Some Comments on Graduate Education in the Management Sciences

There are sundry purposes to be served by graduate education in the management sciences. These purposes include the development of professional abilities in model-building and mathematical model-transformation; and managerial implementation skills in model-use. These abilities require different mixtures of behavioral and quantitative sensitivities. Degrees of specialization and generalization are evidently in conflict both for teaching time and by the natural inclinations of various personality types (both students and teachers). It is unclear how (if at all) it is possible to achieve the purposes of specialization and generalization at the same time. Also, we know very little about how to combine behavioral and quantitative considerations.