The Past, Present, and Future of the Business School

201 Pages·2016·3.078 MB·English

by  Edward W. Miles (auth.)

The Past, Present,
and Future of the
Business School
EDWARD W. MILES
The Past, Present, and Future
of the Business School
Edward   W.   Miles
The Past, Present, and
Future of the Business
School
Edward   W.   Miles
Georgia State University
Lawrenceville, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-33638-1 ISBN 978-3-319-33639-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33639-8
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P
REFACE
In recent decades, a variety of criticisms have fallen at the feet of
university-b ased business schools. A sampling of these allegations includes
the following: Business schools produce research that is ignored by the

business community as being irrelevant (e.g., Pfeffer & Fong, 2002 ; The
Economist, 2 007 ). Very few of the innovations in business of the past
half-century have originated in business schools or have been shaped by
them (e.g., Skapinker, 2 008 ). Business schools bear signifi cant respon-
sibility for bad decision making and unethical behavior (e.g., the Enron
scandal) among their graduates (Etzioni, 2 002 ; Ghoshal, 2 005 ; Podolny,
2009 ). Narrowly focused research specializations lead to professors who
are “siloed” both in their thinking and in their delivery of content in the
curriculum (e.g., Crowther & Carter, 2 002 ; Navarro, 2 008 ; Podolny,
2 009 ). Faculty members have little interest in the critical problems facing
business or in helping to solve them (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005 ; Thomas
& Wilson, 2 011 ). Business school faculties are populated by academic
scholars who have little business experience. Therefore, business school
graduates have been educated in the practice of a profession by a cadre of
faculty members who are not members of that profession and do not have
a strong desire to relate to that profession (Bennis & O’Toole, 2 005 ).
If even a portion of these concerns have merit, then it would seem
that the university-based business school of today is not delivering opti-
mally on the benefi ts it alleges to be providing to its stakeholders. Among
others, these stakeholders include students, graduates, employers, fi nan-
cial donors, the collective business community, society at large, and—in
vii
viii PREFACE
the case of state-funded universities—the taxpayers who help to fund the
activities of the business school.
While various writers of recent decades have quite ably articulated con-
cerns about the current-day business school, they lament (Pfeffer & Fong,
2002 ; Podolny, 2 009 ) that these concerns are tacitly acknowledged by
business schools and generally ignored by an “ostrich-head-in-the-sand”
lack of response. Why would faculty members and university administra-
tors—drawn from the highest levels of intellectual and reasoning ability in
society—simultaneously acknowledge a serious situation, yet ignore such
seemingly critical concerns? To get a fuller answer to this question than
has been previously offered (or to challenge the pre-supposition of the
question), one must understand the context in which the university-based
business school operates.
One dimension of that context is history. The business school is embed-
ded within the university. The university has a rich history going back to
medieval times. William Faulkner observed that, “The past is never dead.
It’s not even past.” Just as Faulkner’s Mississippi culture lives on forever,
the culture of the modern-day university carries the residue of 800 years of
academic culture going back to the medieval universities of Paris, Bologna,
and others. To gain a complete understanding of the twenty-fi rst century
university-based business school and its alleged shortcomings, one must see
the business school in the context of an 800-year institution in which many
medieval traditions and values have not died—they are not even in the past.
A second dimension of the context is resources and funding. The medi-
eval university had two key benefactors—the king and the church. Both
provided resources necessary for the university to exist. In recent centu-
ries, the university has jettisoned its linkage with the church; in recent
decades, the state (i.e., replacing the role of the king) has become much
less lavish in funding the modern-day university. Never has the phrase “He
who pays the piper calls the tune” resonated more than in the twenty-fi rst
century university. Finding and satisfying constituents who can assure the
funding resources of the university is a task that has changed and evolved
for centuries. The business school operates a microcosm of that same task.
For centuries, the university (and more recently, the business school)
has been quite eager (some would say too eager) to take on new roles to
satisfy these constituents (Collini, 2012 ; Kerr, 1 963 /2001). These roles
include offering vocational training to attract more students, conducting
military and medical research to attract government grants, and b uilding
a huge athletic program to curry favor with a variety of constituents. Over
PREFACE ix
time, the university has come to embody multiple purposes that were
accepted at various points in time for the reason of building favor with
multiple constituents. Just as the broader umbrella of the university, the
business school likewise has taken on many roles for the purpose of satisfy-
ing a broad span of constituents. Given that these roles were acquired at
different points in time, based on needs of a broad span of constituents,
it is no surprise that these roles are, at best, non-synergistic, and at worst,
confl icting. For example, big-time athletics and academic integrity confl ict
at many universities. In business schools, hiring faculty based solely on
research record confl icts with hiring based on teaching or outreach needs.
A third and fi nal element of the context of the university-based business
school is that it is a professional school. Universities have a myriad of pro-
fessional schools. What can the business school learn from the experiences
of the university-based medical school, law school, journalism school, or
even music school? Interestingly, few of the criticisms of the business school
(many listed above) are unique. For example, music schools wrestle with
the implications of a “siloed” curriculum; law school observers bemoan
the preponderance of research irrelevant to practice, and medical schools
are accused of placing too much emphasis on research and too little on
teaching. The business school has the opportunity to learn vicariously from
other professional schools regarding these criticisms and how those schools
respond to them. Additionally, a comparison to other professional schools
will give the business school a richer understanding of which criticisms are
solely endemic to business schools and which are actually endemic to mul-
tiple professional schools that operate in a university context.
In summary, the twenty-fi rst century university-based business school
has been accused of operating in a manner that, at best, does not infl uence
the practice of business, and, at worst, is “harmful to society…part of the
problem rather than the solution” (Podolny, 2009 , p. 63). Furthermore—
and perhaps more seriously—it has been accused of acknowledging this
situation and implicitly choosing to continue with the status quo. The
purpose of this book is to explain three intertwined dimensions of the
context in which the university-based business school operates: historical
context, resource context, and professional school context. As the context
sheds light on the operating environment of the business school, readers
may decide to re-assess which of the criticisms have merit and the likeli-
hood that potential interventions may result in success or failure.
Lawrenceville, GA E dward   W .   Miles
x PREFACE
REFERENCES
Bennis, W. G., & O’Toole, J. (2005, May). How business schools lost their way.
Harvard Business Review , 96–104.
Collini, S. (2012). W hat are universities for? London: Penguin Books.
Crowther, D., & Carter, C. (2002). Legitimating irrelevance: Management educa-
tion in higher education institutions. The International Journal of Educational
Management, 16, 268–278.
Etzioni, A. (2002, August 4). When it comes to ethics, B-schools get an F. The
Washington Post, B4.
Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good management
practices. A cademy of Management Learning and Education , 4(1), 75–91.
Kerr, C. (1963/2001). The uses of the university. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Navarro, P. (2008). The MBA core curricula of top-ranked U.S. business schools: A
study in failure? A cademy of Management Learning and Education, 7 (1), 108–123.
Pfeffer, J., & Fong, C. T. (2002). The end of business schools? Less success than
meets the eye. A cademy of Management Learning and Education, 1 (1), 78–95.
Podolny, J. M. (2009, June). The buck stops (and starts) at business school.
Harvard Business Review, 62–67.
Skapinker, M. (2008, January 8). Why business ignores the business schools.
Financial Times.
The Economist. (2007, August 28). Practically irrelevant: What is the point of
research carried out in business schools? Accessed August 4, 2015, from
http://www.economist.com/node/9707498
Thomas, H., & Wilson, A. D. (2011). ‘Physics envy’, cognitive legitimacy or prac-
tical relevance: Dilemmas in the evolution of management research in the UK.
British Journal of Management, 22 , 443–456.
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Although it has been almost 3 years in the making, I have very much
enjoyed researching and writing this book. Being an academic, research-
ing and better understanding the roots of the modern university and busi-
ness school has been quite meaningful.
My thinking on the topics in this book has been shaped by a career
in academia and by engaging conversations with numerous thought-
ful colleagues. For this interaction, I am quite grateful to Wesley King,
Brett Matherne, Richard Baskerville, Deborah Butler, Kay Bunch, Lucy
McClurg, Jeff Schatten, John Hocking, John Hall, John Lough, Ebb
Oakley, Stan Smits, Bill Jones, Richard Deane, Dave Forquer, Julian Diaz,
Mike Crino, Sônia Calado Dias, Uli Zeyer, Tom Quiesser, and Richard
C. Huseman, among many others. Of course, all fl aws in the book are
entirely the responsibility of the author.
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