From BAM to the Classroom: Rethinking Teaching Through Student Experience

In the first of our Anniversary Essays celebrating 40 years of BAM, Prof Edgar Alfonso Sansores-Gerrero reflects on the benefits of being an active BAM member from the perspective of a Mexican academic.

In recent years, I have taken part in the Management Knowledge & Education group (BAM MKE: “How to” Series). This group has become a place where I rethink teaching by talking with colleagues from different backgrounds. These virtual sessions have shaped me, not just because of the topics we discuss, but also because the conversations make me reflect on my own teaching. These reflections were further shaped through ongoing exchanges in BAM MKE sessions and broader BAM activities.

I remember a session with Emma Thirkell and Victoria Willis in which they discussed moving from just delivering content to creating learning experiences. This idea had a big impact on me and changed how I teach. I started encouraging students to take part through problem-solving, discussion, and decision-making, seeing them as people who build their own knowledge.

Another session deepened this new way of seeing teaching. We discussed the educator’s role now that generative artificial intelligence is part of the classroom. We asked simple but challenging questions: what does it mean to teach when students can get answers right away? What value does the educator add? This conversation made me rethink my own role. I realized that my job is not just to share information, but to help students develop a critical perspective. I want to help them question, interpret, and think about what they learn, including content created by AI.

Based on these experiences, I decided to bring these ideas into my classroom last term. As a professor in the Integrated Graduate Program in Organizational Studies (Master’s and PhD) at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico, I redesigned the Organizational Theory II course. My goal was to make it a place for real experiences, not just lectures. From the start, I invited students to debate, ask questions, and connect the concepts to their own professional paths.

What started as a change in course design soon changed how the class worked. The biggest difference was not in the content, but in how students interacted with it. Instead of treating topics like bureaucracy or decision-making as fixed theories, we discussed them using real cases, organizational challenges, and personal stories. This made our sessions more open and focused on dialogue, where ideas were questioned and built together. As we built this new classroom dynamic, bringing in artificial intelligence as a topic made the learning even deeper. I remember one session where students started by debating how algorithms affect decisions in organizations. As we talked, the discussion moved from technical details to bigger questions about autonomy, ethics, and responsibility. I realized then that students were not just learning the concepts, but also thinking critically, making the knowledge their own, and connecting it to real life.

One of the most important lessons I learned is that putting students at the center changes knowledge from something you just pass on to something they build themselves. Our activities helped students not only understand the theory, but also reflect, ask questions, and apply what they learned in real situations. Instead of just memorizing ideas, they used them to make sense of the complex organizations they work in. This is where my experience with BAM MKE really matters. The impact of these groups goes beyond my own growth and reaches my students’ learning. The ideas, methods, and debates from these communities become valuable when they shape classroom experiences that change how students think, question, and learn. Being part of the BAM MKE community strengthened my belief that teaching requires constant reflection and a true willingness to adapt. Now, more than ever, I create experiences that help students understand, question, and take action in a complex organizational world.

Finally, I want to thank the students of Organizational Theory II: Karla, Sergio, Pamela, Hiram, Luis, Jorge, Brenda, Didre, Lorenzo, Luz, Damara, and Nina. Their curiosity, reflections, and willingness to engage in dialogue made this experience possible and turned it into a truly shared journey of learning. I am also deeply grateful to the BAM MKE community, whose openness, conversations, and shared reflections have quietly but profoundly shaped my approach to teaching.

Edgar Alfonso Sansores-Guerrero is Full Professor at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana and holder of the Henry Mintzberg Chair. Member of Mexico’s National System of Researchers. Certified in Social Business by HEC Montréal and in Microbusiness Competition for the Competitiveness Chapter Latin America by Harvard Business School. Serves on the Social Business Creation Pedagogical Committee at HEC Montréal. Since 2025, I have served as a member of the Peer Review Board of the British Academy of Management for a three-year term (2025–2027). During this period, I have reviewed submissions for the 2025 and 2026 Academy of International Business (AIB) Annual Conferences. I also participate virtually in various BAM Special Interest Groups (SIGs)