Promoting Management Education in China Through Developing Practice-Based Management Theories: An Interview With Practitioner-Scholar Youmin Xi

Abstract

For nearly 30 years, Youmin Xi, professor of management at Xi’an Jiaotong University, who serves concurrently as the executive president of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and pro-vice chancellor of the University of Liverpool, has been trying to find a way to best integrate management practices and management research in the East and West based on his multiple roles as a management researcher, educator, and practitioner. Being the first recipient of the PhD degree of management engineering in China, Xi has personally witnessed and lived through the development of China’s management education. In this interview, Xi believes management theories and practice can support one another and collaborate to improve management education in China. He also believes what he has been doing in developing HeXie Management Theory, a practice-based management theory, could offer educators and practitioners in the West some food for thought.