Facilitating the acquisition of strategic skills

Diane H. Parente, John D. Stephan and Randy C. Brown

Management Research Review, 2012, vol. 35, issue 11, 1004-1028

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether managers can acquire strategic skills using management education methods in lieu of experience. It demonstrates that experienced‐based pedagogical methods can be effective in developing traditional skills or “hard” skills and “soft” skills such as interpersonal communication, which then facilitate the acquisition of strategic skills. Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses data from questionnaires and achievement scores from capstone classes to determine whether exposure to an experiential technique called large‐scale simulation can lead students to acquire traditional, soft and strategic managerial skill sets. Findings - The results show that soft and traditional skills are complementary and together lead to better acquisition of strategic skills and also imply that mastering soft skills may enhance the mastery of traditional skills. Research limitations/implications - A limitation of the research stems from the use of students as research subjects. While this limits generalizability, it is important to remember that many such students go on to be successful managers in large and small organizations, partly due to their educational background. Replicating these findings with graduate and executive students is required. Practical implications - A key practical implication is that organizations may be able to effectively supplement their own experienced‐based developmental efforts for their managerial personnel with course‐based learning. Originality/value - The paper's findings support an option for many firms, although this has not received much direct empirical support. Additionally, the results support the increasing emphasis placed on soft skills, suggesting that development of strategic skills may help managers grasp the bigger‐picture implications.

Keywords: United States of America; Universities; Business administration; Students; Managers; Skills; Strategic management; Strategy; Soft skills; Simulation; Management education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:mrrpps:v:35:y:2012:i:11:p:1004-1028

DOI: 10.1108/01409171211276918

Access Statistics for this article

Management Research Review is currently edited by Dr Jay Janney and Prof Lerong He

More articles in Management Research Review from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().