Students as Junior Partners, Professors as Senior Partners, the B-School as the Firm: A New Model for Collegiate Business Education

The article presents a model that would lead to an investigation of the function of faculty members in the business classroom. This model was first presented at the Academy of Management 2001 Annual Meeting and was further explored at the Academy of Business Education Annual Meeting. It was also used in helping management professors think about ways of making the correcting of papers a less painful and more personally developmental experience at the 2001 Organizational Behavior Teaching Convention. Start by comparing the major competing model of the student as customer with this model. Some may think the student-as-customer model is not given much credibility anymore, but several researchers support it and report not only its use but that it is gaining ground. In one case, it has been a useful tool for administrators looking to improve attention to students as part of a continuous improvement program at a small state university. In sum, the introduction of the student-as-customer model may have been marginally useful in that it stimulated academia to try to improve its willingness to empathize with the students and their needs.