ISBN : 9780198713364
In recent times, the fastest growing part of the higher education system has been business schools. With an established set of university based business schools in the USA since the early part of the 20th century, the growth since then has come in Europe between the 1960's and the 1990's, and in Australasia and Asia over the past 20 years. This has meant that, for example, in the UK by 2010 management and business studies staff made up 7% of the UK higher education sector and taught 14% of the students. In that same year, 1 in 8 undergraduates, 1 in 5 postgraduates and 1 in 4 international students were studying management business studies in UK business schools. This growth has inevitably attracted the interest of those applauding and sceptical of these developments, and more scholarly literature on business schools has also developed. The purpose of this book is to assess the character and quality of selected research themes on the study of business schools and to articulate a forward looking research agenda on the study of business schools as institutions. The book provides novel empirical findings on the change and development of business schools, the causes and consequences of the ranking, and branding wars around business schools in particular and higher education systems more generally. The book also offers a stimulating critique of some of the intellectual, professional and economic challenges facing business schools in the contemporary world. The book's authors are internationally renowned scholars from the fields of organisation theory, strategic management, management development, and higher education management and policy.
1. Introduction
2. Research on Business Schools: Themes, Conjectures and Future Directions
PART 1 - THE CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS SCHOOLS
3. Leading Breakthrough initiatives in Business Schools
4. Governance Logics in Universities: Organisational Change as Oscillating Conversations
5. Institutional pressure as a trigger for organisational identity change: the case of accreditation failure within seven European Business Schools
6. Relevance and Excellence in Higher Education Vocational Schools: Business Schools as Institutional Actors
PART 2 - RANKING AND BRANDING OF BUSINESS SCHOOLS
7. The Academic Arms Race: International Rankings and Global Competition for World-Class Universities
8. Branding Business Schools: Academic Struggles with the Management of Reputation
9. Discipline as Institutional Maintenance: The Case of Business School Rankings
PART 3 - CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS SCHOOLS
10. Business Schools Inside the Academy: What are the Prospects for Interdepartmental Research Collaboration?
11. Strategic Choice: Taking "Business" out of B-Schools
12. Back to the Future of Management Research
CONCLUSION
13. Building a Research Agenda on the Institutional Development of Business Schools