Modernist 16‐19 Business Education in a Postmodern world ‐ critical evidence of business practice and business education in the cultural industries

Abstract

This article examines the continued relevance of the 16‐19 business education curriculum in the UK, stimulated by doubts expressed by Thomas (1996), over its continued relevance. We express a concern that business education needs, but is struggling, to respond to significant societal shifts in consumption and production strategies that do not sit easily within traditional theories of business practice currently underpinning 16‐19 business education. We examine firstly, the extent to which a formal body of knowledge couched in a modernist discourse of facts and objectivity can cope with the changing and fluid developments in much current business practice that is rooted in the cultural and symbolic. Secondly, the extent to which both academic and vocational competences provide the means for students to develop a framework of critical understanding that can respond effectively to rapidly changing business environments. Findings are based on research conducted jointly by the University of Manchester and the Manchester Institute for Popular Culture at Manchester Metropolitan University. The growth of dynamism of the cultural industries sector ‐ largely micro‐businesses and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) ‐encapsulates forms of business knowledge, business language and business practice which may not immediately fit with the models provided within business education. Results suggest increasingly reflexive forms of consumption being met by similarly reflexive and flexible modes of production. Our evidence suggests that whilst modernist business knowledge is often the foundation for many 16‐19 business education courses, these programmes of study/training do not usually reflect the activities of SME and micro‐business practitioners in the cultural industries. Given the importance of cultural industries in terms of the production strategies required to meet increasingly reflexive markets, it is suggested that there may be a need to incorporate a postmodern approach to the current content and pedagogy; one that is contextual, cultural and discursive.