Modern business schools exist in a complex world of rankings, ratings, and credentials. Some argue that in increasingly competitive global higher education markets, signaling status and quality has actually become more important than having them (Gioia & Corley, 2002;Trank & Rynes, 2003). For many contemporary business schools, international accreditations have become key means and first steps in pursuing legitimacy and global status. In this essay, we elaborate in detail on a business school's international accreditation process, including its motivations and outcomes. We conclude that while accreditation processes are, at best, fruitful quality improvement exercises, the inherent motivations stemming from the urge for organizational legitimacy, status, and reputation should not be overlooked by either the accrediting agencies or business schools themselves. Ironically, while accreditation agencies (AACSB and EQUIS are those focused on here) rarely explicitly encourage competition, their exclusivity seems to generate it between schools that aspire to belong to "the club." For schools that gain access to the process, this means that on the flip side of the happy and collaborative jump in quality there is a much more serious demarcation and revealing redefinition of the accredited entity's future supporters, collaborators, partners, and competitors.
Modern business schools exist in a complex world of rankings, ratings, and credentials. Some argue that in increasingly competitive global higher education markets, signaling status and quality has actually become more important than having them (Gioia & Corley, 2002; Trank & Rynes, 2003). For many contemporary business schools, international accreditations have become key means and first steps in pursuing legitimacy and global status. In this essay, we elaborate in detail on a business school's international accreditation process, including its motivations and outcomes. We conclude that while accreditation processes are, at best, fruitful quality improvement exercises, the inherent motivations stemming from the urge for organizational legitimacy, status, and reputation should not be overlooked by either the accrediting agencies or business schools themselves. Ironically, while accreditation agencies (AACSB and EQUIS are those focused on here) rarely explicitly encourage competition, their exclusivity seems to generate it between schools that aspire to belong to "the club." For schools that gain access to the process, this means that on the flip side of the happy and collaborative jump in quality there is a much more serious demarcation and revealing redefinition of the accredited entity's future supporters, collaborators, partners, and competitors. 203 Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder's express written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only.
The Journal of Management Inquiry astutely predicted in 2004 that the Americanization of business education would not just continue but increase. Ten years later, it is arguable that the acceleration of the Americanization of management education has exceeded all expectations. To theoretically build toward understanding how and why the American business education model has been adopted to different extents, this comparative study builds on the institutional logics perspective, arguing that different institutional logics can potentially explain the various forms and patterns of Americanization and how they are manifested in the world's business schools.
This study focuses on the institutional evolution of Finnish business schools 1909–2009. Its theoretical starting point is institutional theory, which attempts to explain change and inertia in societies, industries and organizations. When making sense of the evolutionary process, we capitalize on three perspectives on institutional theory related to business schools: the market demand approach, the national heritage approach and the professional system approach. Based on extensive historical evidence gathered for our study, we provide a narrative and a theorization of the evolution of the Finnish business school institution as ‘oscillations’ in certain clearly visible trends related to our research framework, for instance from early private ownership to nationalization and regionalization from the 1970s onwards, and again to privatization and reduced governmental control in 2009. Finally, we conclude that the scattering of small, barely viable business school units around the country combined with a dual system of Finnish- and Swedish-language business schools has led to a situation in which the Finnish business school institution has not yet been able to produce a truly competitive global business school, attractive to foreign students, faculty members and global corporations.
Purpose -To develop a conceptual framework for identifying the primary tensions that business school deans encounter when moving between different university contexts. Design/methodology/approach -The paper is part of a larger research project on the development of business schools. This conceptual paper builds on our studies and personal experiences of business schools and their management in a number of different countries, primarily in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East. Findings -The present study argues that as a response to the increasing corporatization of higher education, the university sector has fragmented into at least three identifiable contexts: the traditional research university, the academic capitalist university, and the corporate university. We conclude that the match between a dean's worldview and the university context ultimately determines the appropriateness, survival and success of deanship. Practical implications -The paper provides practical suggestions for managing business schools. Given that "good" leadership is always context dependent, no single deanship would fit for all business schools. As an outcome, both deans and the selection committees making decisions regarding their recruitment should be sensitive to their worldviews originating from the university contexts in which they previously worked. Originality/value -Emphasizing a contextual approach to business school leadership, this paper proposes a new typology of deanship situations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.