Twenty years ago, almost to the day, an article was published in the Harvard Business Review that, at the time, sent shockwaves throughout the business school world. Rarely has the phrase ‘Emperor’s new clothes’ been used so aptly, as you could almost hear the hiss around campuses as inflated reputations suddenly lost their status.
Written by Warren Bennis and Jim O’Toole, both distinguished business school professors in their own right, their article was titled ‘How Business Schools Lost Their Way’ (2005) and from the very first sentence delivered a withering attack on the American-style business school program. The article became a classic. However, while critical of the MBA in terms of its increasing lack of relevance, the focus of the piece’s ire was not the MBA curriculum, but the way business schools themselves measured their progress.
Research first
In the article, Bennis & O’Toole paint a very dysfunctional picture of how the top business schools in the US operated. While they were able to brag about ever-higher prices for their MBA courses and equally higher salaries for their graduates, the authors diagnosed that business schools were rotting underneath their slick veneers. The pursuit of publications in top research journals – as measured by the iconic Impact Factor from Web of Science – meant that considerations such as integrity, utility, and relevance in MBA curricula were getting ignored.
And as we saw in the Global Financial Crisis, not paying attention to that stuff didn’t turn out very well.
It is, of course, too easy to lay the blame for the GFC and subsequent economic woes at the door of business schools. Many of them sought to differentiate themselves at the time by focusing on ethics and practicality. However, in reading the Bennis & O’Toole article two decades later, while some of the analysis was spot on, much of it also seems to resonate today. We can see this across the business and management journals we include in our Journalytics Academic database. There are journals in there that have, rightly, been there for decades, but the journals more recently included are much more likely to have a focus on sustainability or environmental concerns.
Second bite
In the aftermath of the article’s publication, there have been numerous attempts to strike a balance between the scientific rigor that business academics would argue very much is part of their essence as a discipline, with the relevance that Bennis & O-Toole said was lacking in the top schools. The intervening years have seen the adoption of DEI initiatives, recognition of wider impact in AACSB accreditation, and specific initiatives from EFMD, CABS, GBSN, and other business school networks that celebrate and accelerate positive societal change.
Indeed, it is difficult to think of another sector in higher education or industry that has so enthusiastically embraced moves to understand how they can improve the world around them either directly or indirectly through their teaching. In terms of research, this too has started to follow the impact agenda. Lists like the FT50 have included journals that have traditionally focused on highly theoretical approaches to management and have been well cited as a result, but they have lacked focus on impact areas such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, new research with which I have been fortunate to have been involved will report to the Academy of Management conference later this month that even those FT50 journals are now increasing their alignment with the SDGs.
Third act?
However, are we seeing all this progress coming to an end, and even reversing course? The Trump administration’s discouragement of DEI programs and environmental policies has led to disquiet in some quarters of business education, wondering whether to commit to the progressive principles they have adopted or develop a more pro-administration line. However, while some nuanced amendments have been made – such as changes to some wording in the AACSB’s accreditation documentation – much remains the same, particularly in Europe.
Bennis & O’Toole ended their article by calling for a change in the reward system so that the blinkered pursuit of the so-called top journals and ensuing citations were widened out to cover other areas where business schools could define their own standards of excellence. The journey there was well on its way before recent barriers were put up – let’s hope these present merely a temporary reprieve to the achievable goal of truly rigorous and relevant research from our business school sector.
