Gillian Goh, Michelle Lee and Howard Thomas examine the way the media has reported the business school ‘industry’ over the past 20 years and what the future might hold.
Over the last two decades, business schools and management education have received much attention in the media – witnessed by the boom in media rankings and the myriad topics discussed. Global events, such as the global financial crisis, have often been the precipitator of intense scrutiny of management education and calls for its reform.
Trends in the global environment, such as globalisation and the rise of Asia, have similarly framed discussions about the need for business schools to adapt and stay relevant. In this overview, we identify the themes that have emerged out of our review of media articles published between 1990 and 2012. (To see the full list of these articles, please visit the webpage, Media Articles on Business School and Management Education Issues, 1990-2012 at www. efmd.org/mediareview.
We begin, however, by examining the evolution of the MBA, a programme that is often a de facto barometer of business schools’ popularity, and the criticisms that have been levelled at them.
Business school popularity: the evolution of the MBA
The growing popularity of business schools in the late 1980s led to the birth of business school rankings by the media, beginning with US News & World Report in 1987, and followed by Business Week in 1988, and the Financial Times in 1999.
Since then, these rankings have stimulated both intense interest as well as ire, with many a debate about the appropriateness of ranking criteria, the failure of such rankings in capturing “distinctive school culture”, and the fallout of a proliferation of rankings. An undeniable consequence of such rankings has been the “commercial” influence it has had on students, turning students into consumers and putting the pressure on business schools to become more business-minded.
The early 1990s saw the reputation of European business schools growing and with that new comparisons being drawn between top European and American business schools. Observers also noted that students were turning to European schools, where MBA programmes are generally shorter and cheaper than at American schools, and where there is greater opportunity to benefit from a broader international experience. (More recently, though, there have been indications that European business schools are losing their appeal due to the weak euro-economy, the pan-European debt crisis and increased competition from business schools in emerging markets in Latin America and Asia.)
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Gillian Goh is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Business Management at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University. She is a senior student with double majors in Finance and Marketing.
Michelle P. Lee is an Associate Professor of Marketing (Education) and Associate Provost (Undergraduate Education) at Singapore Management University.
Howard Thomas is an Emeritus Professor of Strategic Management and Management Education at Singapore Management University (SMU) and former dean at leading business schools, including SMU, Warwick Business School (UK) and the College of Business at UIUC (Illinois, USA). As a highly respected consultant, author and scholar he has been awarded fellowships by the Academy of Management (AOM, USA), the Strategic Management Society (SMS, USA), the British Academy of Management (BAM), the European Academy of Management (EURAM), the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS, UK), the Institute of Directors, (UK) and, most importantly, the Learned Society of Wales (LSW). He was also President of SMS while dean at Illinois. He has chaired leading professional educational organisations such as AACSB (USA), GMAC (USA), and CABS (UK). He has also received Lifetime Achievement Awards from BAM (UK) and the European Foundation of Management Education (EFMD), and a number of honorary doctoral degrees during his distinguished academic career. He is currently a senior advisor to the President and managing director of EFMD.
