THE THEORY APPLICATIONS BALANCE IN MANAGEMENT PEDAGOGY - WHERE DO WE STAND/

Business schools are expected to be ''professional'' in the sense that their mission is primarily to prepare people to practice their skills in the business world. Various critics, however, claim that managemen t professors overemphasize theory and research and neglect the practic e and applications students need to transfer classroom theory to the w orld of practice. This study compared an earlier sample with a more re cent sample of Academy of Management members concerning the relative e mphasis they believed should be placed on theory and applications in m anagement pedagogy and the techniques they used to bring applications into the classroom. Current respondents believed that more emphasis sh ould be placed on applications than the earlier respondents. An unexpe cted finding, however, was that the more recent respondents reported a lower mean usage of pedagogical techniques that are appropriate for d eveloping students' ability to apply course concepts than the previous group. Possible reasons for these incongruent findings are discussed as well as the implications for management pedagogy.