Discussing the Role of the Business School (original) (raw)
AI-generated Abstract
This paper explores the evolving role of business schools within the context of contemporary capitalism, highlighting the paradoxical nature of their existence. It critiques the mainstream business school paradigm, which tends to valorize market principles while downplaying social interests. The authors advocate for a critical examination of how business schools can engage in meaningful dialogue about capitalism and offer alternative perspectives, particularly in light of recent economic crises. Emphasis is placed on the importance of maintaining political engagement as critical academics to leverage the power and influence of business schools.
Related papers
Provocation: Business schools and economic crisis – a need for a rethink?
International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2010
This paper argues that the lessons of previous crises have not been learned. Attempts to encourage the discussion and mainstreaming of business ethics in management education too often led to the emergence of incongruous parallel curriculum structures and a one-sided instrumentalist approach to learning about corporate social responsibility. When it comes to understanding governance of organisations, dominant agency theory and a focus on board composition also neglect a discussion of substantive issues. A proper agenda of responsibility will need a rethinking of underlying behavioural assumptions as well as simplistic governance prescriptions if both businesses and management educators are to avoid more crises and go beyond a shallow CSR agenda.
Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2020
, University of Nottingham, UK "if [a business] school wants to only teach and research 'organizing by capitalists in the Global North', or 'organizing by the middle classes', it would need to say so…we would be suspicious of a biology department which only studied animals with fur, or refused to include plants that weren't green" (121) Would you want to learn in the specialized academic units Parker describes above? Shut Down the Business School with its self-assured subtitle What's wrong with management education fits the AMLE editorial team's (2018: 400) call for "scholarly writing that allows authors to be opinionated and provocative… [about] important themes". In his book, Martin Parker iconoclastically and metaphorically calls for us to "bulldoze the business school" (180).
Torn Between Two Paradigms: A Struggle for the Soul of Business Schools
Business schools today are torn between two paradigms, with a resulting struggle about the nature and value of both teaching and research. Today’s dominant neoliberal paradigm pervades the vast majority of schools with its narrative of profit maximization, free markets, and limited government. Its proponents view competition, growth, and consumerism as the defining characteristics of society. By contrast, the emerging and inchoate “economy in service to life” narrative aims at freedom and dignity for all achieved through shared well-being on a healthy planet. Business schools are increasingly caught between these narratives or paradigms. This results in confusion for students, tensions among faculty members, and discontinuity in institutional leadership when successive deans oscillate from one to the other.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.