A study on Antecedents of Learners’ Motivation towards Management Education

The need for management education has been realized ever since India got its independence and the number of educational institutes providing management education has increased by leaps and bounds. Indeed, in the postmodern model of higher education when knowledge is often outdated before it can be used, the knowledge content of the curriculum becomes less important in comparison to the role of motivation to learn management and the ability to keep updated forever (Kinman et al., 2007). Internationalization of management education is another option considered owing to the new business landscape and lot of work is in progress in connection to the depth, scope and module delivery (Sharma and Roy, 1996;). Nevertheless, there is a lacuna in the studies on motivation of management students towards learning.

In brief, management education can be described as a formal classroom (off-site) learning experience the exposes the managers/future managers to new concepts, theories, models, situations, case studies, problems etc. that can be applied later in the workplace. So, the management courses are packed with specialized topics that include leadership, customer service, decision making, team-building, negotiation skills, financial management, strategic planning, conflict resolution, performance appraisal etc. If these topics are closely observed, none of them can be learnt effectively unless the learner is motivated towards these topics as there are ‘soft’ aspects attached to them. So, this calls for a study on motivation towards learning.