Business school deans go global: A contextual approach

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Prof. Kimmo Alajoutsijärvi, Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics,and Dr Kerttu Kettunen, Turku School of Economics

As a response to the increasing corporatisation of higher education (see for example Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004; Starkey and Tempest, 2008; Alajoutsijärvi, Juusola and Siltaoja, 2013), universities have transformed from ‘cathedrals of learning’ to ‘cathedrals of earning’ (Engwall 2008).
Although business schools are relative late-comers to academia, nowadays they globally represent the largest proportion of the academy. Thomas and Thomas (2011: 526) argue that in fact, the modern business school is ‘currently valued much more for its managerial expertise, cash-generation abilities and financial strength than its intellectual strength and scholarship.’ Granted, this transition places new challenges on business school management.

Firstly, the movement of business schools from traditional, collegiately based management arrangements towards executive management structures and processes seems to have created a call for ‘hybrid managers’ capable of bridging both academic and managerial perspectives of the deanship (Kettunen, 2013; Currie, 2014; Davies, 2014). Secondly, the global expansion of business schools has created growing, international job markets for the managers of these institutions, enabling a worldwide search for deanship talent. In Europe, compared with many non-English-speaking countries, the UK represents a forerunner whose leading institutions have succeeded in attracting deans from world-known, top tier schools, such as Harvard (Davies, 2014). Vice versa, the lower language barriers and changes in recruitment culture are likely to indicate greater international mobility of ‘UK-born and raised’ deans as well.

What is more, a global look at the reality of university-based management education reveals even bigger contrasts and complexities. In fact, among the world’s some 14,000 or so business schools, a great majority are institutions that barely fit the Western-based discourse of the university. These contrast with traditional universities that were gradually developed from the premises of science and collegiality, and later on indoctrinated by the New Public Management inaugurated ideas of top-down management, for-profit activities, and prestige buildings through measured excellence. Such ‘corporate universities’ were established as for-profit institutions right at the outset (Alajoutsijärvi et al, 2013).

Having emphasized the diversity among the worldwide management education scene, we define three archetypal organisational contexts of business school deanship (see Table 1). These are: (i) the traditional research university (cf. Engwall 2008, university as a ‘cathedral of learning’), (ii) academic capitalist university (cf. Engwall 2008, university gradually transformed from the ‘cathedral of learning’ into that of ‘earning’), and (iii) the corporate university. The latter represents universities established purely on the basis of earning right from the beginning and sometimes failing the educational promise (Johnson et al, 2003), therefore, becoming something that could quite rightly be referred to as a ‘cathedral of deceiving.’

 

 

Traditional research university

Academic capitalist university

Corporate university

Governance

Ethos

To serve society

To serve individuals and companies

To serve owners’ profit interest

Command and control

Collegial

Increasingly top-down

Top-down

Primary decision maker

Dean with the rest of the professoriate

Administrators

CEO and administrators

Subordinates

Junior faculty and administration

Increasingly also senior faculty

Faculty

Employment and salary

Permanent positions, modest salary gradient

Increasing adjunct faculty, significant salary gradient

‘Pink slip’ employment, large salary gradient

Organisational language

Academic among faculty, bureaucratic among administrators

Mix of bureaucratic and corporate language

Corporate language

Mission

Long-term meaningful existence

Mid-term measured prestige

Short-term maximum profitability

Faculty & Research

Knowledge creation

Aims at discovery research

Measured excellence

Minimal at best

Researchers

Tenured faculty

Mix of tenured and part-time faculty

Casualised academic labour

Motivation and compensation

Professional development, academic career, long-term commitment

CV-building, short-term commitment

High salaries, substantial fringe benefits, short-term commitment

Publications

Monographs, A and B journals

Top-ranked universities A journals only, others  A and B journals

D journals at best

Assessment

Long-term perspective appreciating  versatile breakthrough research

Mid-term measured research output

Short-term and shallow

Students & Education

Learning

Scholarly-guided process of self-development, knowledge and learner inseparable

Mass education and degree production in focus, learning outcomes vary 

Training a set of skills applied for the interests of others than of learners, body of information as a product consumed by learners

Student role

Active co-learners

Empowered customers

Exploited consumers

Curriculum

Highly individualised study paths

Mix of individualized and standardised study paths

Standardised study paths for masses

Courses

Content based on faculty’s academic research and professional expertise

Content based on core text books and related material, and delivered by faculty members

Commoditised, online-delivered courses

Important for students

Tradition, heritage and reputation

Brand, networks, entertainment

Employability and quick degree

Students are prepared for

Critical thinking, democratic citizenship, civic society

Striving for career excellence

Job training, market values, corporate culture

Assurance of learning

Interactive and intensive socialisation

Guided by accreditation agencies and external auditing bodies

Shallow measurement through multiple choice tests

Table 1: Business school contexts in comparison 

We argue that the three contexts (summarised in Table 1) provide a template for individuals’ learning, action, and rationalisation, and incrementally lead to the development of a rather permanent worldview. Thus, they serve as a conceptual framework for understanding the underlying tensions business school deans embarking on international careers face when moving between different university contexts. Adopting a contextual approach is crucial since ultimately it is the match between the business school dean’s worldview and the university context that determines the appropriateness, survival and success of deanship. Considering the extremity of the defined contexts, what follows is that while a certain deanship may be successful in one context it could be perceived as unfeasible and highly inappropriate in another.

 

Kimmo Alajoutsijärvi : kimmo.j.alajoutsijarvi@jyu.fi

Kerttu Kettunen : kerttu.kettunen@utu.fi

Bibilography

Alajoutsijärvi, K., Juusola, K. and Lamberg, J-A. (2013) ‘Institutional logic of business bubbles: Lessons from the Dubai business school mania’, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 13(1): 5–25.
Alajoutsijärvi, K., Juusola, K. and Siltaoja, M. (2013) ’Academic capitalism hits the fan: The birth of acamanic capitalism.’ In Dialogues in Critical Management Studies, (2nd ed.) forthcoming. Bingley: Emerald.
Alajoutsijärvi, K., Juusola, K. and Siltaoja, M. (2014) ‘The legitimacy paradox of business schools: Losing by gaining?’, Academy of Management Learning & Education. Published online before print 18 February, doi: 10.5465/amle.2013.0106.
Alajoutsijärvi, K. and Siltaoja, M. (2014) ‘Predators and robber barons of higher education: What does an acamanic business school look like?’ A conference paper presented at the 30th EGOS Colloquium, Rotterdam.
Currie, G. (2014) ‘Hybrid managers in business schools.’ In Building the Leadership Capacity of UK Business Schools. London: The Association of Business Schools, pp. 12 ̶ 13. 
Davies, J. (2014) ‘Future-proofing the UK business school deanship: Chartering horses for new courses.’ In Building the Leadership Capacity of UK Business Schools. London: The Association of Business Schools, pp. 7 ̶ 9. 
Engwall, L. (2008) ‘The university: A multinational corporation?’ In Engwall, L. and Weaire, D. (Eds.) The University in the Market, London: Portland Press, pp. 9–21.
Johnson, B., Kavanagh, P. and Mattson, K. (Eds.) (2003). Steal this University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement. New York, NY: Routledge.
Kettunen, K. (2013) Management education in a historical perspective: The business school question and its solution in Finland. Doctoral dissertation, Acta Societatis Oeconomorum.
Slaughter, S. and Rhoades, G. (2004) Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State and Higher Education. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Starkey, K. and Tempest, S. (2008) ‘A clear sense of purpose: The evolving role of the business school’, Journal of Management Development, 27(4): 379–390.
Thomas, H. and Thomas, L. (2011) ‘Perspectives on leadership in business schools’, Journal of Management Development, 30(5): 526–540.

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