Designing the Virtual Classroom for Management Teaching

With the modern business environment becoming increasingly dependent on technology, management teaching in higher education faces the challenging task of effectively leveraging technology in diverse learning environments. This chapter discusses the use of virtual classrooms, namely collaborative, information technology-mediated teaching endeavours in management education at universities. The overall aim of this chapter is to provide insights for those who are responsible for the development of management curricula and to give specific guidelines to management educators interested in integrating IT-based teaching to increase teaching effectiveness when designing virtual classrooms. IntroductIon The business environment within which management education takes place is becoming increasingly competitive. As schools are seeking prestige in terms of research outcomes and teaching evaluations (Armstrong & Sperry, 1994), information technologies (IT) play a crucial role in their pursuits to differentiate service offerings and enhance learning (e.g., Berger & Topol, 2001; Pallab & Kaushi, 2001). On many campuses, this led to “technologicallydriven change” (Blake & Jarvenpaa, 1996, p. 38; Green, 1999). However, the integration of IT into the curriculum is by no means trivial. Traditionally, there was only a loose link between theoretical/conceptual frameworks and their business applications. The DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-893-2.ch018