Communication Management in Bangladeshi B-Schools: Acceptance and Resistance

Abstract

In Bangladesh, business schools in the public and private sectors are divided over communication management. On one hand, the more traditional faculty members see communication management as something natural, common sense and a waste of time to learn formally. On the other hand, professions-oriented teachers view communication management as an art and skill to be learned. Given the rapid advancement and increasing complexity of the workplace, they believe that communication management courses should be part of the core curriculum – a requirement for all business students. The paper, in light of this, looks at the ongoing debate about the place of communication management in business schools. The main research questions are as follows: What are the general understandings about communication management among teachers and students of business schools in Bangladesh? What are their perceptions regarding communication management as a field - whether to teach it, what extent it should be taught, what to teach about it, who should teach it, how to teach it and how to measure student learning? The study is quantitative, exploratory and descriptive in design. Being a quantitative study, data were generated through a survey of 100 faculty, 100 graduate students and 100 undergraduate students of private and public business schools in Bangladesh.