MANAGEMENT EDUCATION UNDER THE KNIFE

 

This project looks at the current state of management education and wonders how it would look differently if it were modelled on the way we teach doctors. What would we teach? How would we teach it? What would be the implications for faculty? In looking at these issues, I hope to inform the debate about whether management is a profession or an art, and also to see whether there are more effective ways of developing managers. In the first outcome of the project, Sharon Williams (Warwick University Medical School) put together a symposium for BAM that sketched out the main issues (please click here for the flyer). Four excellent speakers, Matthew Cooke (Warwick University Medical School), Ben Hardy (Cambridge University), Fiona Patterson (City University) and Ann Esain (Cardiff University) all spoke to a packed room. Following the symposium, Sharon and I received offers to develop the ideas further and it looks as if we will be putting a book together.

On the 30th June 2009, we had the pleasure of devoting a BAM Organisational Psychology SIG seminar on the project. It was hosted at Warwick University Medical School and again attracted a room full of interested people. In addition to Matthew and Ann who spoke at BAM, the other speakers were Lynne Caley (Warwick University Medical School), Lucy Ambrose (Warwick University Medical School) and Sophia Christie, Chief Executive of Birmingham East and North PCT. One of the more memorable lines from the session came from Ben, "the kidney doesn't do something different because you talk to it".

The project's next outing was at the Academy of Management in Chicago when Ben, Ros and Ann spoke. As with our previous outings, we attracted a very large audience and ignited much debate. 

We are now moving forward with a proposal for a special issue of a management education journal. Hopefully we should have a Call for Papers available soon. Please email Sharon or me to find out more about this project.

The members of the project include:

• Richard Adams, Cranfield University & AIM
• Lucy Ambrose, Keele University
• Véronique Ambrosini, Monash University
• Jon Billsberry, Deakin University
• Sophia Christie, Birmingham East and North PCT
• Claire Collins, Henley Business School, Reading University
• Matthew Cooke, Warwick University
• Ann Esain, Cardiff University
• Ben Hardy, The Open University
• Lynne Caley, Warwick University
• Dawn Marie Naylor, Warwick University
• Fiona Patterson, City University
• Ros Searle, Coventry University
• Robin Wensley, Warwick University 
• Sharon Williams, Cardiff University

THE FIT PROJECT

 

Overview

The Fit Project began in 1998 as a joint research project between myself and Philip Marsh, the Director of Human Resources at The Open University. We were interested in understanding employment dynamics in The Open University, especially its extraordinarily low staff turnover rates and the strength of its culture. The Open University has always been known internally and externally for its social mission of helping people who missed out on education first time around and its attraction of employees who shared these values. Its prominent position on British television throughout the 1970s and 1980s reinforced these impressions. As a result, we thought the ideas surrounding person-organisation fit would help us understand the culture better and, in turn, be an interesting way of understanding the construct of person-organisation fit better as well. In particular, there were theoretical arguments suggesting that 'high fit' environments would be deleterious to organisations due to factors such as 'cloning', reduced creativity, and ossification. We wanted to explore these matters to see 'high fit' did indeed lead to these things.

We were able to gain seedcorn funding of £40,000, shared equally from The Open University Business School and the Human Resources Division, to recruit a part-time Research Fellow. Dr. John Moss-Jones was hired and he conducted 66 in-depth interviews employing cognitive mapping techniques with members of staff at The Open University to explore what 'fit to the university' meant to them.

 

Phase One

In the first stage of the project, the project’s first Research Fellow, Dr. John Moss-Jones (right), conducted 66 in-depth interviews using the techniques of storytelling and cognitive mapping to form an understanding of employees’ sense of fit. His method involved asking people to describe the factors influencing their fit to the university and encouraging them to enrich their explanations. The participants included a borad cross-section of the university ranging from the Vice-Chancellor and Pro Vice-Chancellors through academic and administrative staff down to more humble people. People were chosen randomly, with a few particular people added to the mix to give coverage. John's qualitative data revealed a complex web of factors influencing people’s perceptions of fit that has been portrayed as a taxonomy in our papers. In addition, the analysis of the data suggested that positive levels of fit were largely tacitly-held whereas people who rated themselves as a misfit were very conscious of their sense of fit and the misfit had negative effects on their behaviour. Despite these positive outcomes that we were able to build upon, perhaps our most important finding was that the notion of 'high levels of fit' is something of a misnomer. Whilst it is a possible to use statistical methods to allocate a fit score to people, when talking to people about their fit, the idea of a high level (or a low level) of fit seems meaningless. Fit is more complex, more multidimensional, and it has elements of fit and misfit. This is why we abandoned the idea of exploring the impact of 'high levels of fit' on an organisation and instead chose to capture the richness of the construct.

 

Phase Two

John's work was an interesting exploration of the topic and the emergence of his taxonomy coincided with advances suggesting that fit is a useful framework with which to understand the psychological temperature of an organisation. Accordingly, in the second stage of the project we decided to create a questionnaire from our taxonomy that we could use to capture people’s sense of fit across a broad spectrum of fits and that we could use as a survey instrument. The idea was to build a questionnaire that would have both academic rigour and could be proven to be practical in organisational situations. To do this work, we hired the project's second Research Fellow. This time the appointment was a full-time one and Dr. Nathalie van Meurs joined us to do the work. This was an insanely busy time for the project with multiple studies going off in all directions. Nevertheless, we made a lot of progress and we were successful in developing a fit tool that became the core element upon which the university's annual staff survey. We ran this three times giving us tremendous longitudinal data with 3000 employees completing the survey every year.

 

Phase Three

Whereas in phase two we had looked at the fit and misfit of current employees, in phase three we wanted to look at predicting the future fit of new employees. This, we argued, would lead, from the organisation's perspective, to more satisfied, more committed employees who were likely to stay longer and from the employees' perspective as finding a place to work that matched their values, needs, and desires. It would seem to be a win-win. However, from a research perspective, assessing future fit is hugely problematic compared to the assessment of current fit. With current fit, you can ask someone, "How well do you fit?" but asking potential employees, "How well do you think you'll fit?" is fraught with problems. They do not know the organisaiton they are joining, everything they experience during recruitment and selection is 'managed', and their own need for work clouds their judgements. To get around this problem, indirect measures of fit are required. These take a measurement from the individual and compare it to something about the organisation. Based on our earlier work, we believed we had worked out how to do this and we recruited the project's third research fellow, Dr. Julian Edwards, to take the lead on the project. Sadly, although we were making excellent progress, momentum was lost when I left The Open University. But it is a project I hope to revive soon.

 

Other Research

In addition to these three main phases of our work, we were also home to a constellation of other fit studies, and some non-fit work as well. These include studies of misfit, fit and organisational performance, fit and expatriates, fit and homeworking, fit and trust, fit and creativity, fit and absence, fit and work/life balance, fit and knowledge transfer, fit and ethics, the nesting of organisational fit in regional and national cultures, people's experience of recruitment and selection, and somewhat bizarrely, the nature of bias in penalty shoot-outs in international football tournaments. A number of these studies were linked to people conducting PhD studies. For example, Dannie Talbot looked at the comparative nature of people's perceptions of fit and misfit, Patrick Nelson is looking at the connection between fit and organisational performance, and Brenda Hollyoak is looking at the nature of misfit.

 

Internal Consultancy

Although we were focused on organisational fit, and in particular on its practical application to strategic human resource management, arguably our most innovative contribution was to the HR function of the university. From the start of the project, we based the researchers in the HR department rather than in an academic faculty. All of our research fellows had PhDs and our research assistants and project officers had masters degrees in organisational or occupational psychology. The team varied from three to ten people at different stages of the project, but most of the time there were half a dozen of us with a rich conbination of research skills. Just through our presence, we found ourselves being drawn into HR issues and asked to help out with the design and execution of various studies, surveys, and evaluations.

In addition to running the staff survey, which was a core part of the project, we ran a survey of Associate Lecturers, conducted several new building occupation studies, analysed the nature of effective leadership in the university, evaluated many external and internal training offerings, and worked with the organisational development team to analyse tricky operational problems. Our presence had an interesting effect on the HR department. Where it had always been a reactive operation, just like in most organisations, our ability to analyse the internal environment helped give the department a proactive edge discovering issues before they became problems. This helped give the HR department 'a seat at the top table' and put the 'strategic' in strategic human resource management.

 

Global e-Conference on Fit

 One of the strange features of the Fit Project was that we were the only people in the UK actively reserching into the concept of organisational fit. A few other people used fit as an element in their research, but we were the only ones to make it the centrepiece. Although we were well funded and could get to international conferences, and we had many international visitors (such as Amy Kristof-Brown, Tony Wheeler, and Rein De Cooman) to the project, we were still quite isolated. I was also concerned that I had a singular take on organisational fit (I remain focused on perceived fit, which is certainly not mainstream fit research) and that this might be taking those working under me, especially my doctoral students, up a blind alley. As a result, I thought it was crucial to give my colleagues exposure to other voices and different perspectives. So was born the Global e-Conference on Fit.

The inspiration came from Nathalie, who ran a small online conference looking at cross-cultural issues. She invited speakers who contributed short papers, which were then discussed in online forums on the conference day. This worked exceptionally well, and I decided to develop the idea for an online conference on organisational fit. Setting up the conference platform was relatively straightforward, especially with the help of The Open University's computer experts, but the real effort went into attracting eminent keynote speakers and publicity. Over the four outings (so far), the keynote speakers have been Helena Cooper-Thomas (University of Auckland), Jeff Edwards (University of North Carolina), Tim Judge (University of Florida), Amy Kristof-Brown (University of Iowa), Ben Schneider (Valtera & University of Maryland), Cheri Ostroff (University of Maryland), Annelies Van Vianen (University of Amsterdam), John Kammeyer-Mueller (University of Florida), Anthony Wheeler (University of Rhode Island), and me.

The conferences would last two or three days and every year we have had more than 200 delegates. Papers were scheduled across the days so that there was a natural flow. We had full papers and a doctoral zone and almost every paper attracted a lot of considered discussion. Amongst the nice aspects of the conference are the fact that most participants were very well-informed on the subject, and that there was time to read, digest, and consider one's response. These discussions were captured providing a record, which was particularly useful for doctoral students.

Each year we tried to do something different. In the second year, we introduced a virtual world environment for the social elements of the conference; Fit Island, a desert island in Second Life. The social elements included virtual coffee breaks, meeting areas, a fireworks closing ceremony, and end of day discos (seriously). In a later conference, submissions were competitively considered for a book, which Amy Kristof-Brown and I edited, and which was published at the end of 2012. The fifth conference was held in late 2016 and hopefully more will follow: www.conference.fit  

 

Published Outputs

Journal Articles

Follmer, E. H., Talbot, D. L., Kristof-Brown, A. L., Astrove, S. L., & Billsberry, J. (in press). Resolution, relief, and resignation: A qualitative study of responses to misfit at work. Academy of Management Journal.

Edwards, J.A. and Billsberry, J. (2010) Testing a multidimensional theory of person-environment fit. Journal of Managerial Issues, 22 (4), 476-493.

Billsberry, J. and Birnik, A. (2010) Management as a contextual practice: The need to balance science, skills and practical wisdom. Organization Management Journal, 7 (2), 171-178.

Ambrosini, V., Billsberry, J. and Collier, N. (2009) Teaching soft issues in strategic management with films: Arguments and suggestions. International Journal of Management Education, 8 (1), 63-72.

van Ameijde, J.D.J., Nelson, P.C., Billsberry, J. and van Meurs, N. (2009) Improving leadership in higher education institutions: A distributed perspective. Higher Education, 58 (6), 763-779.

Billsberry, J. (2009) The social construction of leadership education. Journal of Leadership Education, 8 (2), 1-9.

Billsberry, J. (2009) The embedded academic: A management academic discovers management. Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal, 2 (3), 1-9.

Billsberry, J. and Edwards, G. (2008) Toxic celluloid: Representations of bad leadership on film and implications for leadership development. Organisations and People, 15 (3), 104-110.

Billsberry, J. (2008) Management education as an emotional science. Organization Management Journal, 5 (3), 149-151.

Billsberry, J. and Gilbert, L.H. (2008) Using Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to teach different recruitment and selection paradigms. Journal of Management Education, 32 (2), 228-247.

Coldwell, D.A.L., Billsberry, J., van Meurs, N. and Marsh, P.J.G. (2008) The effects of person-organization ethical fit on employee attraction and retention: Towards a testable explanatory model. Journal of Business Ethics, 78 (4), 611-622.

Edwards, J. A., Webster, S., Van Laar, D. & Easton, S. (2008). Psychometric analysis of the UK Health and Safety Executive’s Management Standards work-related stress Indicator Tool. Work & Stress, 22 (2), 96-107.

Billsberry, J. (2007) Attracting for values: An empirical study of ASA’s attraction proposition. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22 (2), 132-149.

Edwards, J. A., Guppy, A. & Cockerton, T. (2007). A longitudinal study exploring the relationships between occupational stressors, non-work stressors, and work performance. Work & Stress, 21 (2), 99-116.

Edwards, J. A., Cockerton, T. & Guppy, A. (2007). A Longitudinal Study Examining the Influence of Work & Non-Work Stressors Upon Well-Being: A Multi-Group Analysis. International Journal of Stress Management, 14 (3), 294-311.

Van Laar, D. L., Edwards, J. A. & Easton, S. (2007). The Work-Related Quality of Life scale for healthcare workers. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 60 (3), 325-333.

Billsberry, J. (2006) Towards a future where we select for fit. People and Organisations at Work, 13 (Autumn), 10-11.

Billsberry, J. and Marsh, P.J.G. (2006) Organisational research: The missing link in HR departments. Capacity, 5 (July), 2-3.

Billsberry, J., Ambrosini, V., Moss-Jones, J. and Marsh, P.J.G. (2005) Some suggestions for mapping organizational members’ sense of fit. Journal of Business and Psychology, 19, 4, 555-570.

Books

Kristof-Brown, A.L. and Billsberry, J. (2013; Eds.) Organizational Fit: Key Issues and New Directions. Chichester: Wiley.

Billsberry, J. (2009; Ed.) Discovering Leadership. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Billsberry, J. (2007) Experiencing Recruitment and Selection. Chichester: Wiley.

Book chapters

Billsberry, J., Talbot, D.L. and Ambrosini, V. (2013) Mapping fit: Maximizing idiographic and nomothetic benefits. In Kristof-Brown, A.L. and Billsberry, J. (Eds.) Organizational Fit: Key Issues and New Directions. Chichester: Wiley.

Searle, R.H. and Billsberry, J. (2011) The construction and destruction of trust during recruitment and selection. In Searle, R.H. and Skinner, D. (Eds.) Trust and HRM. Chichester: Edward Elgar.

Billsberry, J. (2009) Leadership: A contested construct. In Billsberry, J. (Ed.) Discovering Leadership, pp. 24-34. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Billsberry, J. (2009) A leadership curriculum. In Billsberry, J. (Ed.) Discovering Leadership, pp. 1-11. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Billsberry, J. and Nelson, P.C. (2008) The impact of individualism on the outcome of penalty shoot-outs in international football tournaments. In Reilly, T. and Korkusuz, F.  (Eds.) Science and Football VI, pp. 169-173. Oxford: Routledge.

van Ameijde, J.D.J., Nelson, P.C., Billsberry, J. and van Meurs, N. (2008) Distributed leadership in project teams. In Turnbull-James, K. and Collins, J. (Eds.) Leadership Perspectives: Knowledge into Action, pp. 223-237. London: Palgrave.

van Meurs, N. and Spencer-Oatey, H. (2006) Multidisciplinary perspectives on intercultural conflict: The ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of conflict, culture and communication. In H. Kotthoff and H. Spencer-Oatey (Eds.), Handbook of Applied Linguistics, Volume 7: Intercultural Communication. Mouton: de Gruyter Publishers.

 

 

CINEMATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION

 

I have a project on the back-burner that looks at the way that recruitment and selection (and leadership) is portrayed in the cinema. My interest in this subject was by the realisation that about a quarter of films include scenes (or references) to recruitment and selection. In Australia, 70% of the population go to the cinema at least once every year and the average person goes 7 times. With these statistics, it seems likely that the way that recruitment and selection is in film will create an unconscious set of expectations about the way in which organisational entry should be conducted. They may contribute to our hopes and fears and thereby shape our behaviour when we come to apply for jobs or interview the people that do.

The initial phase of this study is to view and analyse the way organisational entry is depicted in a large range of films. To this end, I have created a database including all of the following:

• Winners of the Best Picture at the Oscars
• Winners of the Palme D'Or at Cannes
• Channel 4's 100 Greatest Films of all-time (looking back from 1999)
• Halliwell's Four Star Films
• Halliwell's Three Star Films (since 1999)
• IMDb's Top 250 Films

By limiting my analysis to these films, I hope to remove personal bias in the selection of films and also focus on the good, the great, the most popular, and the most enduring films that people watch again and again. I have made good progress through this database and have about 25% to go.

 

 

 

ABDC A* PUBLICATIONS

The Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) publishes a ranking of journals in the business and management space. Roughly, the top 5%-7% peer-reviewed academic journals are classified as A*. Over the years, I have published 10 ABDC A* research articles (plus an editorial and four reviews).

 

Research Papers

 

Spoor, J. R., Jameson, T., Billsberry, J., & Vogus, T. J. (2026). A design for all: De-neurotypicalizing business schools and achieving substantive performativity. Academy of Management Learning & Education. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2025.0023 

Neurodivergent people experience significant disadvantages obtaining and maintaining employment. Locating our analysis at the intersection of the performativity, neurodiversity, and role of business school literatures, we argue that business schools exacerbate these issues by being designed and operated around neurotypical culture, curriculum, and teaching practices. Substantively redressing these issues and making business schools neuroinclusive requires more than the symbolic performativity that is typically the case with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Instead, there is an urgent need to move to substantive performativity through a process that we call de-neurotypicalizing the business school. De-neurotypicalization involves challenging and changing the implicit neurotypical assumptions that pervade business school education and work practices. A key mechanism is applying universal design principles to both learning and work. By taking substantive actions toward de-neurotypicalization, we argue that business schools will make business education genuinely open to both neurodivergent and neurotypical people. Our analysis also advances theory on DEI in business schools by illustrating that universal design offers an inclusive solution to broader equity concerns.

 

Volk, S., Billsberry, J., & Ambrosini, V. (2026). Rise and shine: A circadian perspective on learning and wellbeing in management education. Academy of Management Learning & Education.  https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2024.0210 

In this essay, we argue that lack of attention to circadian health is undermining learning and well-being in business schools. We draw on research in chronobiology to explain how the normalization of sleep deprivation and misaligned circadian rhythms negatively affect not only students’ health and well-being but also their learning capacity and work performance. In our call to action, we urge business schools to challenge the institutionalization of poor circadian health as an acceptable aspect of management education and management careers. To this end, we discuss how educating students about circadian principles of management and leadership can help them improve their own well-being and productivity and better lead others through knowledge of how biological rhythms interact with workplace practices. We also critically analyze how current approaches to teaching and learning in business schools can be better aligned with stu- dents’ circadian predispositions and natural rhythms of learning, working, and living. In doing so, we make a contribution by demonstrating how a circadian perspective can help business schools cultivate healthier and more productive cultures within their institutions and empower students to foster similar environments in their future industries and professions.

 

Escobar Vega, C., Billsberry, J., Molineux, J., & Lowe, K. B. (2025). The development of implicit leadership theories during childhood: A reconceptualization through the lens of overlapping waves theory. Psychological Review. 132(3), 719-743. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000484

Implicit leadership theories (ILTs) are people’s lay theories, definitions, or conceptualizations of leadership. In adults, they determine what actions we perceive as leadership, influence to whom we grant leadership status, and shape our own behaviors when we want to be seen as leader. Naturally, there has been an enduring interest in how these ILTs develop in children. Current theorizing on the development of leadership conceptualizations in children aligns with a stepwise progression mirroring Piaget’s stage-based approach to cognitive development. However, contemporary approaches to cognitive development, such as Siegler’s overlapping waves theory, acknowledge that children’s development is linked to cognitive success and failure. This paper integrates the findings from empirical studies into children’s leadership conceptualizations and reinterprets them against overlapping waves theory. This reinterpretation resolves findings that align poorly with a stepwise approach and demonstrates a strong fit with overlapping waves theory. As such, children’s leadership conceptualizations develop by generating and testing cognitive approaches – physical-spatio-temporal, functional, socio-emotional, and humanitarian – and instead of progressing through these in order and according to age, they display variation and selection, that with experience and exposure, lay down selective combinations, which often engage multiple dimensions simultaneously. Consequently, the development of children’s understanding of leaders is non-linear, can be multidimensional, and is based on trial and error largely in response to their experiences. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for future research and practice.

 

Billsberry, J., Ambrosini, V., & Thomas, L. (2023). Managerialist control in post-pandemic business schools: The tragedy of the new normal and a new hope. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 22(3), 439–458. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2022.0167

As neoliberalism gained a hold in the 1980s, universities mirrored this societal change and implemented managerialist forms of control. By the time the COVID-19 pandemic struck, business schools had become bastions of managerialism. In Australia, this dominant paradigm was challenged through three phases of the pandemic. In the first, managerialist controls were greatly loosened, with positive results. In the second, Australian business schools’ leaders reintroduced managerialist control and embedded this in the third phase, the “new normal,” revealing how pernicious they are. First, we question why leaders missed an opportunity to build on the motivational benefits of the first phase when academics demonstrated their capacity to self-manage and adapt quickly. Second, we question why academics did not capitalize on the loosening of control they experienced early in the pandemic and failed to assert themselves as the pandemic subsided. By exposing the differences between current leaders and academics in their ability to overhaul the managerialist paradigm, we theorize how managerialism might be unseated. We clarify the mechanisms through which this can occur: infiltrating the system and collective action. Recognizing the interdependence of academics, business schools, and society, such action can erode managerialist control and hasten the arrival of a sustainability-oriented future.

 

Vleugels, W., Verbruggen, M., De Cooman, R., & Billsberry, J. (2023). A systematic review of temporal person–environment fit research: Trends, developments, obstacles, and opportunities for future research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 44(2), 376-398. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2607

In this systematic review, we present a comprehensive overview of the temporal per- son environment (PE) fit literature. To this end, we organize and integrate extant temporal fit research and discuss research trends and developments in the temporal domain. Our analysis reveals that temporal conceptualizations of fit vary in terms of change process (transitional, developmental, transformational), level of aggregation (situational vs. baseline level), and temporal frame (clock time vs. psychological time), all of which divide the temporal fit literature in significant ways. Furthermore, our analysis shows that progress in the temporal fit domain has been confined by five major obstacles: An emphasis on selection and socialization processes, a narrow focus on the between-person level of analysis, preoccupation with linear change, a strong interest in normal causation questions, and a lack of attention to misfit. We conclude with a discussion of the research challenges that lie ahead and provide suggestions to tackle these challenges and expand temporal PE fit research in new directions.

 

Munoz, A., Billsberry, J., & Ambrosini, V. (2022). Resilience, robustness, and antifragility: Towards an appreciation of distinct organizational responses to adversity. International Journal of Management Reviews, 24(2), 181-187. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12289 (A when published, A* now)

Hillmann and Guenther provide an extensive review of research into organizational resilience in which they examine the different conceptualisations of the concept and their associated measurement scales. Their article emphasises stability, rather than other domains such as growth, as core to organizational resilience. We argue that this emphasis does not acknowledge the overlap between resilience and associated but distinctly different concepts like robustness and antifragility as observable phenomena in organizational responses to adversity. To extend Hillmann and Guenther’s work, we therefore conceptually contrast resilience with robustness and antifragility so that future research might craft a more nuanced understanding of the presence of all three concepts in management research, which is currently dominated by resilience.

 

Billsberry, J., Ambrosini, V., Garrido-Lopez, M., & Stiles, D. (2019). Towards a non-essentialist approach to management education: Philosophical underpinnings from phenomenography. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(4), 626-638.

The classic approach to management education is managercentric and assumes an essential nature to management. Drawing on ideas from interpretivist epistemologies, the social construction of leadership, phenomenography, and variation theory, we discuss the implications for management education of taking a non-essentialist approach and regarding the nature of management as unknown and unknowable. We focus on phenomenography for two reasons: First, when applied to the task of defining management, it is built on interpretivist roots where the knowledge and understanding of the observer is paramount. Second, it is also a theory of learning with direct appli- cation to management research and teaching. Building on these insights, we highlight the importance of students becoming active investigators of management and offer practical teaching implications on how students might be encouraged to engage in experiences that identify variations in the ways that management is conceptualized and performed. We also consider how such an approach brings a fresh perspective on what management education is about, the role of the educator, and how it informs the ongoing debates relating to the institutional pressures that business schools face.

 

Follmer, E. H., Talbot, D. L., Kristof-Brown, A. L., Astrove, S. L. , & Billsberry, J. (2018). Resolution, relief, and resignation: A qualitative study of responses to misfit at work. Academy of Management Journal, 61(2), 440-465.

Research has portrayed person–environment (PE) fit as a pleasant condition resulting from people being attracted to and selected into compatible work environments; yet, our study reveals that creating and maintaining a sense offit frequently involves an effortful, dynamic set of strategies. We used a two-phase, qualitative design to allow employees to report how they become aware of and experience misfit, and what they do in response. To address these questions, we conducted interviews with 81 individuals sampled from diverse industries and occupations. Through their descriptions, we identified three broad responses to the experience of misfit: resolution, relief, and resignation. Within these approaches, we identified distinct strategies for responding to misfit. We present a model of how participants used these strategies, often in combination, and develop propositions regarding their effectiveness at reducing strain associated with misfit. These results expand PE fit theory by providing new insight into how individuals experience and react to misfit—portraying them as active, motivated creators oftheir own fit experience at work.

 

Billsberry, J., Mueller, J.,  Skinner,  J., Swanson, S., Corbett, B., & Ferkins, L. (2018). Reimagining leadership in sport management: Lessons from the social construction of leadership. Journal of Sport Management, 32(2), 170-182. (A* when published, A now)

Conventional approaches to leadership in sport management regard leadership as a leader-centric phenomenon. Recent advances in the generic leadership literature have highlighted the way that people construct their own understanding of leadership and shown that these influence their assessment and responses to people they regard as leaders. This observer-centric perspective is collectively known as the social construction of leadership. In this conceptual paper, we demonstrate how this emerging theoretical approach can reframe and invigorate our understanding of leadership in sport management. We explore the research implications of this new approach, reflect on what this might mean for teaching, and discuss the practical ramifications for leadership in sport management that might flow from the adoption of this approach.

 

Barton, L., Billsberry, J., Ambrosini, V., & Barton, H. (2014). Convergence and divergence dynamics in UK and French business schools: How will the pressure for accreditation influence these dynamics? British Journal of Management, 25(2), 305-319. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12007 (A when published, A* now)

This paper focuses on convergence and divergence dynamics among leading British and French business schools and explores how the pressure for accreditation influences these dynamics. We illustrate that despite historical differences in approaches to management education in Britain and France, these approaches have converged partly based on the influence of the American model of management education but more recently through the pursuit of accreditation, in particular from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and the European Quality Improvement Standard. We explore these dynamics through the application of the resource-based view of the firm and institutional theory and suggest that, whilst achieving accreditation is a necessary precursor for international competition, it is no longer a form of competitive advantage. The pursuit of accreditation has fostered a form of competitive mimicry reducing national distinctive- ness. The resource-based view of the firm suggests that the top schools need a more heterogeneous approach that is not easily replicable if they are to outperform the competitors. Consequently, the convergence of management education in Britain and France will become a new impetus for divergence. We assert that future growth and competitive advantage might be better achieved through the reassertion of national, regional and local cultural characteristics.

 

Editorial and Reviews

Billsberry, J., Köhler, T., Stratton, M., Cohen, M., & Taylor, M. S. (2019). Introduction to the special issue on rhythms of academic life. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(2), 119-127. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2019.0131

Billsberry, J. (2019). HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership Lessons from Sports by Harvard Business Review. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(1), 114-116. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2018.0299

Billsberry, J. (2019). Concussion (and other off-field sport business movies), by Peter Landesman (Director), & Elizabeth Cantillon, Giannina Scott, Ridley Scott, Larry Shuman, & David Wolthoff (Producers). Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(1), 112-114. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2018.0298

Billsberry, J., Talbot, D., Nelson, P. C., Edwards, J. A., Godrich, S. G., Davidson, R. A. G., & Carter, C. J. P. (2010). The people make the place: Dynamic linkages between individuals and organizations edited by D. Brent Smith, Personnel Psychology, 63(2), 483-487.

Billsberry, J., Edwards, J. A., Talbot, D., Nelson, P. C., Davidson, R. A. G., Godrich, S. G., & Marsh, P. J. G. (2009). Perspectives on Organizatonal Fit edited by Cheri Ostroff and Timothy A. Judge, Personnel Psychology, 62(4), 880-883.