Issues in Education
The Relevance Trap
By Thomas A. Grossman
The first in an occasional series aimed at making management science the best course in the business school.
Relevance is essential to the future of the business school management science course. Without it, the course will slowly decline and eventually die, as has been the case at many schools [see Jordan et al 1997].
Relevant to Whom?
Relevance is important. Unfortunately, the opinion of ORMS specialists regarding the relevance of the business school management science course is, well, irrelevant.
Management science is relevant to an MBA program only to the extent that the MBA dean, the curriculum committee, alumni and MBA students find it relevant. Failure to satisfy these key constituencies leads to reduction or elimination of management science from the MBA core. In aggregate, this may be leading to an overall reduction in academic positions for management scientists [see Meredith 2001], with potential dire consequences for the profession.
The problem is pretty clear. The solution is not. I often hear arguments along this line: "We need to make the case that ORMS is relevant. If only the committee/dean/students/grim reaper could see how important/vital/intellectual/practical this material really is, they would surely keep the course."
This approach to the challenge of relevance is risky. I don't think it works, because I usually hear this from people who are losing the struggle to save their course. Often they suffer death by a thousand cuts as sessions are reduced, the course is made elective instead of required, or extra content is forcibly inserted, such as statistics or basic Excel skills. Death by a thousand cuts is not pleasant, although it does provide plenty of time to get the message that change is essential.
Our challenge is not to make the case for relevance. Any time you have to persuade people how "relevant" you are, you're in deep trouble. Our challenge is to redesign the business school management science course so its relevance is compelling and obvious to students and alumni. They'll make the case for us.
Relevance is in the Eye of the Beholder
Unfortunately, making the course relevant is tricky. Our profession's traditional argument for relevance and pride of place in the MBA core is the many wonderful successes of ORMS practitioners. ORMS is extraordinarily powerful when deployed by ORMS specialists in those situations that admit to ORMS solutions. Pick up any issue of OR/MS Today or Interfaces and you can read about important, sometimes mission-critical applications of ORMS.
Because of these successes, it is easy to conclude that ORMS is relevant to business in general. Unfortunately, this assumption is false, because the practice of management science is very different from the practice of management.
Management science specialists have the luxury of cherry-picking the business situations where ORMS is applicable, business processes are stable, data exist, resources and time are available, and so on. We ORMS specialists can simply ignore business situations that are unsuited to the use of our tools. There aren't a lot of Interfaces articles about problems one wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.
Reality is different for managers. They have to tackle every problem that comes their way. They rarely have the option of declining a managerial challenge. They don't get to avoid a problem because it is messy, political, hard to model, lacking in data, the business process is unstable or the client is a bum. They have to deal it with.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that traditional management science as practiced by management science experts is actually irrelevant to the activities of managers and MBA students. Call this the "relevance trap". Don't fall into it!
Think about this: It doesn't matter what ORMS experts can do. It matters what business students can do.
Our challenge as business school instructors is to solve this riddle: How can managers without extensive ORMS training harness the power of ORMS?
To some instructors, this conundrum will seem a contradiction in terms. However, instructors who solve this riddle are enjoying high ratings, teaching awards, increased elective enrolments, new hires, and enhanced status and clout in the business school.
Relevance hath its privileges.
Next Issue: "Solving the MBA Riddle: What We Know Works, and Emerging Research Needs"
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Tom Grossman (grossman@ucalgary.ca) of the University of Calgary is president of INFORM-ED.
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