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                   Special Issue Call for Papers
                  Journal of Management Education

           Problem Based Learning: Theory and Practice in
                        Management Education
   Guest Editors: Max Elden, University of Houston, Clear Lake &
                    Gary Coombs, Ohio University

The Journal of Management Education, a refereed journal
dedicated to enhancing learning and teaching in all areas of management
and organizational studies, is soliciting manuscripts for a Special Issue
on Problem Based Learning (PBL).  PBL, an emerging pedagogy based
on a Constructivist view of how one acquires understanding and the
action-learning paradigm, offers a means to achieve deeper learning with
greater retention, critical thinking and problem-solving skills.  Learning
activities are anchored to a larger, complex, and authentic task or problem
that becomes the context within which the learner is supported in testing
alternatives en route to developing a solution.  The pedagogy is learner-
centered, with responsibility for, and ownership of, the learning in the
hands of the students, working in teams.

PBL’s potential in management education is substantial.  A
central part of the management educator's mission in business is to
assist students in developing an interdisciplinary perspective and
supporting the effective management in and between different functional
areas.  Like other pedagogical innovations in management, PBL can
easily spread to other business functions and can be used at different
levels: course, program, school, or university.  This special issue aims at
publicizing the best that has been thought and practiced about PBL in
management education at all levels.

Specifically, we invite manuscripts focused on PBL in terms of:
Theory– what explains how effective it is?  How does it relate to
experiential learning, action learning, or project-organized
instruction? What are its strong and weak sides specific to
management education?
Criticalreviews of the expanding literature of PBL and implications
for management education.
Practice– case studies of how it works.  Focus on an application
and how it worked in practice – this could be at any level but case
studies demonstrating how PBL could be used to integrate
management and organizational studies learning with other
functional / technical areas such as marketing or accounting would
be particularly welcome.
Focuson a process within PBL such as formulating problematic
situation descriptions, the coach or tutor role, performance
assessment, etc.
Evaluativestudies that look at how well PBL has worked, for
example, compared to other methodologies, what could be improved,
and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of PBL as pedagogy.
Course-leveland programmatic implementation – PBL is a complex
and substantial change, almost a form of self-imposed reengineering.
 Even on the level of a single course the new role demands and new
tasks that require new skills all imply substantial change on the part
of faculty.  What has been the experience at your institution of
implementing such change?

Deadlines and Submission Instructions: The deadline for submission of
papers is December 30, 2002.  Please prepare the manuscript following
Journal of Management Education submission instructions (see the
JME website at http://www.jmeweb.org/).  Address any substantive
questions to either of the guest co-editors, Max Elden ([log in to unmask])
or Gary Coombs ([log in to unmask]).  Manuscripts will be subject to a
double-blind review; therefore, any text, references, or footnotes that
could identify the author must be placed on a separate page. Please send
four copies of the manuscript as well as an electronic version on
computer diskette (save documents in Microsoft Word format) to the
JME editor: Dale Fitzgibbons, Editor, Journal of Management
Education, Illinois State University, 125 Williams Hall, Campus Box 5580,
Normal, Illinois, 61790-5580.