Are MBAs identity changing experiences?

In this blog by Jacqueline Baxter, Sara Calvo-Martinez, Mike Lucas, Andres Morales, Vyv Pettler and Andy Galloway, from the Open University Business School, ask if digital MBA programmes are identity changing experiences.

Although they don’t have the status they once had, an MBA is still considered by many to be a career-changing experience. But does it change your professional identity and help you to feel more agentive and salient in your work?

MBAs have a long history as the gold standard in business education, but research illustrates that the contribution of MBA study to managers’ work and feelings of effectiveness is far from straightforward, particularly in relation to the transfer to MBA knowledge and skills into practice (Warhurst & Black, 2017). In addition, whether MBAs are transformational in relation to effecting change to individuals’ professional identities and agency, is equally challenging to gauge.

Yet, identity work is recognized as a crucial element in learning, particularly in the context of organizational and educational transformation, involving cognitive, emotional, and social aspects (Bimrose & Brown, 2019). Additionally, transformative learning, which alters learner identity, is thought to be essential for adapting to rapidly changing business environments, facilitating organizational adaptability and enabling semantic learning based on meanings (Baxter & John, 2021).

MBA students as street level bureaucrats

A narrative schema based approach to identity assumes that learning is a process of identity work during which an individual’s mental models or schema, are altered by new learning, this in turn then has an impact on their work and sense of self (Brewer, 2000). This view links strongly to recent work by Van Grinsven and colleagues, who argue that management concepts are key to identity transformation (Van Grinsven et al., 2020). Their work assumes that the key to transformation lies in the way in which individuals embrace or reject management concepts, drawing on the rich body of translation theory in order to do so (Wedlin & Sahlin, 2017). Translation theory is similar to policy implementation theory in that it involves the ways that ideas and concepts/policy are translated into practice within an organisation (Bevir, 2011). As Sahlin and Wedlin put it, ‘what is being transferred from one setting to another is not an idea or a practice as such, but rather, accounts and materializations of a certain idea or practice.’ (Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008, p, 225).

So how do students choose which management theories/ideas to adopt and translate? Having led the final module on our MBA programme, over the past 9 years, it is very clear, from the student assessments, that students have certain ‘pet theories’ theories that find immediate relevance within their practice. But it isn’t clear from the assessment - a project for change within their organisation - how and whether their identities change as a result of becoming ‘the expert’ in their organisations, via critical engagement with (or rejection of) particular management ideas.

The role of reflection

Reflection certainly has a part to play in relation to identity work, particularly if it involves a certain degree of metacognition-the ability to know when you are learning and how this is affecting your practice-a core element of transformative learning (Mezirow, 1998). But assessing critical reflection in business education is challenging, as many studies report, and not all students see the point of such activity-many view the activities they carry out as part of their daily practice, as somehow divorced from who they are professionally.

It is important that transformative identity work is carried out as part of an MBA, and our ability to assess whether this is happening is important to learning design for the future of an MBA in an uncertain world.  

References

Baxter, J., & John, A. (2021). Strategy as learning in multi-academy trusts in England: strategic thinking in action. School Leadership & Management, 1-21. doi: 10.1080/13632434.2020.1863777

Bevir, M. (2011). Interpretive theory. The SAGE handbook of governance, 51-64.

Bimrose, J., & Brown, A. (2019). Professional identity transformation: supporting career and employment practitioners at a distance. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 47(6), 757-769.

Brewer, W. F. (2000). Bartlett's concept of the schema and its impact on theories of knowledge representation in contemporary cognitive psychology.

Mezirow, J. (1998). On critical reflection. Adult Education Quarterly, 48(3), 185-198.

Sahlin, K., & Wedlin, L. (2008). Circulating ideas: Imitation, translation and editing. The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism, 218, 242.

Van Grinsven, M., Sturdy, A., & Heusinkveld, S. (2020). Identities in translation: Management concepts as means and outcomes of identity work. Organization Studies, 41(6), 873-897.

Warhurst, R., & Black, K. (2017). What do managers know? Wisdom and manager identity in later career. Management learning, 48(4), 416-430.

Wedlin, L., & Sahlin, K. (2017). The imitation and translation of management ideas. The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism, 102-127.

Authors

• Dr Jacqueline Baxter, Professor of Public Leadership and Management at the Open University

• Dr Sara Calvo Martinez, Associate Professor of Management at the Open University Business School (project lead)

• Mike Lucas, Associate Professor of Management at the Open University Business School

• Andres Morales, Research Fellow at the Open University Business School

• Vyv Pettler, Associate Lecturer at the Open University Business School

• Andy Galloway, Associate Lecturer at the Open University Business School

Photo

Courtesy of Dr Jacqueline Baxter @jacbfotografie