Assessing the authenticity of cases, internships and problem-based learning as managerial learning experiences: Concepts, methods and lessons for practice

It has been long argued that business education must transform itself to support students’ acquisition of twenty-first-century competencies, such as critical thinking, effective communication, and collaborative problem-solving. Recognising the limitations of the lecture model in fostering these competencies, scholars favour approaches that integrate theory with practice. However, the question of how to best introduce practice in the business curriculum remains unanswered. Are some methods for doing so better than others? This paper contributes to this discussion by analysing the three most common approaches currently used to introduce practice in the business curriculum: the case method, internships, and problem-based learning (PBL). Each of these methods is examined in relation to how it incorporates what scholars identify as the four building blocks of a management learning epistemology: (1) ill-defined problems where students (2) execute solutions in real-life (3) in close collaboration with a real organisation, with learning (4) supported by a process of reflection. Based on this appraisal, this paper suggests that none of these popular approaches adequately incorporate the four blocks, but PBL is the approach best suited to adaptation. An adapted version of PBL that incorporates these four building blocks is presented and illustrated with two real-life examples.