Mind the Gap: The Imperative for Density of Educational Collaboration with Industry

The modern business environment has become more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, presenting both new opportunities and threats that disrupt industries, businesses, and jobs. In response, businesses are adopting experimental approaches to real-time learning widening the gap between classroom education and practical application. However, industry collaboration in management education remains sparse. Further, academic literature places significantly less focus on industry collaborations supporting teaching compared to those involving research or entrepreneurial partnerships. In this essay, we draw on Raelin’s theory of the epistemology of practice and Engeström’s expansive learning theory to argue for increasing the density of education collaboration with industry within and across business school curricula to foster the types of practice-based learning and experiences that better prepare business students to be market-relevant practitioners. We emphasize the importance of experiential learning through industry collaborative educational activities and propose an expanded conceptualization of Kolb and Kolb’s learning space. Based on our extensive teaching experience developing learning opportunities that increase student exposure to organizational contexts within learning space co-constructed with industry, we propose a practical four-question framework with guiding design principles for increasing high-impact industry collaboration and offer strategic reflection in three core domains: curriculum design, delivery, and administration.