The Practitioner Scholar

Go to any nearly geographic location in the US where there’s a high density of medium and larger sized businesses and you’ll find at least one small business focused on helping these corporations with “team building events”.  There’s a good chance that you are familiar with such businesses; they usually have some outdoor space dedicated to an obstacle course and have “camp counselors” who both help teams negotiate the obstacles and spark debate over various challenges the team is expected to accomplish.  The courses are typically fun, the events challenging and the results for the team in the long term… well… inconsequential.

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Pricing is a complex process (Monroe, 1990; Nagle & Holden, 2002). Many industry managers consider pricing a headache and many firms have “thrown in the towel” on pricing. They complain that they have no control over prices since “the market sets the price and (they) have to figure out how to cope with it” (Dolan & Simon, 1996). Lancioni et al. (2005) proposed that pricing strategy has implications for stakeholders both within and outside the firm. For them, pricing is a difficult and complex process due to the plethora of internal and external economic and political influences that shape the firm’s pricing decisions. The tasks of price setting and implementation have numerous implications throughout the organization. These tasks involve “multidimensional processes affecting customers, products, cost recovery efforts, produce margin levels, customer retention, market share, and domestic and international sales” (Lancioni, et al., 2005, p. 125).

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The ultimate test of any scholarly program involves the way that the program impacts the thinking of its students... Without exception, alumni indicated that the program changed their thinking... “I view the world differently now, I think about it differently, I process input differently, I speak about it differently, I write about it differently.”

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I learned something new about myself after the fifth residency. One of my classmates suggested that since we were ahead of others in our cohort in completing the research work that we should reach out to our cohort and see how they are doing and help them in whatever way we could. I learned two things. One is emotional and the other is intellectual.

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With the first semester now over, I thought I would reflect upon the non-academic part of the Doctor of Management experience. I had come into the program not knowing exactly how the transition from work to academia would take. Everything I read and everyone I talked with provided me with knowledge but since I did not have the experience of a doctorate program under my belt, there was no ability for me to absorb what I was reading and hearing prior to the start of the program. This phenomenon is called “absorptive capacity,” the ability a person has of internalizing something new is dependent upon prior experience that lets one grab the newness and make it concrete.

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“The Case program challenged us to work hard and work well. It wasn’t there to weed us out, but was not soft…. That’s the hallmark of a quality academic program. I was treated as a serious person.”

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More than 20 million people in Africa are blind or partially sighted and in need of assistance, yet they often have nowhere to turn. Dr. Aubrey Webson (DM 2002) is changing that...

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There was no single factor that alumni offered for their decision to join the Weatherhead DM program.  Alumni typically offered a combination of reasons.... “I chose Case because of the reputation. Other programs were 'degree mills'... "I never made a monodisciplinary decision in my life" ... "[other] schools were focused on problems of theory - not practice!"

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Dr. Gymer is building cross-disciplinary labs where a variety of diverse health care stakeholders can convene and explore patient care and innovation... his DM training have enabled him to tackle such a complex endeavor: “It is more than just an educational experience, it changes the way you view the world, and the way you compose your professional and personal life. You learn the value of ‘reframing’ problems... The quantitative and qualitative skills and tools that we learn are invaluable to problem solving in a rapidly changing global economy.... It really works. As a practitioner and leader, bringing scholarly rigor to transformation activities is a competitive advantage as we design a sustainable innovation practice.”

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The comedian, Steven Colbert, has a segment on his comedy show called “Word of the Day.” I would like to talk about a few words that came up this session that really had an impact for me.

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