Forthcoming

 

 

Thomas F. Stafford

Fogelman College of Business and Economics

University of Memphis

Memphis, TN 38152

 

 and

 

Chetan S. Sankar

Professor, Department of Management

Auburn University, AL 36849

Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education seeks papers for a theme specific issue, “Expanding Minority Representation in Management Education” (submission period September 1, 2010 – February 28, 2011). Whether discipline- or pedagogy-focused, articles must meet Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education’s high standards of rigor and originality, while simultaneously offering new insights to its readership of practicing educators. Many (if not most) pedagogical researchers in the field are also practicing educators – as are most of the readers of education-focused journals such as Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education. Effective communication of results is critical to achieving our desired influence on teaching best practices. To that end, we are interested in papers that outline practices for effective recruitment, retention and training of under-represented minorities in the management disciplines at the graduate level. The special issue will focus specifically on how to improve pedagogy and learning research so as to expand minority representation; articles that only describe the related problems or explore potential public policy solutions may not be appropriate for DSJIE. This will be a solutions-oriented special issue focused on academic practice.

 

Ethnic minorities account for a third of the US workforce and 25% of the US college population, yet only 5% of college faculty are African-American (Payton, White & Mbarika, 2005). In certain business specialties, the representation is even lower – not even 3% among Management Information Systems faculty, for example (Payton & Jackson, 1999). Despite strong demand from industry for representation and preparation on the topic of diversity in business (Day & Glick, 2000), and notwithstanding active support for the role of diversity in business education from the AACSB, little progress has been noted in either increasing diversity among the ranks of faculty or in formally training for students for the challenges of diversity in the workforce (Bell et al., 2009).

 

As has been demonstrated in studies of recruitment and retention of minorities in business education, the goals of diversity in the classroom and the workforce will only be met through increasing the role of diversity among the ranks of business professors (Payton et al., 2005). Plainly put, a greater effort must be made to recruit, retain, and graduate members of under-represented minorities at the doctoral level of business education in order to achieve lasting advances in business school diversity and in the subsequent level of diversity to be found in industry. The mechanism by which such recruitment efforts contribute to the goals of diversity in business and business education is a simple one: more minority students will be motivated to seek terminal degrees in business disciplines if they find visible examples of other members of similar minorities having succeeded in the same endeavor; this is the basis of Payton’s (Payton et al., 2005; Payton & Jackson, 1999) “mentoring” approach, and a similar demographic effect has also been noted in research on the nature of the interactions between workers and their managers in business (Goldberg et al., 2008).

 

The purpose of the special issue is to draw together researchers with a common cause on the issue of diversity in the management classroom in order to springboard new approaches and new research perspectives on this critical topic. Aside from efforts to recruit and retain minority graduate students and faculty in business schools, the role of research on the topic of diversity is critical in attaining AACSB goals for the inclusion of diversity in the classroom (e.g., Bell et al., 2009). To that end, research on how to increase the ranks of under-represented minorities in the graduate management classroom provides a substantial contribution toward a necessary societal good and essential academic role in the form of understanding, promoting and training the workforce of tomorrow on the nature and effects of diversity.

 

Leveraging theoretical diversity and methodological expertise, the special issue will serve to merge diversity research interests that span the business disciplines served by the Decision Sciences Institute. To that end, submissions from colleagues in any of the substantive business, technology, engineering, and managerial disciplines are welcomed, so long as their focus and goal is related to increasing representation in said discipline at the graduate level. 

 

Submissions will be made electronically at the Journal’s online submission site, http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/dsjie, and must adhere to the stylistic guidelines of the Journal found at http://www.dsjie.org/dnn/AuthorCenter/StyleGuidelines.aspx. Please indicate that the submitted paper addresses this special issue in the cover letter. 

 

Both specific and general questions about the special issue, its topics, themes, and deadlines may be directed to the either of the special issue editors.

 

Bell, M. P., Connerley, M. L., & Cocchiara, F. 2009. The case for mandatory diversity education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 8(4): 597-609.

Day, N.E. & Glick, B.J. 2000. Teaching diversity: A study of organizational needs and diversity curriculum in higher education. Journal of Management Education, 24(3): 338-352.

 

Goldberg, C., Riordan, C.M., & Zhang, L. 2008. Employees’ perceptions of the leaders: Is being similar always better? Group & Organization Management, 33(3): 330-355.

 

Payton, F.C. & Jackson, C. 1999. Ethnic diversity in IS: What are current Ph. D. students saying? ACM SIGCPR Computer Personnel, 20(3): 27-39.

 

Payton, F.C., White, S.D., & Mbarika, V. 2005. A re-examination of racioethnic imbalance of IS doctorates: Changing the face of the IS classroom. Journal of the AIS, 6(1): 37-51.