OUR MISSIONAoM/IAoM is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners responsible for providing annual conferences, worldwide meetings , curricula and executive programs, speakers, and an active portfolio of professional publications in Management, Education, Leadership, and Technology.
Changing the Education Paradigm
by Scott McPherson
America doesn't have a Department of Sustenance. Why not? Eating is one of the most important things we do. Without food, human beings die. Still, we're content to allow individual citizens and families to choose for themselves how best to fill their tummies.
Yet, when it comes to the less - though nonetheless very - important job of education, we've opted for a government bureaucracy to satisfy our needs.
And there's not just a federal agency for this purpose. Every state has an extensive and highly expensive public-school system with the stated purpose of providing a quality education to all. We have teachers' unions, school boards, parent-teacher associations, bussing, progressive property taxation, regularly updated textbooks - all to ensure a good education for your child. How's it going? Well, by the looks of things, 'quality education isn't all it's cracked up to be. With colleges and universities routinely complaining that students need remedial courses in the most basic subject matter, we clearly see that the quality of a government education leaves quite a bit to be desired.
THE MELT PARADIGM
The AoM/IAoM has created an integrated, networked paradigm know as MELT (Management, Education, Leadership, and Technology) to facilitate a multidisciplinary, global discourse between scientists and practitioners in these disciplines which challenges prevailing assumptions and theories. One of the fundamental issues undergirding MELT is the notion that management, education, leadership, and technology are on the cusp of a paradigm shift.
In MANAGEMENT, the philosophies of Peter Drucker and Edward Deming created during the industrial era continue to drive management practices intended for post-industrial organizations but are becoming dysfunctional in organizations structured as networks of knowledge workers, free agents, and team-based systems.
In EDUCATION, distance education is challenging the pillars of the educational systems from Dewey’s philosophy to the architecture of the brick-and-mortar classroom with students going to the classroom, the faculty acting as the sage on
In LEADERSHIP, the myths of autonomy, control, and omnipotence of the single leader at the apex of the organization are being debunked as followership and the importance of context for organizational survival and fitness are factored into the leadership equation. Leading in an interconnected, adaptive, complex, dynamic environment requires a fundamentally different style of leadership.
In TECHNOLOGY, because of the rapidly changing nature of information and communication technologies, paradigm shifts are more subtle and frequent and seem to take less time to take root since professionals in this domain are used to view change as a constant the drives the future and next innovation.
Taken together, these four domains seen in their political, social, and economic context, provide the framework for many AoM/IAoM activities including the annual conferences, special events, and publications.