What Type of Knowledge Is Required in the Business Curriculum? Pedagogic and Curriculum Response to the “New Knowledge”

This chapter argues that one of the key criticisms of contemporary business education relates to its approach to knowledge construction, and the prioritising and privileging of disciplinary-based propositional knowledge in the core curriculum. It is suggested that, in general, business education has been slow to respond to the changing conditions and nature of knowledge creation outside of the academy, and it is posited that a recognition of this “new knowledge” is crucial when developing the skills and attributes identified as being important in the workplace. It is further argued that, although project and work-based learning opportunities should be expanded within the higher education (HE) curriculum as a way of making learning more relevant to the business world, of equal importance is how this knowledge is fused with disciplinary-based propositional knowledge within the majority of modules or educational experiences a student is exposed to. By way of illustration, the findings of a small scale research project examining student learning from a “live” company project will be examined. It is concluded that by incorporating authentic learning approaches more extensively within the curriculum, which expose students to or enable them to develop aspects of the “new knowledge”, and then leveraging these broadly across the curriculum, business educators can forge a knowledge synthesis and support skills development that will go some way to bridging the expectations gap between universities and business.