Integratively balancing structured and unstructured thinking : A prescription for success in both doing and teaching management

This paper explores the answers to two questions, “Can management educators and scholars become effective managers?”; and “Can managers become effective management educators and scholars?”. “The qualified answers, as in other management areas, are that it all depends on the person and the situation”. This paper first describes how successful managers/leaders continually strive to balance structured and unstructured approaches and thinking, as well as how the failure to balance them has led especially recently to many burst financial bubbles, such as the one in the dot.com area. Second, the paper describes how educators can help students learn this basic management skill and in the process, when supplemented by ample workplace experience, acquire that management skills which would enable educators to function as competent business managers. Third, the paper describes how managers can nurture and acquire educator skills through building on their successful work experiences in balancing structured and unstructured approaches and thinking.