Research on business schools: Themes, conjectures and future directions

• Main Authors: HOMMEL, Ulrich, THOMAS, Howard
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2014
• Subjects: business schools; management education; higher education; governance; interdisciplinary research; Business; Higher Education
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6846
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The purpose of this chapter is to review the current state of the literature by identifying the main research themes, by examining the contributions within each theme, and by discussing the directions and challenges of future work. The main aim of this chapter is to relate the practice-informed discussion of these issues with the corresponding academic literature. Treatments of the historical evolution of business schools, their governance, identity and legitimacy are used as a backbone to the assessment. Another objective of this chapter is to highlight the commonalities and complementarities of these different strands of the business school literature, which will serve as a strong encouragement for more interdisciplinary work, going forward. Examples are the measurement of business school performance (including the role of rankings and accreditations) as well as the impact of technological change and widening market boundaries on business school behaviour.