Acknowledgments

THIS BOOK BEGAN IN 2008 WHEN BABSON COLLEGE’S LEADERSHIP team challenged the community to consider what it would mean to develop the next generation of management education. We begin by thanking Len Schlesinger, president of Babson College, and Shahid Ansari, provost of Babson College, for presenting this challenge, for having confidence in our abilities to engage faculty in these discussions, and for encouraging us to write this book. We also want to acknowledge the work of the deans and the administrators at Babson who are championing our continued work with the ideas that are introduced here.

This book is the commencement of efforts to formally codify and elucidate how Babson is developing its next generation of management pedagogy. By introducing these new ideas to the wider academic community, we are inviting those who are passionate about the potential of management education to join the conversation.

The ideas herein would not be possible without the energy and the intellect of our task force colleagues, who worked for six months to address the question What do we need to integrate into the Babson pedagogy if we are going to be educating a generation of students who will have the passion, understanding, knowledge, and analytical skills to create great economic and social value everywhere? The task force members included Julio DeCastro, associate professor of entrepreneurship; Stephen Deets, associate professor of history and society; Mary Gentile, senior research scholar; Laurie Krigman, associate professor of finance; Dessi Pachamanova, associate professor of math; Anne Roggeveen, associate professor of marketing; Janice Yellin, professor of arts and humanities; Diane Chase, director of academic resources; and Eliana Crosina, manager of international alumni programs. We would also like to recognize Saras Sarasvathy for her research on effectuation (see http://www.effectuation.org) and for taking the time to talk to our task force about entrepreneurial thinking.

This task force analyzed global environmental changes, demographic shifts, and technological changes as we considered how we could prepare our students for their future endeavors in large businesses, startups, nonprofits, NGOs, and all types of organizations. We conducted an extensive literature review, we interviewed top management educators inside and outside of Babson, and we surveyed data from management students, employers, recruiters, and our alumni. Needless to say, the task force engaged in many heated discussions about the needs of our students and the ways to proceed. Six months later, after extensive physical, intellectual, and emotional effort, this task force developed and presented a white paper, which is the basis for the introduction of this book. Our Faculty Senate accepted the white paper and asked the curriculum redesign committee to consider how to move forward on the ideas it presented. We each have continued our work to move these ideas forward by serving on the task forces that are working to incorporate these ideas into our undergraduate program (Danna), graduate program (Kate), and executive education program (Jim).

At the same time, we want to recognize our colleagues and students throughout Babson. The colleagues who contributed chapters to this book are dedicated educators whose innovative pedagogy is putting these concepts into practice as they develop entrepreneurial leaders. As we assembled the contributor team for this book, we requested a level of involvement and flexibility that is often not asked of contributors. As true entrepreneurial leaders, their flexibility and willingness to engage both action and analytics in the process of writing this book created an infinitely more insightful manuscript.

Other colleagues and students have also made contributions to this book in less visible ways. Babson’s history of innovative pedagogy has yielded a unique culture that is open to change and thus was a safe place to introduce and pursue these ideas. In addition, through ongoing conversations, some more heated than others, the engagement of our colleagues with these ideas has further strengthened the pedagogy that we lay out. We know that our colleagues will continue to challenge the Babson community to improve tomorrow’s management education. Most importantly, they continue to inspire us to rethink management education.

When we brought this book to Berrett-Koehler, we were immediately struck by the energy and the engagement the editorial team had for a manuscript on rethinking management education and the need to develop entrepreneurial leaders. Neal Maillet and Jeevan Sivasubramaniam invited us to reconsider the book’s structure, and in so doing we believe the ideas are clearer and more engaging. The hands-on involvement of the entire BK team is unusual in today’s publishing world, and we are deeply grateful for the opportunity to work with an editorial team who are entrepreneurial leaders.

At the end, and at the beginning, we deeply acknowledge the support, love, encouragement, and patience we receive every day from our partners (Michael, Mark, and Susan) and our children (Micaela, Jonah, Seth, Maya, Marcos, Benjamin, and Brooke). To our children, we hope that each of you will become entrepreneurial leaders in whatever endeavors in life you choose.