Business School Management Research Articles

Towards Responsible Management Education: A Transformational Model

Objectives Although literature on the meaning and practice of responsible management education (RME) has recently been increasing in the field of business research, most of the literature is limited to a partial viewpoint, and a systematic approach to integrate related variables into a coherent context has been a rarity. This study presents a transformational model that integrates how to systematically approach a paradigm change of RME in business schools. Methods After conducting a review of the literature on RME, this paper provides a transformational model for an integrated and systematic approach towards a successful paradigm shift in business education. The model consists of three inter-connected components: people (i.e., professors), pedagogy, and institutions (i.e., business schools). Results Through the integrated transformational model, three interconnected components are described for the full implementation of the new paradigm in business education. This study proposes a dynamic relationship between each component and a successful paradigm change in management education. Conclusions The new management education paradigm change based on the principles of RME has become a matter of practice, not a matter of choice. There are technological aspects such as the management of business schools as an organization and teaching methodologies for successful change management in business education, but what is more important is the matter of the consciousness of professors. It is time to reflect upon the ontological purpose of teaching as a business professor and to recuperate a sense of calling.

What Influences Business Academics’ Use of the Association of Business Schools (ABS) List? Evidence From a Survey of UK Academics

AbstractThe development of the Association of Business Schools (ABS) list in 2007 and its rapid adoption by UK business schools has had a profound effect on the nature of business and management academics’ ways of working. Using a large‐scale survey of UK business academics, we assess the extent to which individuals use the Academic Journal Guide (AJG/ABS) list in their day‐to‐day professional activities. In particular, we explore how their perceptions of the list, the academic influence of their research, academic rank and organizational context drive the varied use. Building on prior research on the importance of univalent attitudes in predicting behaviour, we find those who haveeitherstrong positive or negative views of the list are more extensive users than those who are ambivalent. We also find that the extent of use of the AJG/ABS list is greatest among those academics who have lower academic influence, in the middle or junior ranks within business schools and in middle and low‐status universities. We explore the implications of these findings for the value of journal rankings and for the management of business schools.

A Theoretical Model to Measure Managerial and Leadership Competence of Business School Managers

A theoretical model to measure managerial competence was developed by evaluating two previous models with similar aims. In addition to the original eight management competencies, another eight competencies were identified and applied to determine the management competencies needed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution with its fast-changing business environment. The article narrows down eleven management competencies and develops measuring criteria for each; in total 42 criteria. The eleven business competencies are leading change, cultural intelligence, team building, conflict management, communication skills, a global leader mindset, emotional intelligence, career awareness, personal value system, and external and ethical influences. The model is a theoretical model and presents management competencies relevant to the modern business environment. The value of this study resides in a strong theoretical basis for postmodern business environmental skills that managers need to maintain completeness of their organizations as well as providing a sound point of departure for other researchers of managerial competence.

A Theoretical Model to Measure Managerial and Leadership Competence of Business School Managers

A theoretical model to measure managerial competence was developed by evaluating two previous models with similar aims. In addition to the original eight management competencies, another eight competencies were identified and applied to determine the management competencies needed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution with its fast-changing business environment. The article narrows down eleven management competencies and develops measuring criteria for each; in total 42 criteria. The eleven business competencies are leading change, cultural intelligence, team building, conflict management, communication skills, a global leader mindset, emotional intelligence, career awareness, personal value system, and external and ethical influences. The model is a theoretical model and presents management competencies relevant to the modern business environment. The value of this study resides in a strong theoretical basis for postmodern business environmental skills that managers need to maintain completeness of their organizations as well as providing a sound point of departure for other researchers of managerial competence.

Alternative off school Business Models that Enhance Multiple Intelligences in Kenyan Schools

Promotion of individual development and self-fulfillment amongst students in Kenya is among the national goals of education. To accomplish this goal it is imperative that, development of Multiple Intelligences in schools is put into perspective. To date, relatively little research has investigated the ways students Multiple Intelligences should be enhanced in Kenya. Consequently, this study was devised to examine alternative off school business management models that enhance Multiple Intelligences among secondary students in Kenya. The study was guided by the Multiple Intelligence Theory and Management Competency Framework. The study target population was 150 secondary schools in Elgeyo Marakwet. Data was collected using questionnaire, document analysis and interview. The data was analyzed qualitatively using thematic approach and quantitatively using percentages, means, standard deviation and simple linear regression. Data was presented in tables. The findings indicated that schools management was managing traditional models of enhancing multiple intelligences thus majority of the students’ abilities were not developed. Alternative off school business management models were found to be effective in enhancing multiple intelligences among students though majority of the schools had not adopted them. The study recommends that managing and facilitating entrepreneurship programmes should be promoted to enable students to show case abilities in different intelligences.

The Business School at Ivy State University: Cost Behaviors

Some potentially painful cost reductions will have to be made at the Ivy State University Business School, so the business manager has been asked to develop a list of initial cost cuts. To visualize how the budget's major line-item costs have behaved, he uses a set of graphs to understand and be able communicate to the directors of the various operating units what resources or activities need to be curtailed in order to reap the largest financial cost savings. Excerpt UVA-C-2346 Sept. 18, 2013 THE BUSINESS SCHOOL AT IVY STATE UNIVERSITY: COST BEHAVIORS The financial vice was tightening on the administration at the Ivy State University Business School (ISUBS). The state legislature had announced significant subsidy cuts, alumni were not making financial contributions at the same level as in prior years, and corporate donors were dispensing fewer dollars in a more restricted fashion. ISUBS's budgeting process for the coming year had begun, and it appeared to Janice McAlister, vice president of finance, that it was not going to be a pleasant one. Unless revenues increased from an unforeseen source, potentially painful cost reductions would have to be made. Indeed, McAlister had just instructed Jerry Franklin, the school's business manager, to develop a list of initial cost cuts. Jerry Franklin Franklin's financial background was not extensive. He had graduated from ISUBS four years earlier, and his story was the proverbial “in the right place at the right time” one. After graduation, he and his wife decided not to relocate because she had a great nursing job in a local doctor's office. So he scoured the area looking for a position and was fortunate to find an entry-level management position in the back-office operations department of a local bank. . . .

The state of risk management in business schools

Purpose– The spread of entrepreneurial rent seeking (or entrepreneurialism for short) and market-based performance measurement (accreditation, rankings) have transformed many business schools into risk-taking organizations. The establishment of formal risk management activities would represent the fitting counterpart to this development. The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of risk management activities in business schools and evaluates the presence of discrepancies from first-best practices found in the corporate sector.Design/methodology/approach– The data for this study were collected through a structured questionnaire addressed to heads of internationally active business schools in cooperation with a major international accreditation provider. Non-parametric and parametric methods (logistic regression) were used to analyze the formalization of risk management in business schools, in particular the differentiating role of entrepreneurial rent seeking and international accreditation.Findings– Risk management is still in the early stages of formalization compared to the corporate sector. The results indicate that entrepreneurial rent seeking does not encourage the institutional establishment of risk management in business schools, while holding international accreditation has the opposite effect.Practical implications– Risk management has become a focus area of regulators and accreditation agencies. The rising number of business schools struggling financially also serves as evidence that risk taking is frequently not matched by formal risk management policies (further supported by descriptive statistics of the survey published separately). The largely uncontested statement of the R. Lyons, Dean of the Haas School/Berkeley, that 50 per cent of business schools will disappear within the next five to ten years can only be rationalized in the context of risk not being appropriately addressed by business schools.Originality/value– The paper represents the first empirical study analyzing risk management practices in business schools. The study design follows the approach commonly employed in the corporate risk management literature to capture the design of the risk management process covering governance aspects as well as approaches to risk identification, risk assessment, risk mitigation and performance controlling.

The business school scorecard: Examining the systematic sources of business school value

AbstractStakeholder relationships are a critical resource that contribute to or inhibit value creation. Building on this assertion, we explore the value of the business school at a stakeholder level. We draw on research by the Canadian multistakeholder working group, the Business School Research Network (BSRN), which was established to facilitate collaborative interinstitutional research on the management and practice of business schools. We provide a conceptual model of the value chain and associated scorecard that take into account the sources of value judgments that pertain to a business school at the stakeholder‐level. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Why Business School Managers are a Key Corporate Brand Stakeholder Group

This study focuses on senior management cognitions of corporate brand building within leading (Financial Times-ranked) British business schools. The study reveals stakeholder theory to be highly apposite for corporate brand management and, importantly, confirms the pivotal role of senior managers in terms of corporate brand building and custodianship. The cognitions of senior business school managers confirmed the orthodox approach to corporate brand building and management where a multidisciplinary, service-focused, strategic-orientated, and organizational-wide commitment is stressed. The Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (1997) tripartite typology of stakeholders (power, legitimacy, and urgency) is broadened in order to include necessity and responsibility, which are highly germane for senior managers. The instrumental insights of this study demonstrate that in managing a corporate brand, senior managers should focus on organizational activities, institutional attitude, senior management advocacy, and adherence on the part of organizational members.

The corporate brand and strategic direction: Senior business school managers’ cognitions of corporate brand building and management

This revelatory study focusses on top Financial Times (FT)-ranked British business school managers’ cognitions of corporate brand building and management. The study insinuates that there is a prima facie bilateral link between corporate branding and strategic direction. The data revealed that, among this genus of business schools, corporate brand building entailed an ongoing concern along with strategic management, stakeholder management, corporate communications, service focus, leadership and commitment. These empirical findings chime with the early conceptual scholarship on corporate brand management dating back to the mid-1990s. These foundational articles stressed the multi-disciplinary and strategic nature of corporate brand management and stressed the significant role of the CEO. As such, this research adds further credence to the above in terms of best practice vis-a-vis corporate brand management. Curiously, although senior managers espouse a corporate brand orientation, corporate brand management is seemingly not accorded a similar status in the curriculum. Drawing on a general embedded case study methodological approach, data was collected from eight leading (FT-ranked) business schools in Great Britain at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Bradford, Cranfield, Warwick, Lancaster and City (London) Universities. Each of these eight British business schools can be deemed ‘top’ business schools by virtue of their inclusion in the influential FT worldwide list of top business schools. The primary mode of qualitative data collection comprised the 37 in-depth interviews with business school Deans, Associate Deans and other senior faculty members and other managers.

Poachers Turning Gamekeeper: Becoming a Manager in Academia

This empirical study explores the transition of academics into managerial roles. Specifically, it focuses on how academics that have professional skills in teaching and research acquire both management skills and management attitudes. We capture the processes that allow them to ‘become’ managers. Our empirical data was gathering using in-depth interviewing of academic managers in two Business Schools; one in France and one in Canada. From this data, we contribute to both the generalist literature on the nature of management and the specific literature on the management of business schools and universities by proposing a heuristic model capturing the role transition that professionals make when transitioning into managerial roles.

A Student-Centered Approach to the Business School Management Science Course

We describe a student-centered approach for the required business school management science course. We articulate three principles for teaching management science to business students: real-world context, spreadsheet-native attitude, and student self-efficacy. We examine the implications of these principles and how they affect course content and delivery. We show how to establish relevance as perceived by business students. We highlight the business analysis lifecycle as a valuable “roadmap” for students and instructors alike. We explain costs, benefits, and techniques for spreadsheet-native modeling. Spreadsheet modeling should be treated as a computer programming process, based on the properties of the spreadsheet programming language. We explain how and why to separate the modeling process from the act of typing into a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets can function as valuable organizational assets. We candidly discuss the challenges faced transitioning from a tools-based teaching approach to a student-centered approach.

Bringing it to the table

School business manager Rob Munro outlines the time-saving benefits of implementing an online payment and booking system for free school meals.

The theory of the managed firm (TMF)

Abstract The economics literature on the ‘theory of the firm’ is extensive. But it fails to address Coase’s 1937 ‘killer questions’, his pointing out that we have no rigorous theory of the firm that can explain or justify their existence. In particular we have no theory of how real people, as opposed to computational devices, fit into notions of the firm that can address Coase’s critique. This is surely a problem for those teaching firm management in business schools and elsewhere - albeit an elephant that has been swept under the carpet. This paper sketches a theory of the firm that stands on the managers’ creative judgments that their reasoning supports but does not dominate; hence the ‘theory of the managed firm’ (TMF) rather than merely the ‘theory of the firm’ (ToF). Along with Adam Smith, I presume human judgment is the source of all new economic value and so see the managed firm as democratic capitalism’s principal apparatus for channeling creative inputs into the socio-economy. Thus managers have both economic and political functions. Firms generate value as managers contribute their judgment in the course of shaping their firm’s responses to the Knightian uncertainties (KUs) and bounded rationalities (BRs) met with as the firm’s freely chosen goals are pursued. Under KU/BR, an analysis of managers’ agentic activity and rhetorical practice complements their rational decision-making and helps us see more of the nature of the managed firm. The TMF provides a post-positivist basis for re-theorizing entrepreneurship, business leadership, strategizing, and innovation management. Practice rather than theory is its basis. It also rejects the ‘separation thesis’ of the business ethics literature, and so provides a theoretical basis for an ethics of managing.

Towards Critical Human Resource Management Education (CHRME): a sociological imagination approach

This article explores the professional standing of the discipline of human resource management (HRM) in business schools in the post-financial crisis period. Using the prism of the sociological imagination, it explains the learning to be gained from teaching HRM that is sensitive to context, power and inequality. The context of crisis provides ideal circumstances for critical reflexivity and for integrating wider societal issues into the HRM curriculum. It argues for Critical Human Resource Management Education or CHRME, which, if adopted, would be an antidote to prescriptive practitioner-oriented approaches. It proceeds to set out five principles for CHRME: using the ‘sociological imagination’ prism; emphasizing the social nature of the employment relationship; investigating paradox within HRM; designing learning outcomes that encourage students to appraise HRM outcomes critically; and reflexive critique. Crucially, CHRME offers a teaching strategy that does not neglect or marginalize the reality of structural power, inequality and employee work experiences.

Tips on supporting school business managers

This month, Nick Bannister focuses on the training and support programmes that can help support school business managers (SBMs) with income generation for their schools.

Activity trade-off and strategic choice in the context of publicly funded business schools

The trade-off relationship between the education and research, the core activities of business schools, is widely acknowledged factor delineating the operations and strategic choices in business school management. Nevertheless, few studies have focused on empirical examination of this relationship from the perspective of strategy research. Hence, the aim of this study is to identify and explicate this relationship in the context of publicly funded system of business schools by combining two contemporary constructs of organisation and strategy research: the idea of complementarities as interaction among the activities of organisations and the concept of alternative forms of fit of the configuration view of the contingency theory. This is done with the longitudinal examination of differences in research and education efficiencies in Finnish university based business schools between the years 1994 and 2009. Efficiency relationships are examined with data envelopment analysis (DEA), which enables inclusion of several measures of inputs and outputs as total factor productivity measure.

‘The smell of the place’: Managerialist culture in contemporary UK business schools

By introducing an intentionally provocative critique of managerialist regimes which typify contemporary UK business school culture, we argue that current business school management practices generate a climate of mistrust and alienation amongst academics. Such a climate is not conducive to a reformative agenda that business schools should be pursuing if they are to improve staff morale and the educational environment. Drawing on Ghoshal's ‘smell of the place’ metaphor to structure this argument, we court deliberate irony and paradox. Rather than draw on heterodox theory to inform our critique we, instead, turn relatively mainstream management and organization theory against itself. Our argument is that even when examined through orthodox lenses, managerialist practices are found wanting and contradict the precepts of much mainstream normative theory.

Towards sustainable capitalism in the development of higher education business school curricula and management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to account for, and conceptualize, the internal and external forces that influence higher education business schools as they strive to integrate sustainability issues into their curricula in the effort to achieve a more sustainable (yet capitalist) world. Design/methodology/approach – A case study approach is used for the research, which is grounded in the relevant literature, to investigate sustainable development issues in the context of a Swedish business school (university level). The empirical data consists of a review of internal documents plus e-mail surveys and interviews and discussion seminars with university teachers/researchers and key administrators. Findings – Two tentative models are presented that map the various internal and external forces behind business schools’ curriculum change. One important finding describes how supply and demand influences business schools and recruiters of business students. Research limitations/implications – Because this research is based on a single case study, the analysis and the mapping in the paper are somewhat limited in their general applicability. However, the research context of the business school permits drawing conclusions that may apply to a broad class of colleges or departments in higher education. In addition, because the research is supported by significant ideas from the literature, general inferences may be drawn about business school curricula. Originality/value – The two tentative models provide a holistic framework that adds to the understanding of the composition and interrelationship of influential forces on business schools when major changes in curricula and their management are contemplated.

Common bid writing mistakes made by schools

Nick Bannister invites school business management experts to share five pieces of advice. This month, John Ellery outlines the common mistakes made in fundraising applications.