Be the winter jasmine of emerging management disciplines
“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” — Shelley’s famous line is more than fitting when applied to the development of management disciplines. Undeniably, management as a discipline is going through its own winter, perhaps even shifting from early winter into a severe one. Many enterprises no longer turn to professors for theories and knowledge to solve management problems. Many parents no longer encourage their children to choose management as a major. Even we, the faculty members engaged in management research and teaching, feel shaken and anxious about our own field. Numerous schools of management are hesitating and being downsized. Meanwhile, emerging engineering-related disciplines have become the darlings of universities and parents. New fields such as AI and future technologies are springing up like bamboo shoots after the rain—this is their springtime.
This reflects not only a pragmatic attitude widely held by the public but also a rational choice based on a singular perception of the future. Yet, social development has never been driven by a single force. The faster new productive forces advance, the faster old productive relations become the principal contradiction. Consequently, the demand for new value-creation relations (rather than the traditional productive relations emphasized in classical management studies) becomes more urgent, and so does the demand for emerging management disciplines. The springtime of these new management disciplines should not be far away.
The emphasis on emerging management disciplines stems from the fact that the changes brought about by AI and related technologies are irreversible. A management discipline built upon the old knowledge system cannot be rejuvenated; the illusion of making a comeback by merely rebranding must be abandoned. The era when one could survive by presenting old slides to new audiences is gone for good. The more prosperous the development of new productive forces becomes, the greater the gap produced by management studies based on the assumptions of old productive relations, and the narrower the survival space for traditional disciplines
The development of emerging management disciplines carries tension in two fundamental directions: one is the rapid integration of AI into traditional management practices dominated by efficiency values; the other is the urgent formation of a management discipline oriented toward creativity values. The evolution of enterprises is shaped by the constant iteration and upgrading between today’s modes of profit-making and tomorrow’s, that is, through the interplay between efficiently operating existing value and courageously creating future value. The parts of this process whose scientific principles can be clearly discerned and mathematically expressed should be entrusted to AI, enabling efficiency and reliability to reach their peak. The parts whose principles remain obscure should be entrusted to human reflective wisdom, to be elevated into scholarly inquiry and to inspire the potential of individuals and organizations. These two directions constitute the overarching approach to building our discipline: Management Science and MEM should focus on the former, while Business Administration and MBA should emphasize the latter. The former highlights transformation, the latter entrepreneurship; the former looks to Shandong University’s mathematical and scientific strengths for methods, the latter draws on its humanities, history, and philosophy for wisdom. Through interdisciplinary teams, the two will intertwine and reinforce each other, converging significantly in engineering, medical sciences, and related industries—where the blossoms of spring for our discipline will finally unfold.
Some people believe because they see, but those with the courage to change reality see because they believe. We need the courage to travel from reality into the future, and then the capability to return from the future to the present to take action. Confidence grounded in an analysis of the underlying logic of social evolution is the “finger of God”—the primal force that drives transformation. “It is easy to defeat the bandit in the mountains, but hard to defeat the bandit in one’s heart.” Confidence is not reckless arrogance without cause; it is a deliberate strategy built upon capability. For management scholars, these capabilities arise from exploring value-creation relationships among people, between humans and AI, and even between AI and AI. A business school should not be a place that cultivates people with an air of superiority, but rather an experimental hub for industry–education integration, where the effectiveness of new value-creation relationships is tested. It should be a center that continuously forges and validates new ways of thinking, new theories, new knowledge, and new competencies—and through them cultivates talent and influences enterprises. Only such a school of management can be regarded as the new management school of the future. Our faculty members should either be scholar-experts who, drawing upon theoretical insight, can provide solutions to practical management problems, or expert-scholars who, grounded in practice, can provide theoretical support for solving problems. A school of management—and faculty members—that exists merely as bystanders or commentators under the banner of “academic independence” will find their space for survival exceedingly limited.
The springtime of emerging management disciplines will not simply arrive on its own; it must be created by stepping out of our comfort zones, abandoning partial optimal solutions, and letting go of illusions. Today is the spring of great scientists, technologists, and engineers; in the not-so-distant future, it will surely be the spring of great management thinkers. Only when the two flourish side by side can they together drive China’s high-quality development. The path from the present to the future is continuous rather than discrete. Transformation has never been achieved overnight, nor can it be once and for all. It is always realized in a tortuous way, under the guidance of a generally correct direction, through the steady accumulation of small daily advances and the spirit of long-term perseverance.
How far away is the springtime of emerging management disciplines? It depends on how quickly we awaken, how firmly we believe in the future, how much courage we summon for self-renewal, and how rapidly we cultivate new capabilities. We must strive to be the winter jasmine that herald the spring of emerging management disciplines.
