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This article presents a personal reflection exercise used in a social issues in management course and in a course called Management Practice. The letter to a friend challenges students to reflect on the course, their career and life goals, and to identify the contributions that they will make to the world and in their lives.

This paper reports on some of the key outcomes of the National Alliance of Business's Compact Project, a 12-city demonstration project intended to establish collaborations among businesses, public schools, and government. Factors related to problem recognition, definition and crystallization, the macroenvironmental context, and the emergence of a systemic orientation toward school improvement are associated with more and less successful outcomes. Reframing processes pervade development of a vision about education, the ways in which institutions relate to each other, as well as their orientation toward solving educational problems. More successful cities in the project adopted a systemic approach rather than more limited programmatic efforts to change the schools.

This article develops a typology of social partnership organizations to enhance understanding of the ways these organizations operate in the social arena, as well as their potential for social problem solving. First, social partnerships are carefully defined. Based on the degree of problem "divisibility, " two key determinants of partnership type are derived: the degree of interdependence among organizations involved in problem solving and the organizational level at which the problem is most salient. From these determinants, three "ideal" partnership types in which there is congruence between the determinants are distinguished: programmatic, federational, and systemic. Characteristics of each ideal type are described, and problems with potential hybrid types are discussed. Propositions are then developed, followed by a discussion of implications for practice and research.

Four major trends that will affect future management education are identified, and data from a study of MBAs is used to develop a perspective on how management education needs to change to address these concerns. Critical future skills include written and oral communication, people skills, analytic skills, a broad perspective on management, and technical knowledge. The findings of this study support the need for greater integration of specific types of skills into the MBA or undergraduate management curriculum. Implications of these findings for management education are discussed.