What is the role of higher education in society? How should universities be managed? What is learning, and what should count as ideal outcomes of that process? What types of knowledge should a higher education pursue? All these questions have been considered ever since universities were first created, and answered in different and sometimes competing ways. The aim of this article is to examine how these questions are currently being considered and dealt with within management education in the UK. It does so by outlining four models of management education: academic liberalism; experiential liberalism; experiential vocationalism; and the experiential/critical school. Each of these models is examined in relation to the assumptions it makes about epistemology, the nature of management, pedagogy, the organization of management education and universities, and the role of management education in society. Based on an appraisal of the relative advantages and disadvantages of each model, the article goes on to speculate about possible future directions for management education, and the relationship of this to the current context of higher education and the Dearing Report. The article concludes with suggestions for possible avenues of future research and practice.
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