MIL practitioner guide: chapter 5

Chapter 5: Managerial intellectual learning for managerial practices

One of the primary goals of managerial intellectual learning is to build up the learner's managerial competence. This in turn, enables the learner to improve his/her managerial practices. The MIL impact on managerial practices in this regard play out in four ways:

1. Via MIL, the learner's intellectual cognition on management topics and concerns is enhanced. The learner is able to develop a more complicated understanding of management concerns and topics that he/she has to consider in his/her managerial practices in his/her specific work setting. In particular, MIL offers a diversity of guidelines to conduct literature review for the long-term goal of professional development and short-term managerial/ applied business research performance.

2. In MIL, specific guidelines are provided on (i) how to conduct appropriate literature review, (ii) how to explore a specific problem-situation to come up with useful literature review themes that are promising for generating management knowledge with high actionable value.

3. Via MIL, a learner is sensitive to the mindset and external environment management issues which can subsequently affect his/her MIL effectiveness. And MIL effectiveness influences short-term and long-term effective managerial practices.

4. MIL promotes effective learning from managerial practices, which, in turn, improves a learner's managerial practices over time.

More generally, MIL has been employed to study functional management disciplines that, in turn inform managerial practices in both strategic and functional managerial domains. Lastly, MIL sensitizes a learner to align intellectual learning with his/her life-goal and career aspiration. More often than not, MIL learners are interested in pursuing the life-goal to become competent scholar-practitioners in one or more management disciplines. Being a competent scholar-practitioner implies more competent managerial practices. 

Further readings

Ho, J.K.K. 1995. “An Example on the Operation of the MPSB Filter” Systems Research Vol. 12, No. 4. Chichester: Wiley: 297-308.

Ho, J.K.K. 2014. "A Review of the Multi-perspective, Systems-based (MPSB) Research with an MPSB Knowledge Supply Chain Framework" European Academic Research 2(1) April: 705-729.

Ho, J.K.K. 2017. "A systems thinking-based review of the topic on an applied business research project background (ABB)" European Academic Research 5(8) November: 4021-4040.

Ho J.K.K. 2017. "On the agile literature review approach for practising managers: a proposal" Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley [to be published].