Accelerating the Americanization of Management Education

Abstract

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.

The “Dean’s Squeeze” revisited: a contextual approach

“…The true expansion of university-based management education did not occur until after World War II (Engwall, 2007;Khurana, 2007). Meanwhile, US business schools gradually became the forerunners because of the increasing domination of the English language and North America's overwhelming industrial power (Augier and March, 2011;Kettunen, 2013;Juusola et al, 2015).…”

Moral muteness of faculty in management education

“…One study suggests that managers may not be morally mute universally, but it may be an artefact of the Anglo-American communication style (Molthan-Hill, 2014). Whether or not it is culturally-driven, however, there is much theoretical (Dobbin, Simmons, & Garrett, 2007;Green, 2004;Greenwood et al, 2002;Henisz, Zelner, & Guill en, 2005) as well as empirical support that teaching practices will spread across the world, for example from U.S. universities to Finland (Engwall, 2004;Juusola et al, 2015), Malaysia (Jamil, 2015), and the Middle-East (Neal & Finlay, 2008). To further complicate simple diffusion ideas, there is also a broad understanding that institutional arrangements differ across nations (Ansari, Wijen, & Gray, 2013;Kostova & Zaheer, 1999), and may not spread uniformly (Ansari, Fiss, & Zajac, 2010;Creed et al, 2002) or at all (Ferlie, Fitzgerald, Wood, & Hawkins, 2005;Strang & Meyer, 1993).…”

“…The profession must act now because faculty influence on management takes a long time to take effect and because it creates an impact that is society-wide (Barley, 2007;Margolis & Walsh, 2003). Moral muteness as an institutionalized problem also poses an urgent risk because many practices spread worldwide once they become entrenched in leading universities (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983;Jamil, 2015;Juusola, Kettunen, & Alajoutsij€ arvi, 2015).…”

Conformist innovation: an institutional logics perspective on how HR executives construct business school reputations

“…These rankings have become an important institutional actor in business education (Enders, 2014;Wedlin, 2011). Fieldlevel logics are also evident in how business schools compete among themselves within a system reflecting the elite American business school model (Juusola, Kettunen & Alajoutsijarvi, 2015;Wedlin, 2011). This is evident from business schools' attempts to manage reputation rankings and accreditation procedures in order to enhance their status and identity (Trank & Washington, 2009).…”

“…For example, Rindova et al (2010), Boyd et al (2010) andEnders (2014) point to business school reputations in the American ranking systems as being shaped by the number of papers each faculty publishes in academic journals, which, according to Juusola et al (2015) and others, reflects the influence of a dominant market logic. European business schools are also subject to similar performance measures (Hattke et al, 2014).…”