competency based movement, begun in corporate and professional training

organizations was followed closely by the AACSB outcome measurement project.

This convergence of approach of practitioners and academicians resulted in focused
management development efforts. This led to combining knowledge and
conceptualization, skills development and assessment processes. A concurrent
UKbased initiative the Management Charter Initiative was started in 1989 (Frank
1991). This was initiated mainly due to the poor performance of the British Economy
compared to that of its competitors. There was a broad consensus on the linkages
between management talent and competitiveness of various economic sectors. The
Charter defined that making of managers needs attention across five fronts:
Company specific work on competencies; Target setting; Evaluation of
performance and analysis of developmental needs; Formal training and
developmental interventions; and Support for self-development. An assessment
after three years indicated that the Management Charter Initiative led to
comprehensive changes in management education. The debate on the role of MBA
restarted in US in 1990. It was argued that the traditional instructional process was
deficient in many elements. One of the problems that was identified was many
educators suffer from the misguided belief that they routinely emphasize critical
thinking in their instructional tasks. A series of criticisms about the operation of
business schools that appeared in 1992 and 1993 (Hasan 1993, Raelin 1993),
reported that business schools chose increasingly to teach what they wish to, rather
than what business organizations need. It was decried that 20 to 25 years of
academic business school research had yielded little or no fundamental knowledge
relevant for the management of contemporary or future business organizations.
These criticisms led to a series of changes. AACSB adopted new accreditation
standards for both business and accounting programms (Hasan 1993). As
instructors and mentors for business and management, the schools had the
opportunity to develop and demonstrate new ways of working with their clients
(Wild