Pedagogy as translation - Introducing an approach to contextualising western management theories for application in China

The aim of this workshop is to connect to discourse concerning the ‘universality problem’, that is, that management theories and knowledge are often presented as universal (see, for example, Guillen 1994; Johns 2001; March 2005). However, some researchers have attempted to present contextualized versions of particular fashionable management ideas (FMIs). Recent examples of studies where researchers discuss to what extent a specific FMI needs to be adapted to fit organizations in a specific generalized context include the local adaptation of Six Sigma to US firms and Korean firms, respectively (Yu and Zaheer 2010), the contextualization of Western leadership development to China (Gao et al. 2011), the glocalization of Nonaka’s knowledge creation model (Hong 2012), and handbooks on adaptations of the learning organization (Örtenblad 2013), and of knowledge management (Örtenblad 2014). While these studies are informative, we feel there is a need to focus on how students, rather than just researchers, can translate knowledge and theories in and on their own terms. In this workshop we advocate and demonstrate the utility of translation theory and translation process in the contextualization of Western management ideas and practices for crosscultural context. Drawing on past experiences with Pedagogy as Translation instruction we offer a step by step guide to developing student capacity for independent translation. We argue that this is a timely juncture to develop such skills given the critiques of management education approach to cross cultural learning from the above empirical and commentary sources. Indeed, the relevance of these critiques in the Chinese context is highlighted by Willis (2015) who suggests that Chinese students at Western business schools in China often demand unadapted content (adapted content is regarded as diluting brand and credential value) yet also demand to know how to transfer content. Willis also notes that this transfer component is seldom facilitated. In this workshop, we present “Pedagogy as Translation”, an approach that allows teachers to present dominant (western) theory and then engage students in an adaption process that assesses the suitability of the presented content for foreign (Chinese) learners together with an adaptation of knowledge, theories and methods to increase applicability in the new (Chinese) culture.