Enacting the Role of Management Professor: Lessons From Athena, Prometheus, and Asclepius

We explore how management professors define their roles as educators, and we explore the implications this has for what we teach, how we teach, and how we relate to students. Based upon a qualitative study of management professors' classroom responses to a world crisis, we find that there are three distinct ways in which management professors define their role. These definitions are best framed by the Greek archetypes of Athena, Prometheus, and Asclepius. After describing and contrasting these three archetypal frames, we discuss their implications for professors' enactment of their role, for student learning, and for management education in general.