Abstract:

The new Bologna plan has triggered curricula redesigning focused on the development of diverse competences and skills rather than a fixed body of knowledge. The educational scene outlined by the new European Credit Transfer System demands students to continuously develop their capability to acquire and assimilate new knowledge and apply it to new practical situations related to their knowledge field, that is their absorptive capacity.
In business management, as well as in other fields as engineering, medicine or law, there is the necessity of confronting students with the complexity of real problems, where the combination of all the knowledge acquired during all the degree must be applied. In this new context in which students are not anymore passive subjects but the main actors of their learning process, new information and communication technologies are essential for students to absorb new knowledge.
The information technologies should attempt to move the students from memorizing information to acquiring competencies like information searching and analysing, from the lecturer as protagonist to the lecturer as a guide and tutor for the students.
The aim of this paper is to analyse how the different technological tools can be used by both students and teachers in business management subjects to obtain the Bologna objectives. It also describes how embeeddedness in virtual networks contributes to foster student’s knowledge absorptive capacity. In addition, it evidences the important role of teacher to develop the relational capabilities of students for taking advantages of the relevant information and resources they are exposed to. In this vein, work social skill through team work, leadership, team competitions and public speech is crucial for an active learning in a complex and unstructured field as business management.

Keywords:

Information technologies, students’ absorptive capacity, virtual networks, relational capabilities, business management.