Shut Down the Business School

Shut Down the Business School
Author: Martin Parker
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Business education
ISBN: 9780745399171

A clarion call to shut down the business school!

What I Didn't Learn in Business School

What I Didn't Learn in Business School
Author: Jay Barney
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2010-10-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1422157636

What I Didn't Learn in Business School is a compelling read---whether you're a recent business school grad struggling to apply your new knowledge or an experienced leader who already knows that no strategy is created in a vacuum. --Book Jacket.

Debating Business School Legitimacy

Debating Business School Legitimacy
Author: Anders Örtenblad
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2023-01-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3031127250

This book channels the debate on the relevance, value, and future of business schools. Could the Business School be like the Titanic, thought to be unsinkable, but ultimately doomed? And if it sinks, what of it? Or is it a ship which can adapt to the changing waters it sails in? In this book, authors from around the world debate the current and future legitimacy of the Business School from different contexts and perspectives. While some see very little or no hope at all to the future of the Business School as a legitimate centre for research and education, others remain critical, but see a way forward to rectify today’s concerns, such as around sustainability and inclusivity. This book highlights to readers thought-provoking complexities on the Business School playground and its legitimacy.

The Corporatization of the Business School

The Corporatization of the Business School
Author: Tony Huzzard
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2017-04-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317277481

With business schools becoming increasingly market-driven, questionable trends have emerged, such as the conflation of academic and corporate management, and the notion that academics and students are market players, who respond rationally to market signals. Using individual studies from leading scholars in a variety of disciplines and countries, this book identifies the global pressures behind these trends. It focuses on the debates surrounded the commercialization of business schools, and the rise of different methods of measuring their success. In their unique approach, the authors and editors discuss the impact of the confrontation between the timeless values embodied by Minerva, the Roman goddess of Wisdom, and the hard realities of competition and corporatization in modern society. This book will be compelling reading for students and academics in critical management studies, organizational studies, public management and higher education, as well as for stakeholders in academia and educational policy.

The Business School Curriculum Debate

The Business School Curriculum Debate
Author: Alexander Styhre
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2023-03-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000847403

With more than 14,000 business schools worldwide, what is included in their curricula matters for how the economy and the corporate system are managed. Business schools should be subject to scholarly inquiries and critical reflection. While many studies of business schools examine its general role in the tertiary education system and in society more broadly, this volume examines how one specific theoretical perspective and a normative model derived therefrom were developed and gradually appropriated within the business school setting. This volume demonstrates that agency theory, based on a daring conjecture that firms can be construed as bundles of contacts, rose to prominence in the business school context. It examines how the elementary proposition of agency theory, that the firm is to be considered theoretically and practically as a "nexus of contracts," was never consistent with corporate law and contract law, and it was empirically unsubstantiated. Business schools are under pressure to teach not only practically useful theories and models, but also theories that are also scientifically qualified. Despite having this ambition, certain theories are widely taught despite failing to live up to such declared ambitions, which means that business schools may be criticized for including theories on ambiguous grounds in the curricula. This book examines how business schools seek to honour the ambition to teach both scientifically verified theories and practically useful concepts and models, and how the tensions derived from this duality may be problematic to handle. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students in the fields of management education, organizational studies, and legal theory.

Management Gurus

Management Gurus
Author: David Collins
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 111
Release: 2020-06-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000091600

This book provides a concise, critical expert overview of the elite group of consultants, analysts and commentators known as ‘management gurus’. Often dismissed as lacking in substance, this volume demonstrates that gurus must be taken seriously given their impact on the world of management. Noting that the gurus are very much products of the 1980s, the book accounts for the rise of this group while challenging those who have attempted to personify – to name and acclaim – the gurus. Reviewing the research on management gurus the book proceeds from a consideration of ‘guru theory’ to offer an analysis of ‘the guru industry’ and ‘guru speak’. Building upon this analysis the book offers a critical engagement with those who have sought to understand gurus as performance artists. Concluding with a radical agenda for future research which situates management’s gurus within the frame of stand-up comedy, this book will enlighten and entertain scholars across the business disciplines and beyond.

The Purpose of the Business School

The Purpose of the Business School
Author: Edward W. Miles
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 149
Release: 2019-03-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030157814

In the mid-20th century, university-based business schools re-oriented themselves to increased alignment with the preferences of the university and decreased alignment with the preferences of business. This re-alignment has caused multiple observers to question the effectiveness of current-day business schools. For example, recent discussions have lamented that business schools are engaged in research that does not influence the practice of business. This book engages these debates, arguing that all judgments about the effectiveness of business schools are rooted in assumptions about what the purposes of the business school appropriately are and that many of those assumptions are unstated and not subjected to debate. The author weaves a unique blend of complexity theory, philosophy of science, and the nature of professions to articulate those goals and assess the effectiveness at meeting them. The book traces parallel discussions regarding the purpose of the university in the writings of Aristotle and Wilhelm von Humboldt and ties those discussions to current debates. This book will inform business faculty and administrators of the degree to which university-based business schools are balancing multiple purposes which include discovery of knowledge, creating knowledge that informs the practice of business, training professionals, and instilling ethical principles in its training of those professionals.

The Future of Business Schools

The Future of Business Schools
Author: Rico J. Baldegger
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2022-11-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1800889224

Are business schools on the wrong track? For many years, business schools enjoyed rising enrollments, positive media attention, and growing prestige in the business world. However, due to the disruption of Covid-19, many previously ignored issues relating to MBA programs resurfaced. As a result, MBA programs now face lower enrollments and intense criticism for being deficient in preparing future business leaders and ignoring essential topics like ethics, sustainability, and diversity and inclusion. The Future of Business Schools discusses these issues in the context of three critical areas: complexity, sustainability, and destiny

The Value & Purpose of Management Education

The Value & Purpose of Management Education
Author: Eric Cornuel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 568
Release: 2022-03-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000586057

Without a doubt, business schools have been a success story in higher education over the last 50 years (the period of EFMD’s existence). Even so, they have come under scrutiny, and attack, over their academic legitimacy and value proposition for business and society. In this book, drawn from a special issue of Global Focus, the EFMD has selected around 25 of the best, most thoughtful short papers published in Global Focus to examine the role and purpose of EFMD in the evolution of management education. Each of the chapters interpret current strategic debates about the evolution of business schools and their paradigms and also identify possible strategic options for handling uncertain, volatile futures. These papers can be broadly categorized into four consistent themes: the first theme is concerned with the purpose and value proposition of management education; the second theme focuses on a perceived need for new business models and how to design and build them; the third theme addresses the question of the impact of the business school on business and society given the increasingly academic pursuits of business schools and their often weak links to the business community – the so-called rigour/relevance dilemma; and the fourth theme concerns how to ‘map’ and design business school futures in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous crisis-oriented environment. This impressive collection of insights from business management leaders from across the globe is inspiring reading for higher education leaders, policy makers and business leaders seeking insight into the future of management education.