Identity and challenges for business schools in the 21st century

1

• Identity and challenges for business schools in
  the 21st century
• David Tranfield
• Professor of Management
• Director of Research and Faculty Development
• Cranfield University
• SIAF Inauguration Day
• 23 October 2006

2
The History of Business Schools.

• Trade Schools Harvard Business School (1908)
  vision that it would soon demonstrate a great
  capacity for public usefulness (President
  Eliot)
• Search for academic respectability (1950s and
  60s) Ford and Carnegie reports the
  scientization of business schools using faculty
  from associated disciplines.
• Dislocation from practice What if the Academy
  actually mattered? (Hambrick 1993) and other
  debates

3
Business Schools with an identity crisis .
STRENGTHS
CHALLENGES

• Educating Students

• Single product - MBA

• Narrow thinkers lacking leadership ability
  ethically questionable

• Strong business networks

• Lacks design science orientation

• Social science base

• Methodologically sound

• Lacks relevance

• Unable to build knowledge stocks

• Academically inclusive

4
Starkey et al (2006) positioning the Business
School .

• Social science model
• Professional school
• Value adding in the knowledge economy
• The humanities led school

5
Social science model .

• The dominant model
• .accomplished peers and a faculty known for its
  Nobel Prizes Chicago GSB
• Offers clarity for moments of truth
• Expects the power of knowledge to triumph
• BUT
• Often diverges from practice strange lack of
  impactful contributions

6
Professional School .

• . to train for the practice of management as a
  profession and develop knowledge relevant to
  improving operations
• Focused on change a clinical approach
• Dual role pursues knowledge both for its own
  sake and for application
• BUT
• Is it possible to achieve both goals?

7
Value adder in the knowledge economy .

• Has servicing role with other parts of the
  University (Science, Technology, Engineering and
  Medicine)
• Offers both general management (conversion) and
  specialised training for technical experts
• Focused research agenda heavily context specific
• BUT
• Is this a viable operation both in a business
  sense and academically?

8
Humanities led School .

• Management as a liberal art
• liberal deals with knowledge, wisdom,
  leadership.
• art concerned with practice and application.
• Reflexivity as a central tenet it would be
  catastrophic to become a nation of technically
  competent people who have lost their ability to
  think critically, examine themselves and respect
  humanity and the diversity of others (Martha
  Nussbaum)
• Design and creativity a reaction to technique
  driven MBAs?
• BUT
• Is this a distinct role for the business school
  or a signal to link with departments in the
  humanities?

9
A time for remaking?

• What will knowledge spaces look like in the
  future?
• Time to question market-smart, mission-centred?
• A place of public purpose or an agency of
  personal advantage?
• Back to the future? combinations of the four
  models to move from market-smart,
  mission-centred to knowledge-centred, learning
  driven?