Introduction

Citation

Clarke, T. (2013), "Introduction", Education + Training, Vol. 55 No. 4/5. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2013.00455daa.001

Introduction

Article Type: Guest Editorial From: Education + Training, Volume 55, Issue 4/5.

The future of business schools and of business education: internationalisation, innovation and engagement

The business schools and business education have come a long way in less than a century. From their beginnings in accounting, finance and management they have grown to rival in scale and scope the greatest disciplines including medicine and law. However, they have never truly resolved the doubts surrounding their purpose and role in the economy and society. Now faced with the more insistent and confronting challenges of globalisation and technological transformation, the questions regarding the identity, character and future of business schools and business education have never been more pressing. Recently many efforts have been made to illuminate these dilemmas in business education and to search for sustainable solutions (Hawawini, 2005; Global Foundation for Management Education (GFME), 2010; AACSB, 2010, 2011; Pettigrew and Hommel, 2013). This Special Issue of Education and Training makes an original and significant contribution to this essential and ongoing debate.

Scale and scope

The GFME (2010, p. 27) estimates that management education represents about 15 per cent of all students in the world enroled in tertiary education. In the UK one in seven students studied business and management in 2008/2009, approximately 248,000 full-time equivalent students. In Australia there were 340,500 students enroled in management and commerce programmes in 2010, a total of 28.5 per cent of all students, half of whom were from overseas (B-HERT, 2012). These huge student numbers have been accompanied by the vast development of business courses, curriculum and business schools establishments (Table I).

Table I Number of institutions awarding business degrees

Number of institutions awarding business degrees

The tensions around the scope, role, purpose and ideals of business education and business schools have remained very real from the beginning of this great enterprise to the present day. (Table II). Many of these tensions are unresolved at many business schools (and some remain unresolvable). However, over time and with experience business schools are coming to understand and work with these tensions in a creative and productive way as a number of the papers in this Special Issue demonstrate. The tensions exist around the commitment to a narrow and measurable definition of rigour in terms of publications in highly ranked journals, research grant income and other metrics, compared to the belief that business schools are there essentially to serve a wider community in the economy and society, and it is positive impact upon this community that really counts. The adherence to disciplinary purity is often as keenly observed in the business schools as in the sciences or arts, while relevance might suggest it is only through the integration and application of disciplines that real business problems can be understood and addressed. A uniform model of the successful business school is often portrayed that looks something like Wharton or INSEAD, yet others would argue there is a need for business schools to respond to the local and national context and business needs, and not try to converge towards an inappropriate norm.

Table II Tensions in business education

Equally in the business schools, as in the rest of education, there is a tension between the traditions of professional practice, and a more student focused approach to teaching and learning. Technology promotes many tensions with traditional forms of pedagogy, and the emphasis of disciplinary and technical skills often gets in the way of more creative innovation which is the catalyst for successful enterprise. Finally and most seriously the simple task of running business schools as businesses, and focusing on the financial performance of other businesses, can obstruct any sense of engagement with and responsibility for the enveloping global issues and recurrent crises which result, such as climate change, and poverty and inequality. The articles in this Special Issue examine these tensions in depth.

The business of business schools

Dameron and Durand critically consider “the business of business schools”. They explore the paradox of the continuing ascendancy of the American business school model in an increasingly multi-polar world where diversity is universal. While US political, economic and cultural hegemony was apparently uncontested following the disintegration and end of the Soviet Union; the continued growth the European Union, rapid advance of Asia, the increasingly significance of the BRIC economies, and resurgence of key economies of the Middle East, has created a more complex, interdependent world, in which “in each of the poles the social, political, legal and cultural context tends to be specific”. There is a dynamic contest occurring between the irresistible forces for globalisation and the immovable institutions of multi-polarity. If much business knowledge and practice is embedded in specific contexts, a variety of models for management and management education may be necessary and legitimate.

The argument of Dameron and Durand is that business school international systems of accreditation, business school rankings and business journal rankings have together combined to produce a strategic convergence of business schools globally. Business schools have little choice but to conform to the same performance criteria used in the ranking processes. Originality and relevance are often lost in this race to perform by conforming, and given the high value attributed to journal publications, teaching and institutional and external engagement are marginalised also. While accreditation bodies urge external auditing teams to evaluate business schools in terms of their distinctive strategy, the accreditation criteria provide an insistent pressure towards convergence.

The dominant models of management developed by this convergence are critically questioned by Dameron and Durand, including the focus on the Anglo-American cultural paradigm and the multi-national corporation neglect the richness and diversity of business enterprise internationally. When such paradigms are supported by positivistic statistical testing yielding truths too often taken to have universal validity, the dynamics of business education become misleading. The focus on statistical testing narrows the field of enquiry, and narrow, highly specialised perspectives emerge that are difficult to assemble into a holistic view of how business is integrated.

Dameron and Durand suggest a range of strategies for business schools in several clusters of countries to enable diversity in approach and accomplishment, developing unique strengths in fields such as organisational theory, systems thinking, creativity and entrepreneurship and delivering business education in culturally sensitive ways.

The culture of business schools

Peter Lorange critically examines and questions aspects of the culture of the modern business school, and investigates the possibilities for a more student oriented, more responsive, more flexible and performance-driven culture. He offers a critical discourse on the cultural conservatism of contemporary business schools, analysing the impediments to change and examining the transformation in the business education market and among students, that demand greater responsiveness. While the traditional culture of business schools is deeply embedded in professional practices and axiomatic disciplines, the seismic changes occurring in technology and social practices beyond the business school are impelling business schools to adapt and become more agile.

Recognising the significance of the changes that are already occurring, Lorange also acknowledged that there is a deeply embedded set of professional and cultural practices in university business schools that are long established and will not be readily changed, with more likely an ongoing tension between modernity and tradition. Lorange's vision offers a fresh assessment of where the business schools are, and where they will have to go to continue to engage the changing demands of business and managers. However, many business academics alert to the new demands Lorange highlights would insist that these can be pursued by adaption of existing provision towards more flexible, blended learning approaches to delivery (Clarke and Clarke, 2009). The willingness to deliver on a radical restructuring of the business curriculum can be achieved within present academic modes of secure employment, if the right leadership and incentives structures are in place, and the pedagogic approach encouraged to become creative, integrative and student centred rather than bureaucratic and discipline bound.

Challenge and change in business schools

Hall, Agarwal and Green examine the internal and external pressures to change management education faces presently. They focus upon Australian where the challenges are particularly pronounced, both in terms of the competition from global business school brands and Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), and the immense opportunities as the Asian century unfolds. They focus upon three sets of challenges:

• •

  how management education responds to the productivity, innovation and management capability demands in increasingly competitive international economies;

• •

  the recent critiques of the limitations of current MBA programs and how they might redefine their identity and mission; and

• •

  ways to deepen engagement with business leaders and other stakeholders and to balance the imperatives of relevance and quality.

The drive for greater innovation and productivity involves more than publicly funded scientific research and business R&D, and includes the development and adoption of new business models, integration of improved technology, collaborative workplaces, openness to creativity and knowledge sharing, all of which business education must foster. Small improvements in management performance in these attributes could have a major impact on innovation and productivity. Securing alignment between innovation strategy, corporate culture and overall corporate strategy might equip business with greater capacity to meet competitive challenges.

The narrow focus of business schools on technical skills has left them open to being criticised as lacking in relevance, with a lack of integration of disciplines, and a dependence of assumptions of the universality of specific models, concepts and theories. Business has claimed that MBA graduates lack skills in communication, problem solving, teamwork and organisational skills. It is often argued that management education lacks attention to implementation and practice (Mintzberg, 2004). In summary the business school preoccupation with rigour has become estranged from a business culture committed to relevance (Datar et al., 2010).

Finally Hall, Agarwal and Green explore different roles for business schools in terms of how they define their core activities and functions, with business schools performing differently according to their strategic positioning, resource constraints and capability. Many business schools will wish to make a significant contribution across the board including contributing to academic knowledge through publications, developing managers capacity to think critically beyond mere technical competence, advancing the professional employability of graduates and sustaining the knowledge economy with commercialisation of discoveries and engagement in the wider community. As always it is a question of finding the right balance and identifying distinctive strengths. All this now has to be worked out in a much more demanding context of external assessment, accreditation, engaged stakeholders, rapidly changing technology and shifting resource constraints.

Integration of knowledge and skills in business schools

The interplay of technology and pedagogy in evolving business education is examined by Gupta et al., equipping future managers to respond to unanticipated and rapid change. While a production-based model has served the business schools for generations, the increasing pace of globalisation and technological transformation demands more agile and responsive business education. Enhancing entrepreneurial alertness involves continuous updating of curriculum and content, real-time connections with corporate practice and developing the capacity to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity. The array of skills and attributes now essential to develop in business education include communication, problem solving, leadership, teamwork and technological abilities. Sustaining the quality and significance of the essential conceptual and analytical contents of courses, while developing social and technological skills requires integration and application around experiential learning.

Innovative approaches to interdisciplinary business education are examined by Bajada and Taylor. Their paper offers an original and insightful route to adopting an interdisciplinary approach defined by Davis (1995, p. 5) as “the work that scholars do together in two or more disciplines, sub-disciplines, or professions, by bringing together and to some extent synthesizing their perspectives”. Bajada and Taylor critically examine the continuum of integration beginning with the multi-disciplinary where students are expected to discover synergies, perhaps reinforced by a final integrative capstone subject. At the other end of the spectrum are interdisciplinary approaches engaging students in real-world problems employing a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Traditionally most business schools whether explicitly or implicitly opt for the safer multi-disciplinary approach, however, there is growing interest in achieving greater synthesis.

Disciplinary skills may provide employment to graduates, but managers are continually tested in their work to think outside the silo, adopting a more holistic approach to the analysis of business issues, and balancing their decisions with a sense of responsibility and ethics. The call for more interdisciplinary, problem solving ways of thinking is not only coming from business but also from management education leaders. The paper convincingly demonstrates the significant contribution integrative approaches may make to management education, and further research is now required on how integrative modes of business education are delivered and the results in terms of graduate attributes.

Technology and learning

The apparently unstoppable advance of the MOOCs is analysed by Clarke. The expansive ideals of the MOOCs to educate the world are impressive, and have challenged mainstream business school and university education. If free online courses are available from the best universities in the world, what place is there for traditional local delivery? One determined response of the universities will be to blend the new technologies available with the benefits of face-to-face learning. The proliferation of technology and software tools available can provide a powerful platform which universities can use as well as the MOOCs to enrich the learning experience. A Web 2.0 approach to business education in the campuses while maintaining applied and integrated classroom delivery will offer many benefits to those able to attend university, while the MOOCs will serve wider educational needs.

The potential of blended learning in practice is examined by Lindorff. Students most appreciate online material that supports their classroom activity. While universities often see online study as student focused and cost effective, in contrast students often see this as transferring additional costs of education on to them. Students often prefer more interactive class time to more online materials. Management education has a tradition of experiential learning with case analysis, simulations and other forms of interaction, which are often associated with deeper learning, and more ready transfer of learning into the workplace: “management is essentially about people and, as such, it is possible that it is not well suited to online study”. The classroom does provide a social connection to peers and lecturers, and may better facilitate discourse, reflection and confirmation of meaning.

Reputation and purpose of business schools

The competing demands upon business schools to be academically rigorous under the pressure of increasing peer review and external assessment, to be relevant to the needs of industry, and to meet the enhanced expectations of students are addressed by Martin and Siebert. Despite their successful growth trajectory, business schools have constantly faced questions regarding their effectiveness and ethics, and the global financial crisis threw this questioning into greater prominence. In response business schools have tended to imitate strategies of highly ranked, well-funded American business schools rather than pursue a more original logic of differentiation. The authors develop a model of business school reputation based on four levels national business systems, industry context, university context and relational context. This model allows for a deeper investigation of the specific character and opportunity of individual business schools, and may encourage greater responsiveness and originality in developing their mission and unique identity.

Somehow business schools have managed to neglect the predominant business form in the world claim Collins et al. Family business is not only the dominant form of business enterprise throughout the developing world, it forms the great majority of small and medium-sized enterprises in the advanced industrial world, yet business schools often studiously ignore the universality of family business throughout the curriculum. The paradigm for contemporary business is assumed to be the public listed entity, with diffuse shareholders, even when this excludes 95 per cent of registered businesses. To remedy this grand omission Collins et al. suggest a reorientation of the business curriculum that focuses centrally on the universal presence of family business, its key characteristics, and strategic and operational strengths and weaknesses. Presently few students have access to subjects or courses in business schools that address the theoretical and practical aspects unique family business and this suggests the gap should be filled.

Given the vast numbers of students now enjoying the benefits of business education internationally, Lindorff assesses the product of this education through the indicator of CEO education and performance. The selected lens is shareholder returns – a criteria that might be warmly applauded in some financial quarters, but contested widely in others where a more balanced approach to corporate performance would be the preferred outcome of a business education. Leaving the measure of whether business education might contribute to managers creativity, innovation, environmental responsibility and social responsibility to other researchers, Lindorff concentrates on examining whether there is a positive correlation between CEO education and medium return to shareholders. In this research there does not appear to be a relationship between CEO business of other education and a firm's financial performance.

The future of business schools and business education?

The final article in this special by Smith et al. issue asks more profound questions regarding the contribution of the business schools and business education. Beyond the evident success story of the international growth of the business schools there are fundamental global issues to be faced regarding the purpose and role of business education (Hawawini, 2005, p. 774). In a survey of 40 business schools across the developed and developing world, the authors tested the awareness of the schools towards urgent global issues such as financial system failure, climate change, resource depletion, inequality and poverty, obesity, religious and armed conflicts, mass epidemics, species extinction and illiteracy. The astonishing finding of the researchers was that none of the leaders interviewed were reviewing their roles in response to such issues, despite their concern over these issues, and their acceptance that there is a potential major role for business to play in finding and implementing solutions. This suggests that the business of business schools and business education does require some further thought.

Thomas Clarke Guest Editor

Further reading

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