Beyond the lecture: Creative and innovative pedagogies in management education – An integrative conceptual review

Abstract

Management education has been criticised for over-reliance on transmission-oriented pedagogies poorly suited to developing the competences contemporary business graduates require. The case for moving beyond the lecture is strengthened by generative artificial intelligence, which performs the analytical and reproductive tasks underpinning conventional assessment, shifting educational value toward judgement, situated decision-making, and reflection. This integrative conceptual review of creative and innovative pedagogies draws on literature published principally between 2013 and 2026, organising the field into six clusters: experiential and simulation-based learning; game-based and gamified approaches; arts-based methods; design-based pedagogies; problem-based learning; and student-generated multimodal artefacts. For each cluster it examines theoretical foundations, evidence strength, and implementation challenges, distinguishing outcomes with stronger evidence (engagement, motivation) from those with weaker evidence (durable transfer). Three cross-cutting themes are identified: the centrality of learner agency, the neglect of structured reflection, and institutional conservatism as a barrier to change. The review contributes a typology of creative pedagogy organised by locus of creation and mode of engagement, which is used to make explicit the trade-offs each configuration entails and where institutional conservatism constrains change, together with implications for programme design, assessment and facilitation, and a research agenda spanning longitudinal measurement, equity, programme-level integration, and generative AI.