Guest editorial

Citation

Thomas, H. (2007), "Guest editorial", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 26 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmd.2007.02626aaa.001

Guest editorial

Howard ThomasDean and Professor of Strategic Management, Warwick Business School, Coventry, UK. He was previously Dean of the College of Commerce and Business Administration and James F. Towey Distinguished Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA (1991-2000). Prior to this he held posts as Foundation Professor of Management at the Australian Graduate School of Management in Sydney, as Director of the Doctoral Programme at London Business School, and visiting and permanent posts at institutions such as the European Institute of Advanced Studies of Management in Brussels, the University of Southern California, the University of British Columbia, the Sloan School of Management, MIT, and Kellogg School, Northwestern University. He is past President of the US Strategic Management Society, past Chair of the Board of the Graduate Management Admissions Council, member of Beta Gamma Sigma, and Fellow of both the Academy of Management in the USA and the UK, Fellow of the Strategic Management Society and the Sunningdale Institute of the Cabinet Office, Vice-President of EFMD and a board member of GFME, EFMD, ABS and State Farm Bank. He is the author of over 30 books and 200 articles in competitive strategy, risk analysis, strategic change, international management and strategic decision making. Howard Thomas can be contacted at: Howard.Thomas@wbs.ac.uk

Over the last five years there has been a growing literature examining the role and future growth of business schools (for example, Bennis and O’Toole, 2005; Hawawini, 2005; Ivory et al., 2006; Lorange, 2005; Mintzberg, 2004; Mintzberg and Gosling, 2002; Pfeffer and Fong, 2002, 2004; Starkey et al., 2004). This review and re-evaluation of the business school model has been prompted on the one hand by the undoubted success of the business school model in higher education and, on the other hand, by consistent questioning about the academic stature of the business school relative to professional schools, such as medicine and law, in particular, and to the overall context of the university in general.

In historical terms, business schools in the USA changed from a “trade school” orientation following important reports on management education by the Ford and Carnegie foundations in 1959 (Gordon and Howell, 1959; Pierson, 1959). At that time they moved towards a research and discipline-led focus, emphasising rigorous academic research over practically relevant research. In the UK, this scholar, discipline-based model was adopted by the Franks Report (1966), which had a similar policy intent to the Ford and Carnegie reports and led to the creation of élite business schools such as London Business School and Manchester Business School in the late 1960s.

However, the Ford/Carnegie/Franks discipline-led focus fortified by rigorous research has led to a growing gap between academically rigorous research and the production of relevant research directed towards understanding of the issues and problems faced by managers and the management community. Indeed, recent critics of business schools have accused them, inter alia, of performing theoretically grounded but irrelevant research; of doing an inadequate job of preparing students for the business school world; of pursuing curricular fads at the expense of sound educational principles; of being too analytical and not process oriented; of failing to provide sufficient ethical and professional guidance to potential managers; and of responding to demands from the market by pandering to the business school rankings.

The aim and purpose of this Special Issue is to add important insights to this debate on business school roles and, particularly, to focus on the key strategic themes and challenges facing business schools as they plan their future strategic pathways. The majority of the papers in this volume were presented at two recent conferences sponsored by EFMD (the European Foundation for Management Development) and AACSB (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International). The EFMD Deans and Directors Conference held at Erasmus University, Rotterdam in February 2005 focussed particularly on issues of globalisation, strategic models and performance metrics for business schools, whereas the joint AACSB/EFMD Conference in Paris in March/April 2005 included important debates on accreditation and quality rankings and consumer indicators of reputation such as those provided by media-driven business school rankings and league tables.

The contents of the Special Issue can be divided into three “clusters”, namely:

1. 1.

   strategic frameworks and approaches;

2. 2.

   rankings and accreditation issues; and

3. 3.

   viewpoints and projections about business school futures.

The first cluster provides a range of frameworks and approaches which business schools can adopt to frame and structure their future strategic positions. Howard Thomas, in a paper influenced by Ted Snyder’s (Chicago) contribution at Rotterdam, analyses the environment and competitive dynamics of management education through the lenses of the PEST approach and similar competitive models. He offers a series of environmental implications and future competitive challenges for business schools. Iñiguez de Onzoño and Carmona take this a step further by explaining how the new business school model is influenced by the process of globalisation and the effects of five sector-specific competitive forces. They offer advice about strategic response options open to business schools as they adapt to environmental change. In the subsequent paper Howard Thomas considers the relationship between business school strategy and performance. Drawing also on insights offered by Patrick Molle (EM Lyon) at Rotterdam, Thomas offers the balanced scorecard approach as a framework for addressing relevant performance metrics in the business school context including, for example, measures of internal efficiency (e.g. financial performance lenses) and external effectiveness (e.g. league table rankings and accreditation measures).

The second cluster of papers builds on the breadth of analysis provided by the papers in the first cluster. It focuses specifically on two key elements of the business school landscape, namely, league table rankings and accreditation approaches. Andy Policano examines the strengths and weaknesses of rankings and stresses that the rankings game is a very expensive game to play. He recognises that rankings are here to stay but advocates a rating approach, which tackles the multi-attributed value-added activity of business schools, rather than a nominal ranking system. Kai Peters, in reviewing the content and context of business school rankings, agrees that schools have no choice but to “play the rankings game” even though different rankings focus on different criteria and characteristics of business schools. They have no choice because rankings are significant drivers of a school’s reputation and enable highly ranked schools to attract the best students and charge premium prices for their programmes.

The next two papers offer insights from two of the leading media providers of rankings, namely, the Financial Times and The Economist. First, Della Bradshaw, from the Financial Times (FT), the acknowledged “Dean” of the “industry” of business school rankings, outlines the rationale behind the FT rankings and the continued improvements made to those rankings as they evolve over time. She stresses that while the business schools complain about rankings they regularly use them in their marketing and publicity campaigns. She argues that there will be a continued demand for rankings and hopes that ongoing debate between schools, professional bodies (such as GMAC, AASCSB and EFMD) and the media will lead to improved and increasingly accepted ranking measures over time.

George Bickerstaffe and Bill Ridgers of The Economist offer an alternative approach – based on a more student-metric set of criteria than the FT – to the global ranking of business schools. They argue that their rankings offer important “information” for potential students and suggest that The Economist’s approach maps the set of existing programmes across the factors considered most important by potential students of business schools. They also conclude that rankings are not going to disappear in the near future.

Accreditation is another value proposition, and measure for success, for business schools. Agencies such as AACSB in the USA, EMFD with its EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) approach in Europe and AMBA (the Association of MBA’s) in the UK offer professional accreditation for business schools and their certification is viewed as a valuable quality rating (and associated marketing tool) by many business schools. This is clear from web-site evidence showing that many leading business schools trumpet their ability to gain the “triple-crown” of Accreditation (from AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS) as a signal of their high quality and value to potential students. Jerry Trapnell of AACSB in a short paper gives the reader an important insight into the value proposition offered by AACSB accreditation – a system which differs from the more diverse approach of EQUIS which Julio Urgel points out places greater emphasis on both corporate and international linkages and executive education.

The third “cluster” of papers features postscripts and viewpoints on the future of business schools from two of the leading figures in management education, namely, David Wilson, the CEO, of GMAC in the USA (the organisation which develops and manages the business school GMAT test) and Eric Cornell, the Director General and CEO of EFMD in Brussels.

In summary, this special issue has attempted to focus on the key strategic themes and challenges facing business schools using a range of experts in the field. It has been edited so that the key issues are presented in a readable, interesting and sometimes controversial fashion. It attempts to show that managing a business school in the future will be an exciting, difficult and challenging process. As Guest Editor I hope that you find the volume provocative, interesting and useful.

Howard ThomasGuest Editor