The Academic Life: Realistic Changes Needed for Business School Students and Faculty

Abstract

Business schools have paid a lot of attention to restructuring and invigorating their MBA and executive offerings but little attention to their PhD programs. With increasing demand for qualified professors and decreasing supply, however, there is an urgent need to examine our PhD education as well. We need to be preparing our future professors to meet the changing demands on business education. Our PhD students need to know how to teach MBAs and executives, how to be successful researchers and entrepreneurs (e.g., to get grants), and how to be ethical models for our student citizens. With an eye on this new future, I describe a realistic job preview: what PhDs will need to know to be successful faculty members. I cover both the needed knowledge content (e.g., teaching, research, and service skills) and the career stages that need to be successfully navigated (e.g., getting a job, surviving as an assistant professor, getting tenure and other professional roles such as being a journal editor, consultant, or department chair). I then examine the different ways that PhDs can acquire this information through informal or more formal mechanisms. This section highlights the changing demands on business school faculty. I close with an overall evaluation of these possible changes and a call for business schools to examine their PhD education with these issues in mind.