Toward mindful development of action learning in business education

This article addresses questions raised at a recent academic discussion of action learning for business education: What are the pitfalls of existing action learning practices? How do educators mindfully and effectively develop action learning in business education? To examine these issues, we provide an overview of, and analyze, the evolution of ongoing action learning programs established by a leading Chinese business school with its partner schools in the US from 2007 to 2019. Based on this qualitative case study, we reveal implicit pitfalls of existing practices, propose an experiential learning-based conceptual framework for an in-depth understanding of curriculum design, and provide instructional guidelines for better implementation. All the findings help educators mindfully embed action learning essentials into an educational curriculum and innovate the educational policy of teaching pedagogies.