communication technology interact with all three diversity sources to impact creative group performance in different ways.Group diversity Computer mediated communication Creativity

An Empirical Test of “Behavioral Immersion” in Experiential Learning

This paper describes a study of the effectiveness of experiential learning of behavioral skills by proposing the concept of “behavioral immersion” or learning intensity as a potential pedagogical asset in experientially based management education. The experiential learning literature, including the collected works published by ABSEL, has little to say specifically about the efficacy of behavioral immersion techniques. Nor does the extant literature offer guidelines as to how to increase experiential learning effectiveness by increasing learning intensity. We tested and found support for our hypothesis of the power of behavioral immersion by assessing improvement on a pre-test, experiential pedagogy, post-test design, such that MBA students in an immersive (summer session) environment displayed greater skill acquisition through assessment center testing than did traditional (fall/spring session) students

Voices from the Trenches: Personal Reflections of an MBA Program

Three instructors with extensive experience teaching a behaviorally-based required MBA course in executive skills utilized whole person experiential learning methodologies over a period of years. This paper discusses the rewards, opportunities, challenges, and frustrations these instructors encountered. Borrowing from the format employed by the Academy of Management Learning and Educatio

Process and Content Integration in an Experiential Learning Guided Internship Program

Integrating process and content remains one of the greatest challenges in the successful execution of simulations and experiential learning exercises. In addition, ABSEL schol-ars, when designing a learning experience, must include balancing process and content considerations as design considerations. These issues are addressed in an innovative multidisciplinary program conducted by a College of Busi-ness and a College of Education in a large university in the southwestern United States. A process/content integration system labeled the Guided Internship Model, utilizing tech-niques and frameworks conducive to whole person experi-ential learning, is described. The program was implement-ed in a public school system with a group of interns func-tioning as Assistant Principals. The College of Business Professor functioned as the process coach, and the College of Education Professor functioned as the content coach. Innovative aspects of the experiential internship program include the execution of this joint coaching methodology

A Covenantal Relationship Approach to Experiential Learning

ABSTRACTLong-term learning, especially learning that involves behavioral skill sets, requires both the acquisition and retention of whole person learning skill sets. The processing of whole person behavioral skill sets is most readily accomplished in experiential learning settings. For long-term learning to occur, an experientially inclined educator needs to have an educational agency model that inspires students to carry forward their learning program outcomes on multiple whole person learning fronts and over a period of time that is meaningful to the studen

An Innovative MBA Class in Organizational Behavior and its Relationship to Experiential Learning

ABSEL’s emphasis on experiential learning (EL) provides a vehicle for discussing a wide array of pedagogical practices, from specific tools to broader approaches. In this article, we present a pedagogy, or more appropriately an andragogy, that thematically drives a graduate class in organizational behavior (OB). This course systematically integrates a wide array of experiential aspects such as self-assessment, reflection, skills application planning, execution of skills plans inside and especially outside the classroom, evaluation of skills planning, and case analysis, following Whetten’s (2020) text Developing Management Skills. While each of these activities are common EL tools, their overarching integration in one MBA curriculum’s OB class is discussed here. The class design is described, related to experiential learning theory (Kolb, 1984), whole person learning (Hoover et al., 2010), and Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom et al., 1956), then concludes with three different instructor reflections on the approach’s benefits and some practical limitations and implications