Online and Blended Business Education for the 21st Century

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The ‘soft/life’ disciplines: management and marketing in online business education

Introduction

Although they often are viewed as separate disciplines, management and marketing have an extended joint history in studies of computer-mediated communication. In a study that was an immediate predecessor to what we now know as online learning, Strauss (1996) examined students from introductory marketing and organizational behavior courses, comparing their behaviors and attitudes toward sharing information electronically versus face-to-face in a group-based exercise. She found that participation among members tended to be more equal in the computer-mediated groups, but that students in the face-to-face groups tended to be more satisfied with the ...